Court Opinion

ID: 9702707
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 23:21:39.043586+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:40.722593
License: Public Domain

Boyle, J.
(concurring). I have signed Justice Riley’s opinion because I fully agree with her result and with the conclusion that the right to effective assistance of counsel in the Michigan Constitution does not create a higher standard than Strickland v Washington, 466 US 668; 104 S Ct 2052; 80 L Ed 2d 674 (1984). I write separately simply to observe that, while I feel constitutional analysis should begin with an examination of history, I do not agree that it necessarily ends there. For example, I do not agree with the statement that
[u]nless a searching analysis of the understandings of the ratifiers and framers, as well as the historical circumstances surrounding the adoption of a provision, reveal otherwise, the Court must refrain from finding (or creating) such rights. [Ante at 316, n 16.]
The analytical difficulty, of course, is that the text and surrounding circumstances so rarely reveal otherwise. Nevertheless, when required to answer the question, we must acknowledge other principled lines of inquiry, while acknowledging the primacy of the language of the document.