Court Opinion

ID: 9701456
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 22:20:05.676071+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:24.014641
License: Public Domain

V. J. Brennan, J.
(concurring in part and dissenting in part). I concur with the majority opinion on the disposition of the six issues defendant raised on appeal. I must dissent, however, from the majority’s disposition of the motion for remand.
GCR 1963, 817.1 requires that a movant on a motion for remand submit affidavits in support of his allegations of fact. The defendant, in his motion for remand, makes vague statements that witnesses not presented at trial because of the ineffective assistance of trial counsel would have changed the verdict as rendered by the jury. This Court has held in People v Serr, 73 Mich App 19, 26; 250 NW2d 535 (1976), that a defendant is not entitled to an evidentiary hearing where no affidavits setting forth specific allegations have been filed. Under GCR 1963, 817.1, defendant should have attached affidavits from the uncalled witnesses as to their testimony or the trial counsel as to factual circumstances asserted by defendant.
Since compliance with GCR 1963, 817.1 may have obviated the need to return this cause to the trial court for an evidentiary hearing as to the existence of uncalled witnesses, I do not feel People v Ginther, 390 Mich 436; 212 NW2d 922 (1973), applies. The defendant in Ginther appears to have *496complied with any" pertinent court rules when seeking his remand and his allegations had been previously presented to the trial court.
When defendant’s appellate counsel was appointed, he was not precluded from bringing a motion to remand, accompanied by the necessary affidavits, to move to set aside the guilty plea in the lower court. Serr, supra, 25, notes that there is no time limitation on defendant’s filing to set aside a guilty plea. The absence of affidavits usually raises the presumption that he was not able to obtain them.