Court Opinion

ID: 9673718
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:17:01.900018+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:23.724007
License: Public Domain

M. F. Cavanagh, J.
(dissenting). I cannot agree with the majority’s disposition of the second issue and their allowance of extra-judicial statements to establish the corpus delicti of felony murder.
The majority would distinguish People v Allen, 390 Mich 383; 212 NW2d 21 (1973), by use of the "double hearsay exception rule” of People v Randall, 42 Mich App 187; 201 NW2d 292 (1972). Randall was written following and in reliance on this Court’s decision in People v Allen, 39 Mich App 483; 197 NW2d 874 (1972). The Supreme Court’s reversal of that decision at 390 Mich 383; 212 NW2d 21 (1973), abolished any "murder exception” to the rule that the corpus delicti must be established by evidence independent of a defendant’s confession. I furthermore cannot agree with my Brothers’ distinction of Allen on the basis that it dealt with a confession, not an admission. In Allen, the defendant’s statements were made to friends and jailmates; in the present case, they *142were made to bystanders and friends, and, thus, more properly characterized as admissions. I also do not read Justice Levin’s opinion in Allen as being limited only to confessions. There are several references to "admissions” and "statements”, 39 Mich App 483, 497, 505, footnote 23. This Court’s decision in People v Gilbert, 55 Mich App 168; 222 NW2d 305 (1974), lv den, 393 Mich 774 (1974), while admittedly a confession case, is apposite to the present factual situation and follows the controlling Allen decision.
As in People v Morrin, 31 Mich App 301; 187 NW2d 434 (1971), lv den, 385 Mich 775 (1971), and People v Allen, 390 Mich 383; 212 NW2d 21 (1973), I would modify the judgment of conviction below to second-degree murder and remand for resentencing.