Court Opinion

ID: 9720309
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 08:25:49.750612+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:15.861443
License: Public Domain

*151Weaver, J.
(dissenting). I agree with the Court of Appeals and with the dissenting opinion of Justice Boyle.
I write separately to add that the majority misconstrues People v Davis, 294 Mich 499; 293 NW 734 (1940), and People v June, 294 Mich 681; 293 NW 906 (1940), claiming that those cases held “that the lewd and lascivious nature of the relationships had not been shown, although the prosecutor had provided proof that the men were cohabitating with each other’s wives.” Ante, p 141. The majority implies that those cases held that some conduct beyond cohabitat-ing while sharing sexual relations is necessary evidence under the statute. However, these cases stand for nothing more than the corpus delicti of a charged offense may not be proved by extrajudicial, unsupported confessions. Davis, supra, p 502; June, supra, p 683. The only evidence in Davis and June unequivocally suggesting the defendants were having sexual relations out of wedlock and while living together was one of the defendant’s confessions to a local newspaper reporter. The Court noted that the prosecution lacked evidence beyond “the ‘confession’ and a generous sprinkling of conjecture and imagination . . . .” Davis, supra, p 502. Specifically, the Court found lacking the following evidence necessary to the charge of lewd and lascivious association and cohabitation: “that the defendants had marital relations with each other, or that their conduct in public was anti-social in character.” Id., p 501.
Taylor, J., took no part in the decision of this case.