Court Opinion

ID: 9695063
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:05:20.06493+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:07.977713
License: Public Domain

Taylor, P.J.
(dissenting). Twelve prospective ju*301rors were selected after , a lengthy voir dire process. No prospective jurors who had not been selected remained. The trial court specifically pointed out that if defendant exercised his last peremptory challenge, thus reducing the number of selected jurors to eleven, more prospective jurors would be obtained upon defendant’s request. On the basis of their reading of MCR 6.410, the parties agreed to proceed with eleven jurors after the defense exercised its last peremptory challenge.1
This Court should not allow a defendant to prevail on the assignment of error to something his own attorney deemed proper at trial. People v McCurdy, 185 Mich App 503, 507; 462 NW2d 775 (1990). To do otherwise is to encourage the defense to systematically harbor error as the means of fashioning appellate parachutes, a practice that the efficient administration of justice must not condone. See, e.g., People v Shuler, 188 Mich App 548, 552; 470 NW2d 492 (1991). People v Simon, 174 Mich App 649, 657; 436 NW2d 695 (1989).
Further, I am not convinced that the trial court acted improperly in this case. The court rule allows the parties to stipulate that the case may be decided by a specified number of jurors less than twelve "[a]fter a jury of 12 or more jurors has been impaneled and before a verdict is returned.” According to Black’s Law Dictionary (5th ed), "impaneling” means making up a list of those jurors summoned to appear in court to form a jury or a list of the jurors selected to try a particular case. I am aware of no authority for the proposition that a panel need be sworn in order to be impaneled. At the time the parties, including defendant, stipulated that they would proceed with eleven jurors, they were well aware of which jurors would be on *302a list of those selected to try this case.2 Therefore, even if the trial court’s understanding of the court rule was erroneous, a question I would not decide here, any such error was clearly harmless in this case. See Attorney General ex rel O’Hara v Montgomery, 275 Mich 504, 536; 267 NW 550 (1936); People v Rabin, 317 Mich 654, 664; 27 NW2d 126 (1947), cert den 332 US 759 (1947); People v Miller, 121 Mich App 691, 703; 329 NW2d 460 (1982).
Because I would find no error warranting reversal in any of the issues raised by defendant, I would affirm._

 The prosecutor agreed not to exercise his remaining peremptory challenges as part of the parties’ stipulation.

 It is also apparent that defendant was in no way coerced to agree to being tried by eleven jurors.