Court Opinion

ID: 9678869
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 06:34:38.249666+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:08.588381
License: Public Domain

MacKenzie, P.J.
(dissenting). I respectfully dissent. I agree with the majority that defendant’s prosecution for perjury is not barred by the rule stated in People v Longuemire, 87 Mich App 395; 275 NW2d 12 (1978). However, the majority, relying on dicta from People v White, 411 Mich 366, 379; 308 NW2d 128 (1981), concludes that a perjury prosecution is barred here because it would allow the prosecution to relitigate issues necessarily resolved in defendant’s favor in the prosecution for criminal sexual conduct and because such prosecutions might deter defendants from testifying in their own behalf. I cannot agree.
Collateral estoppel prevents the prosecution from relitigating in a perjury prosecution a matter necessarily resolved in defendant’s favor in the criminal prosecution in which the perjury allegedly occured. United States v Williams, 341 US 58; 71 S Ct 595; 95 L Ed 747 (1951); People v Albers, 137 Mich 678; 100 NW 908 (1904); Anno: Acquittal As Bar to Prosecution of Accused for Perjury Committed At Trial, 89 ALR3d 1098. In Ashe v Swenson, 397 US 436, 444; 90 S Ct 1189; 25 L Ed 2d 469 (1970), the Court held that the rule of collateral estoppel is part of the constitutional guarantee against double jeopardy enforceable against the states through US Const, Am XIV, and the Court explained how the rule should be applied as follows:
*48"Where a previous judgment of acquittal was based upon a general verdict, as is usually the case, this approach requires a court to 'examine the record of a prior proceeding, taking into account the pleadings, evidence, charge, and other relevant matter, and conclude whether a rational jury could have grounded its verdict upon an issue other than that which the defendant seeks to foreclose from consideration.’ ” (Footnote omitted.)
In the criminal sexual conduct prosecution, defendant was accused of having committed the crime on or about July 12. The perjury charge arises out of defendant’s testimony concerning his whereabouts on July 16. As a rational jury could have acquitted defendant without accepting his testimony concerning his whereabouts on July 16, collateral estoppel did not bar the perjury prosecution. The dicta in White on which the majority relies does not demonstrate an intent on the part of our Supreme Court to impose more severe restrictions on perjury prosecutions than the rule of collateral estoppel requires. White neither explicitly nor implicitly overruled Albers, and Albers allows a perjury prosecution under the facts presented here.
The White Court noted the danger that the chance of a spiteful perjury prosecution might deter defendants from testifying in their own behalf, but the result in White shows that this danger will not always prevent a perjury prosecution. Here, in yet another criminal prosecution, defendant gave testimony as to his whereabouts on July 16 which was completely inconsistent with the testimony out of which the perjury charge arises. This circumstance demonstrates that this perjury prosecution was. not undertaken out of *49spite, to punish defendant for testifying in his own behalf, or to deter future defendants from so testifying. The state’s interest in truthful testimony at trials is a compelling reason for allowing a perjury prosecution where, as here, a defendant has altered his testimony to suit the occasion. White does not bar this prosecution.
I would reverse.