Court Opinion

ID: 9516539
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 23:44:48.395964+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:40:32.063498
License: Public Domain

R. M. Maher, P.J.
(dissenting). This case raises a *259question of first impression in Michigan: whether evidence of an accomplice’s flight is admissible against the defendant.
As the people admit, such evidence is generally inadmissible. Some jurisdictions, however, recognize an exception where the flight is "so closely connected with the transaction as to be admissible as res gestae”. 22A CJS, Criminal Law, § 767(g), p 1152.
Michigan has dealt with the analogous area of the admission of evidence of acts and declarations of one co-conspirator against another. The rule is codified in MRE 801(d)(2)(E):
"(d) Statements which are not hearsay. A statement is not hearsay if — ■* * *
"(2) Admission by party-opponent. The statement is offered against a party and is * * * (E) a statement by a coconspirator of a party during the course and in furtherance of the conspiracy on independent proof of the conspiracy.”
Evidence of the flight of defendants’ alleged accomplice, Detreich Burris, is not admissible. It is not admissible under MRE 801(d)(2)(E) because it is not a "statement” as defined in MRE 801(a). Burris’s flight was not "nonverbal conduct * * * intended by him as an assertion”.
The evidence is similarly inadmissible under the res gestae exception. It is at this point that I and Judge Cynar part company. Judge Cynar finds that the flight was part of the res gestae because when Burris left to make a phone call the complainant was still forcibly restrained. Burris, however, did not "flee” when he departed for a nearby phone booth. Judge Cynar has misidentified his *260act of flight. He fled, if at all,1 when he observed the police at the apartment building upon his return to the area. But by that time, the complainant had been liberated; the crime was over. Thus, Burris’s flight was simply not part of the res gestae.
In his rebuttal argument, the prosecutor argued in part:
"Is there any way to change the fact that Mr. Burris cannot be found, that he has just left? Use your reason and common sense on that one, ladies and gentlemen. Mr. Burris is coming back and he sees police cars perhaps, and then he’s nowhere to be found. Isn’t that at least an indication of something going on, something that’s not entirely innocent?”
The prosecutor improperly used evidence of Burris’s flight to impute guilt to defendants. The resulting prejudice could not have been cured by a timely requested instruction. I would reverse the convictions of both defendants._

 I note that there was no direct evidence of Burris’s flight. His flight can only be inferred from his failure to return to the apartment.