Court Opinion

ID: 9735192
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 18:04:51.414326+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:55.944972
License: Public Domain

White, J.
(concurring in part and dissenting in part). The Recorder’s Court judge, sitting as an *714appellate judge, ordered a new trial on the basis of his finding that Jobson "legitimately was fearful of loss of [his] job if he refused to answer.” This finding apparently was based on the prosecutor’s statement that "the [c]ourt could assume that Officer Jobson was aware that if ultimately he refused to answer he could be disciplined; but that choice was not posed to him at that point, and that choice would be posed to him by Internal Affairs, subsequently.”
I agree that the prosecutor’s statement does not support a finding of compulsion that would require Jobson’s answers to Sgt. Szczak’s questions to be suppressed under Garrity v New Jersey, 385 US 493; 87 S Ct 616; 17 L Ed 2d 562 (1967). I am, however, of the opinion that the case should be remanded for further proceedings.
While Szczak’s trial testimony indicates that the questioning was casual, he testified at the preliminary examination both that the officers were ordered to answer and that they were not ordered to answer. It does not appear that either district court judge, the preliminary examination judge or the trial judge, made findings regarding the voluntariness of Jobson’s answers to Szczak’s questions.
The lower court record submitted to this Court does not contain a written motion concerning the Garrity issue. The preliminary examination transcript contains counsels’ arguments and the court’s ruling on the Garrity issue as it pertains to the admissibility of the officers’ log sheets. The judge ruled that Garrity did not apply, because there was no formal investigation being conducted by an outside agency, as in Garrity and People v Allen, 15 Mich App 387; 116 NW2d 664 (1968), and because the log sheets were not asked for specifically, but were submitted in the ordinary course of *715the officers’ duties.1 The judge concluded that "Garrity does not cover those circumstances and ought not to be broadened to cover possible acts, statements, reports of any policeman doing anything while in the line of duty at any time.” Apart from this ruling, the preliminary examination judge does not appear to have ruled on the admissibility or voluntariness of the officers’, more specifically Jobson’s, oral statements to Szczak.
The trial transcripts do not indicate that the Garrity issue was argued to or ruled on by the judge presiding at the trial. It appears that to the extent the issue was raised, it was raised before the preliminary examination judge. The prosecutor does not argue here, and apparently did not argue in the Recorder’s Court, that the Garrity issue was waived with respect to the oral statements to Szczak.
The preliminary examination judge did not address directly the question of the admissibility of the oral statements, and it is unclear whether the ruling concerning the log sheets was intended also to apply to the oral statements. It is possible that the judge made such a ruling in a portion of the record that has not been submitted to this Court. In any event, the ruling regarding the log sheet appears to conclude that Garrity does not apply as a matter of law because there was no formal investigation being conducted by an outside agency. While I agree with the district judge that Garrity does not "cover all possible acts, statements and reports of any policeman doing anything while in the line of duty at any time,” I do not believe Garrity requires that a formal investi*716gation conducted by an outside agency be in progress.
We have before us no findings at the trial court level regarding the circumstances surrounding Jobson’s statements to Szczak. The Recorder’s Court judge made a finding that Jobson "legitimately was fearful” of losing his job, but I agree that finding should be set aside. The prosecutor’s statement on which it was based did not support the finding, and a finding on this issue should be made, in the first instance, by a district judge. The Recorder’s Court judge indicated his inclination to remand the case to the district court, but both counsel resisted a remand. Nevertheless, I believe a remand was necessary.
The record contains insufficient information from which to conclude that Jobson had or did not have a reasonable belief that he would be fired if he invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege rather than answer Szczak’s questions. Jobson did not testify. Szczak testified that he did not use the "Garrity procedure,” but did not explain how that procedure operates in the Detroit Police Department. He was not asked what would have happened had an officer refused to answer his questions with or without invoking his Fifth Amendment privilege. He was not questioned whether there were departmental rules or collective bargaining provisions regarding an officer’s obligation to answer questions in an informal or formal setting.
While I agree the record was inadequate to support the judge’s finding that Jobson was compelled to answer, it is not clear from the record that Jobson had an adequate opportunity to develop a record that might support such a finding or that a district judge made a contrary finding or any finding at all. I, therefore, would vacate the *717order granting a new trial and remand to the district court for further proceedings.

 As Jobson notes in his brief, the Recorder’s Court judge did not address the Garrity issue as it pertains to the log sheets and did not hold that the log sheets should not have been admitted. Because Jobson did not cross appeal with respect to this issue, the issue is not before this Court.