Court Opinion

ID: 9706739
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:50:48.725009+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:24.706256
License: Public Domain

Cavanagh, C.J.
I agree with the result reached by my Sister Boyle’s majority opinion, and with her sound and scholarly analysis of the federal constitutional and 42 USC 1983 issues. I take exception, however, to that opinion’s rejection of the Court of Appeals holding in Young v Ann Arbor, 119 Mich App 512; 326 NW2d 547 (1982). Young held that the Department of Corrections governing statutes, as they then existed, authorized the department to promulgate rules governing conditions in local lockups and holding cells used to house arrestees and pretrial detainees, in addition to jails and prisons housing convicted criminals. See id. at 516-518. With all due respect, my colleague’s contrary conclusion in this case engages in the very sort of "exercise in verbal gymnastics” properly criticized in Young. See id. at 518.
In arguing that the applicable statutes, as they existed prior to 1984, did not authorize the department to regulate "a lockup . . . which is used for the temporary detention of persons not convicted of crimes,” ante, p 764, my colleague makes short shrift of the language of then-MCL 791.262; MSA 28.2322, which explicitly authorized the department to "supervise and inspect local jails and . . . promulgate rules and standards with relation thereto . . . .” (Emphasis added.) "Local *769jail” is a flexible, common-sense term understood by most people familiar with the criminal justice system to encompass facilities which may house not only convicted and sentenced criminals, but also suspects detained while awaiting arraignment or trial.
I see no need or basis in this case to reject the conclusion of the Court of Appeals in Young. Admittedly, however, the issue is now largely moot in light of 1984 PA 102, which explicitly provides that the department’s regulatory authority does not extend to municipal lockups. See ante, p 765, n 9. Because of that, and because the trial court’s instruction on this issue was at worst harmless error, in my view, in light of plaintiff’s complete failure to establish any underlying constitutional violation, I agree with the result reached by Justice Boyle.