Court Opinion

ID: 9669477
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 02:57:05.057758+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:57.018145
License: Public Domain

Connor, J.
(concurring in part and dissenting in part). I agree the defendant’s convictions should be affirmed. I dissent from the Court’s decision that the 180-day rule was not violated by the neglect of law enforcement officials to enter information regarding the warrant into the Law Enforcement Information Network (lein) system. The lein system is the computer program that law enforcement officials utilize to notify one another of outstanding warrants.
In order to effectuate the purpose of the 180-day rule, the Supreme Court, in People v Hill, 402 Mich 272; 262 NW2d 641 (1978), added a caveat to the statute in holding that the 180-day period begins to run not only from when the prosecutor "knows or should know” that a charge is pending against the state prison inmate, but also from when "the Department of Corrections knows or should know” of such a charge. Id., 280-281. The Court so held "because we are confident that the Legislature which drafted the 180-day rule did not intend to empower law-enforcement officials to defeat this statutory protection afforded to defendants by failing or refusing to serve formal notice.” Id., 281. The Court originally imposed the statutory remedy of dismissal. MCR 6.004(D) modified Hill by changing the remedy to credit for time served during the delay attributable to lack of notice from the Department of Corrections.
This case presents for the first time a breach of the initial duty of law enforcement officials to notify the Department of Corrections of the outstanding warrant. I believe the Court must find that the Department of Corrections "should have *550known” of the pendency of the untried charges because they would have known but for the failure of law enforcement officials to enter information about the warrant into the lein system. Had the duty not been breached, defendant would have been tried years earlier and a portion of his most recent sentences could have been served concurrently with his previous sentence. The breach of the duty has effectively permitted consecutive sentencing when it would not have been proper had the duty not been breached.
I would remand to the trial court for computation of the period of delay that defendant is entitled to receive as a sentence credit under MCR 6.004(D)(2).