Court Opinion

ID: 9676685
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:30:24.871624+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:15:42.561229
License: Public Domain

*373Holbrook, Jr., J.
(dissenting). I respectfully dissent. While I agree with the majority’s recitation of the relevant rules of statutory interpretation, I disagree with its application of those rules to the language of MCL 750.197c; MSA 28.394(3) (assault of an employee of a place of confinement). Specifically, I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the plain language of the statute indicates “that the Legislature did not intend to require that the prosecution prove that a defendant was ‘lawfully imprisoned’ when he is charged with assaulting a corrections officer while awaiting examination.” Ante, p 372 (emphasis in majority opinion). Further, because I conclude that defendant was not lawfully imprisoned when he attacked the officer, I would reverse defendant’s conviction of assault of an employee of a place of confinement.
At the relevant time, MCL 750.197c; MSA 28.394(3) was broadly divided into three parts. The first part sets forth the specific class of defendants to whom the statute applies, the second sets forth the prohibited behavior, and the third sets forth the class of protected individuals. My disagreement with the majority stems from how it has interpreted the first of these three parts.1 The relevant language reads:
A person lawfully imprisoned in a jail, other place of confinement established by law for any term, or lawfully imprisoned for any purpose at any other place, including *374but not limited to hospitals and other health care facilities or awaiting examination, trial, arraignment, sentence, or after sentence awaiting or during transfer to or from a prison, for a crime or offense, or charged with a crime or offense who, without being discharged from the place of confinement, or other lawful imprisonment by due process of law____[MCL 750.197c; MSA 28.394(3).]
This section of the statute consists of a number of subclassifications. As I read the statute, the modifying phrase, “lawfully imprisoned,” applies to each of these subclassifications.
The majority correctly observes that MCL 750.197c; MSA 28.394(3) “penalizes assaultive conduct upon a corrections officer at various stages of a criminal proceeding.” Ante, p 371. The majority then draws a distinction between defendants who are already serving time after conviction and all other defendants who are involved in earlier stages of a criminal proceeding. The majority concludes that the “lawfully imprisoned” language applies to the former but not the latter. I believe this is an erroneous distinction at odds with the language of the statute.
The terms “awaiting examination, trial, arraignment, sentence” are preceded by the phrase “or lawfully imprisoned for any purpose at any other place, including but not limited to . . . .” This introductory phrase clearly signals that a list of applicable “purposes” and “places” is to follow. For the statute to apply to a given defendant found in any of these listed situations, the defendant must be “lawfully imprisoned” at the time. There is nothing in the structure of the statute that leads to the conclusion that the “awaiting examination, trial, arraignment, sentence” language is not to be included on this list. *375Indeed, the syntax and organization of the statute leads to the exact opposite conclusion.2
Additionally, I note that this list is immediately followed by the following catch-all provision: “or other lawful imprisonment by due process of law . ...” A catch-all provision is typically inserted into a statute to make sure that the language employed does not inadvertently omit something that was intended to be included. Benedict v Dep’t of Treasury, 236 Mich App 559, 565; 601 NW2d 151 (1999). Thus, while the “not limited to” language that precedes the list informs us that the list is not exhaustive, the catch-all informs us that when drawing out of the situations listed a standard of applicable characteristics, the class of defendants should not be limited in a manner that would have the effect of excluding persons under “lawful imprisonment by due process of law ... .”3 By placing this language both before and after the list of particulars, the Legislature has clearly signaled its intent that the law should apply only when the assault is committed by those “lawfully imprisoned.”
*376In People v Neal, 233 Mich App 649, 650; 592 NW2d 95 (1999), this Court adopted the reasoning and analysis set forth in People v Neal, 232 Mich App 801; 592 NW2d 92 (1998), vacated 232 Mich App 801 (1998) (hereinafter Neal I). I note that the Neal I Court made the following observations:
We initially agree . . . that the prosecution must establish the lawfulness of the imprisonment as part of its prima facie case of assault of an employee of a place of confinement. . . .
* * *
Both Michigan courts and courts of other jurisdictions have historically construed statutes requiring “lawful” imprisonment, detention, or commitment as providing that lawfulness is an element of the prosecution’s prima facie case. Further, when the Legislature amended the prison escape statute ... to eliminate the lawfulness element, the Legislature did not similarly amend MCL 750.197c; MSA 28.394(3). Thus, lawfulness remains an element of the prosecution’s prima facie case in prosecutions under MCL 750.197c; MSA 28.394(3). [Neal I, supra at 804 (citations omitted).]
The majority’s reading of the statute disregards these observations and legal traditions.4 In so doing, the majority has, in effect, established two prima facie cases for the crime of assault of an employee of *377a place of confinement. The first, for those persons convicted and serving time, follows the traditional approach by including the element of being lawfully imprisoned in a place of confinement. However, the second prima facie case, for those persons involved in a criminal proceeding but not yet convicted and serving time, does not include such an element. I do not believe the language of the statute either proscribes or justifies such a break with traditional adjudication of this crime. In fact, I believe the plain language of the statute indicates that the Legislature intended to create only one prima facie case for the crime. See, e.g., People v Terry, 217 Mich App 660, 661-662; 553 NW2d 23 (1996); People v Williams, 173 Mich App 312, 318; 433 NW2d 356 (1988).
The resolution of defendant’s appeal now turns on whether he falls within the class of covered defendants, i.e., was defendant lawfully imprisoned at the time of the assault. The word “imprisoned” does not apply only to the condition of being in prison or jail. For example, “imprison” has been defined as follows: “To put in a prison; to put in a place of confinement. To confine a person, or restrain his liberty, in any way.” Black’s Law Dictionary (6th ed). See also People v Taylor, 238 Mich App 259; 604 NW2d 783 (1999). “Imprisonment” is
[t]he detention of a person contrary to his wall. The act of putting or confining a person in prison. The restraint of a person’s personal liberty; coercion exercised upon a person to prevent the free exercise of his powers of locomotion. It is not a necessary part of the definition that the confinement should be in a place usually appropriated to that purpose; it may be in a locality used only for the specific occasion .... [Black’s Law Dictionary (6th ed).]
*378A person being held before arraignment, examination, trial, or sentencing is certainly being confined and detained against the person’s will.5
However, as the majority notes, previously, a panel of “this Court held that the three ‘misdemeanors’ offered as a basis for defendant’s arrest, aiding and abetting a traffic violation, trespassing, and wilful failure to obey the lawful directions of an officer, were unlawful.” Ante, p 368. In defining “lawful,” Black’s Law Dictionary notes that the
principal distinction between the terms “lawful” and “legal” is that the former contemplates the substance of law, the latter the form of law. To say of an act that it is “lawful” implies that it is authorized, sanctioned, or at any rate not forbidden, by law. To say that it is “legal” implies that it is done or performed in accordance with the forms and usages of law, or in a technical manner. [Black’s Law Dictionary (6th ed) (emphasis added).]
Accord, Taylor, supra at 265. As this Court observed in People v Clay, unpublished opinion per curiam of the Court of Appeals, issued April 11, 1997 (Docket No. 183101), when defendant was arrested, “the officers were not authorized by state or municipal law to effect a custodial arrest for the particular offenses.” (Emphasis added.) Because defendant’s arrest was not authorized by law, his subsequent confinement was also unlawful. Accordingly, defendant *379does not fall into the class of defendants set forth in the statute.
I also am not persuaded by the lower court’s assertion that defendant’s arrest could be justified by the outstanding bench warrant. The case cited by the trial court as support for this proposition, People v Arterberry, 431 Mich 381; 429 NW2d 574 (1988), is factually distinguishable. The defendant in Arterberry was challenging a police search of his person. The Court stated that the police acted within the scope of a valid search warrant when they discovered a controlled substance in a locked toolbox. This gave the police probable cause to arrest the defendant for loitering in a place of illegal operation or business. The Court reasoned that had the police thought to arrest the defendant on that charge, he could have been searched incident to that arrest. The fact that the arresting officers did not actually possess this state of mind was irrelevant. Id. at 383-384. Thus, the Court held, the “police acted properly in searching the seven occupants for the key.” Id. at 385.
Unlike the officers in Arterberry, the officers who arrested defendant were not in possession of a valid warrant that might have justified their search of his person. Indeed, there is no evidence that any of the officers were even aware of the existence of the bench warrant at anytime before the assault.6
For these reasons, I believe defendant’s conviction of assault of an employee of a place of confinement should be reversed.

 In 1998, the Legislature amended MCL 750.197c; MSA 28.394(3) by redesignating the unaltered language of the existing § 197c as subsection 197c(l) and adding a subsection 197c(2). 1998 PA 510. Because nothing in the two new subsections affects my analysis, I believe the interpretation set forth in this dissent should apply to the present version of the statute as well.

 In People v Fox (After Remand), 232 Mich App 541; 591 NW2d 384 (1998), this Court interpreted similar language found in MCL 750.197(2); MSA 28.394(2), the jail escape statute. The Fox Court concluded that conviction under “the jail escape statute requires a showing that (1) the defendant was lawfully imprisoned in a jail or other place of confinement while awaiting legal proceedings or transfer to prison . .. .” Fox, supra at 556-557. Unlike the majority in the case at hand, the Fox Court did not subdivide the situations listed in the jail escape statute, applying the lawful imprisonment requirement to some and not others. The Legislature’s failure to include the specific phrase “lawfully imprisoned” in each and every clause of the jail escape statute was apparently not seen as significant by the Fox Court. I believe our reading of MCL 750.197c; MSA 28.394(3) should be similarly informed.

 “The purpose for defining the class by illustrative particularizations accompanied by a general catchall reference is to determine how extensively the act was intended or should reasonably be understood to apply.” 2A Singer, Sutherland Statutory Construction (5th ed), § 47:18, p 200.

 The majority disregards the analysis in Need I on the ground that the case is factually distinguishable. Ante, p 370. While this is true, I do not believe that means we can dismiss the Neal I Court’s observations on the nature of the prima facie case under MCL 750.197c; MSA 28.394(3). The Neal I Court did not say that the nature of the prima facie case for that case alone included the element of lawful imprisonment. Rather, the Court observed that lawful imprisonment is, in general, an essential element of the prima facie case of assault of an employee of a place of confinement. Neal I, supra at 804.

 Given the majority’s restricted understanding of the term “imprisoned,” it has chosen to read the medical facility designation as indicating that the statutory prohibition applies only when a defendant is serving time in a hospital after having been convicted of a crime. Ante, p 371. Conversely, I believe that a defendant could be charged under the statute if, for example, the defendant assaulted an officer attending to the defendant while the defendant was being treated at a hospital for injuries sustained during an arrest.

 A fact acknowledged by the trial court.