Court Opinion

ID: 9593616
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:23:34.483833+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:05:59.218542
License: Public Domain

Cavanagh, J.
(dissenting). I cannot join this Court’s opinion. The vast majority of the opinion, and the partial dissent from the Court of Appeals upon which it is based, deal with why a statute that requires the police to keep blood samples until trial would be a bad idea. Whatever the merits of such contentions, they do very little to address the relevant statutory language itself, particularly the sentence:
The property and things so seized shall be safely kept by the officer so long as necessary for the purpose of being *282produced or used as evidence in any trial. [MCL 780.655; MSA 28.1259(5).]
For starters, the phrase “shall be safely kept” is not ambiguous. Next, the majority’s contention that it is the test report and not the blood sample itself that will be used at trial, and thus that disposal of the blood sample does not violate this language, is not persuasive. Test reports are in no way “property and things so seized.” The only thing seized in this incident was the blood itself. The majority’s rationale that it is the test reports, not the blood itself, that will be produced at trial allows a broad policy of destruction.1 State police could keep, destroy, misplace, or ceremonially bum the test report, and whatever effect that might have on what was admitted at defendant’s trial, it would in no way be governed by this statute. This statute only governs what was “seized.”
Additionally, MCL 780.655; MSA 28.1259(5) does not restrict the police to safely keep the evidence only as long as necessary for production or use by the prosecution. It is trae, as the majority observes, that the defendant had means other than introducing his own test report or the blood itself to impeach the *283prosecution’s test report. Nonetheless, the statutory language does not restrict defendant to these means. It requires the evidence to be safely kept as long as necessary for production or use at trial, and that includes production or use by the defendant. The majority emphasizes that it is the test reports that are usually introduced at trial, but under its reasoning, the defendant could be foreclosed from ever introducing his own test report, let alone the blood sample itself, because as soon as the police generate their test report, they can destroy the blood sample.2 Because the statute does not require safekeeping only until “produced or used” by the prosecution, the blood sample should have been safely kept.3
Likewise, the majority’s contention that the defendant failed to request the sample within a reasonable time, again, within the statute’s language, is immaterial. Nothing in this statute conditions anything on the defendant’s assertion of any right, or seems to permit the sort of policy of destruction apparent in this case.
This Court should strive to be true to its duty to interpret statutes. It should not fall astray simply because a particular statute leads to a result that *284might either displease or require changes in the state police lab’s practices.
Kelly, J., concurred with Cavanagh, J.
Markman, J., took no part in the decision of this case.

 Under this analysis, anytime the police want to destroy evidence, they merely need to generate a report that will be introduced at trial, and the underlying evidence itself can be destroyed.
Moreover, the majority’s reliance on People v Stoney, 157 Mich App 721; 403 NW2d 212 (1987), is not persuasive. Stoney was decided under MCL 257.625a; MSA 9.2325(1), the implied consent statute, which specifically allows the introduction of test results. The majority finds Stoney instructive, and indeed it is, about the implied consent statute’s provision that test reports can be introduced at trial. As the Court of Appeals majority noted, however, the existence and admissibility of the test report does not render the blood itself irrelevant. 232 Mich App 355. The provisions of MCL 257.625a; MSA 9.2325(1) do not abridge the requirement of MCL 780.655; MSA 28.1259(5) that property seized must be safely kept.

 The majority states that it holds only “that MCL 780.655; MSA 28.1259(5) does not mandate safekeeping of blood samples . . . .” Perhaps the majority is confused by the present police policy of keeping blood samples for thirty days; but the holding that the majority admits does allow destruction as soon as a report for police use is generated. If blood samples need not be safely kept, then as soon as the police generate a test report, they in fact can destroy the blood sample, because the majority does not require them to safely keep the blood sample.

 Any suggestion that defendant did not claim specific prejudice in this case, so the safekeeping requirement does not apply, is incorrect. As defendant rightly noted below, the statute does not require him to take any action. It requires police to safely keep evidence to be produced or used at trial, without specifying who will produce or use the evidence.