Court Opinion

ID: 9698799
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 20:00:15.98144+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:30:04.766397
License: Public Domain

N. J. Kaufman, J.
(concurring). I concur with the result. I also agree with Judge Riley’s treatment of all of the issues save one. With respect to this exception, then, I concur only in the result. I do not agree with the reasons espoused in support of this result. Specifically, second-degree murder and robbery armed convictions are not reversibly inconsistent. Instead, on the facts of this case, I find that simultaneous convictions thereon constitute a violation of defendant’s double jeopardy rights.
Had the defendant been convicted of felony murder and the underlying felony of robbery armed, it is clear that his double-jeopardy rights would have been violated. See People v Wilder, 82 Mich App 358; 266 NW2d 847 (1978). The fact that the jury convicted him of second-degree murder and robbery armed should not affect this determination. The testimony and evidence indicate that *547the victim’s death occurred as a result of the robbery perpetrated by the defendant. The defendant’s intent to kill, then, can only have been inferred from the commission of the robbery. Therefore, the jury necessarily had to find the defendant guilty of the robbery in order to find him guilty of second-degree murder. This situation gives rise to a type of factual double jeopardy. Defendant may not be convicted of two crimes where, on the facts of the particular case, the trier of fact must necessarily find him guilty of one in order to find him guilty of the other, People v Martin, 398 Mich 303, 307; 247 NW2d 303 (1976), People v Stewart, 400 Mich 540, 548-549; 256 NW2d 31 (1977), People v Terry Alexander, 82 Mich App 621, 624; 267 NW2d 466 (1978).
This rationale is not undermined by the decision in People v Hicks, 88 Mich App 675; 279 NW2d 45 (1979). In that case, the defendant was charged with felony murder and armed robbery, but convicted of manslaughter and armed robbery. This was deemed acceptable against a double-jeopardy challenge because the crimes upon which the defendant was convicted had different elements, different statutory purposes, and neither was a lesser included offense of the other, Hicks, supra, 678. Whereas, in the instant case, the elements of the crimes overlap factually according to the test enunciated in Stewart and Martin, supra. This factual overlap in elements suggests that the jury might have compromised with respect to the defendant’s second-degree murder conviction since an imputation of the intent or malice element of robbery would have called for a felony-murder conviction.
This Stewart and Martin factual double-jeopardy test, supra, was discussed recently in Wayne *548County Prosecutor v Recorder’s Court Judge, 406 Mich 374; 280 NW2d 793 (1979). In that case, the Supreme Court upheld the felony-firearm statute against a factual double-jeopardy challenge on the grounds that the Legislature clearly expressed in the felony-firearm statute an intent to authorize multiple convictions and cumulative punishments based on one occurrence. No such legislative intent theory would apply in the case at bar to support the defendant’s dual convictions, however.
Therefore, I would find that the defendant’s convictions for second-degree murder and robbery armed violated the double-jeopardy test enunciated in Stewart and Martin, supra. Accordingly, although I concur in the affirmance of defendant’s second-degree murder conviction and the vacation of this robbery armed conviction, I do so for the reasons stated hereinbefore.