Court Opinion

ID: 9583156
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:35:21.626818+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:37:57.201274
License: Public Domain

Brickley, J.
(concurring). I concur in the opinion of Justice Archer, but write separately to add further analysis in response to Justice Boyle’s dissent.
I think my sister is correct in distinguishing between the touching that occurred while the victim slept and that which occurred for what only could have been a matter of seconds after she was awakened. Justice Boyle asserts that it "is apparent from the comprehensive scheme of the legislation, the Legislature intended to provide broad protection against unpermitted sexual penetration or contact.”_
*529While this expression of general intent is certainly a safe expression, it is also true that defendant was not charged with a comprehensive violation of the statute, only MCL 750.520e(1)(a); MSA 28.788(5)(1)(a).
As to the touching that occurred while the victim was asleep, the majority sets forth the fact that MCL 750.520e(l)(a); MSA 28.788(5)(l)(a) unlike MCL 750.520e(l)(b); MSA 28.788(5)(l)(b) did not contain a "physically helpless” category which is further defined as "asleep,” and that in the definition of force and violence "surprise and concealment” were eliminated from esc iv as opposed to the other degrees of esc which include these terms.
To sweep away these clear indications of legislative intent not to include a sleeping victim and to conclude that force or coercion, in the literal sense, over a conscious victim under subsection (l)(a) of esc iv is not required, the dissent superimposes the above-mentioned presumed general intent of the Legislature, coupled with the fact that the definitions of force and coercion under the statute "are not limited to” that section’s enumerated definitions. However, to allow the noninclusiveness of the definition and examples of "force and coercion” to permit those words to include any "unpermitted touching” is, in my view, to render them, in the words of the majority, a "nullity.” Naturally, force and coercion can take many forms, and limiting those words to several examples would defeat the meaning of force and coercion just as much as it defeats them to suggest that they include nonforceful or noncoercive touching, except, of course, where specifically set forth as in subsection (l)(f) of esc iv. This subsection defines unethical medical treatment as force and coercion and is cited by the dissent as evi*530dence that force and coercion in the statute does not mean force and coercion. Interestingly, such medical treatment is not only not forceful or coercive, but also is not unpermitted or unconsented to. The dissent’s rationale on this point would therefore argue against a standard of unpermitted touching or, for that matter, against any significant or coherent meaning of the words force or coercion.
I do agree with the dissent that "accomplished” is not synonymous with "initiate,” and that therefore the touching that continued after the victim’s awakening deserves a separate analysis. For purposes of this analysis the precise testimony dealing with these few moments becomes important.
Q. After you woke up, what’s the very first thing that you did?
A. I said, "Who’s there?”
Q. Do you remember your exact words?
A. "Who is it?”
Q. Do you remember how you said it?
A. I said it in a sleepy state.
Q. A sleepy state?
A. Yes.
Q. Could you feel that hand at that time?
A. Yes.
Q. When you woke up, was everything else in your bedroom the same — I mean lights off, air conditioner on?
A. Yes.
Q. Did anybody answer you when you said, "Who’s there?”
A. No.
Q. So what did you do after you said, "Who’s there?”
A. I reached up and tried to see if I was imagining it, and I touched a face. So, then, I rolled over and turned on my light. And it was someone I didn’t know.
*531Q. You thought maybe you were dreaming or something at first?
A. Yes.
Q. When you touched the face, did you notice anything?
A. Scratchy hair.
Q. Beard? Stubble?
A. Stubble.
Q. The movement that was required to turn on the light, did that require that you move your body or simply your arm?
A. My whole body.
Q. When you did that, did the hand then leave your pubic area?
A. Yes.
Q. And did you turn on the light?
A. Yes.
Q. What happened when you turned on the light?
A. I looked over and I stared at the person. And I said, "Who the hell are you?”
Q. Did you say it like you just said it to me?
A. No.
Q. Could you give us an indication of how you said it? I don’t want to embarrass you but if possible.
A. I said, "Who the hell are you?”
Q. Now, were you laughing when you did that?
A. No.
Q. What was your emotion at that time? Were you scared?
A. Anger, a little scared.
It is clear to me from this testimony and the other facts of the case that there was an unpermitted touching and that the victim was certainly, at the least, "a little scared.” However, there is no evidence that the fear resulted from the unpermitted touching, but rather from presence of a stranger in the victim’s private bedroom. It seems *532inescapable to me that the touching of the victim was initially accomplished because she was asleep and that upon her awakening it continued only long enough for her to discontinue it. If the victim had taken no further action because of the circumstances she found herself in, a finding of force and coercion based on a justified fear certainly would have been in order. Here, however, if anything, the fear caused her to terminate the touching, not to acquiesce in it. The defendant, upon the victim’s awakening, took no action and expended no energy, forceful or otherwise, and the touching lasted only as long as it took the victim to move away from the defendant.
Finally, I agree with Justice Boyle that resistance is not required, but I do not read the majority as so stating. References to no physical overpowering or no resistance are, like the presence of fear, only examples of circumstances that will aid in determining whether the act was accomplished by force or coercion. Of course, in this case there was immediate resistance, the victim’s movement towards the light and away from the defendant, which terminated the touching.
The fact that the result of the majority opinion leaves unprotected, under some narrow circumstances, an unpermitted and unconsented to sexual touching1 — a result that may or may not have been intended and that we may or may not agree with — does not license us to distort a clear, specific, and unambiguous criminal statute.
Levin, J., concurred with Brickley, J._

 Such an unpermitted, but unprotected, touching would seem to occur when it is unaided or unabetted and accomplished by surprise or concealment. If the actor is abetted or aided by one or more persons it would be prohibited under MCL 750.520c(1)(d); MSA 28.788(3)(1)(d). Touching a sleeping victim would, of course, be prohibited under MCL 750.520e(1)(b); MSA 28.788(5)(1)(b), which, regretfully, the prosecutor did not employ in this prosecution.