Court Opinion

ID: 9678652
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 06:26:56.09289+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:06.494772
License: Public Domain

Corrigan, J.
I dissent from the reversal of defendant’s felony-firearm convictions. I would affirm the Court of Appeals conclusion that the plain instructional error was subject to harmless error analysis.
Defendant shot and killed his ex-wife and another of her ex-husbands. He was convicted by a jury of two counts of first-degree premeditated murder and felony-firearm. The Court of Appeals affirmed, rejecting defendant’s unpreserved claim that the trial *58court’s failure to instruct the jury on the elements of felony-firearm required reversal. Unpublished opinion per curiam, issued July 10, 1998 (Docket No. 200766).
I would not grant relief under the plain error doctrine for this unpreserved but constitutional error of omitting felony-firearm instructions. Defendant’s trial was not fundamentally unfair, nor was the trial an unreliable vehicle for deciding defendant’s guilt of felony-firearm. People v Carines, 460 Mich 750, 763-764; 597 NW2d 130 (1999), provides:
To avoid forfeiture under the plain error rule, three requirements must be met: 1) error must have occurred, 2) the error was plain, i.e., clear or obvious, 3) and the plain error affected substantial rights. The third requirement generally requires a showing of prejudice, i.e., that the error affected the outcome of the lower court proceedings. “It is the defendant rather than the Government who bears the burden of persuasion with respect to prejudice.” Finally, once a defendant satisfies these three requirements, an appellate court must exercise its discretion in deciding whether to reverse. Reversal is warranted only when the plain, forfeited error resulted in the conviction of an actually innocent defendant or when an error “ ‘seriously affect[ed] the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings’ independent of the defendant’s innocence.” [Citations omitted.]
Defendant has satisfied the first two Carines requirements. The trial court erred in failing to instruct on the elements of felony-firearm,1 and its *59error was clear or obvious. I part company with my colleagues because defendant has not satisfied the third Carines requirement. His substantial rights were not affected by the absence of the felony-firearm instructions. He has not shown that the error affected the outcome.
The jury was fully instructed on first-degree premeditated murder. It is undisputed that a firearm was used to kill both victims. A 911 recording contained defendant’s and his ex-wife’s voices, followed by the sound of a gunshot. Both victims died from gunshot wounds. Police officers observed defendant leaving the murder scene carrying a shotgun; indeed, defendant admitted that he shot the victims. Thus, having found defendant guilty of premeditated murder, the jury could not rationally have acquitted defendant of the felony-firearm counts. It could not rationally have concluded that defendant committed the murders without also concluding that he possessed a firearm during the commission of those murders.
The evidence overwhelmingly established defendant’s guilt of the principal charges. I thus question whether the omission of these instructions seriously affected the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.
A felony-firearm charge falls within a unique category of offenses in our criminal justice system. Technically an independent offense, a felony-firearm *60charge is, for all practical purposes, a sentence-enhancement mechanism used to deter the possession of firearms. Since felony-firearm is sui generis, I would not treat the omission to instruct on its elements as equivalent to a complete failure to instruct on murder, criminal sexual conduct, armed robbery, or other substantive offenses.
In reversing, the majority views the trial court’s failure to instruct on the felony-firearm elements as a structural error defying harmless error analysis.2 I do not accept that view. In Neder v United States, 527 US 1; 119 S Ct 1827; 144 L Ed 2d 35 (1999), the Supreme Court applied the harmless error rule to a trial court’s failure to instruct on an element of an offense. The majority observed that most constitutional errors are subject to harmless error analysis. Id., p 8. Error is structural, and thus subject to automatic reversal, only in a “very limited class of cases.” Id. Examples of structural error are the complete denial of counsel, a biased trial judge, racial discrimination in selecting a grand jury, denial of self-representation at trial, denial of a public trial, and a defective reasonable doubt instruction. Id.3 The Neder Court further stated:
[Structural] errors deprive defendants of “basic protec- . tions” without which “a criminal trial cannot reliably serve its function as a vehicle for determination of guilt or innocence . . . and no criminal punishment may be regarded as *61fundamentally fair.” Unlike such defects as the complete deprivation of counsel or trial before a biased judge, an instruction that omits an element of the offense does not necessarily render a criminal trial fundamentally unfair or an unreliable vehicle for determining guilt or innocence. [Id., pp 8-9 (citation omitted).]
“ ‘[I]f the defendant had counsel and was tried by an impartial adjudicator, there is a strong presumption that any other [constitutional] errors that may have occurred are subject to harmless-error analysis.’ ” Id., p 8.
The complete omission of felony-firearm instructions here was not, in my view, a structural error. Defendant “was tried before an impartial judge, under the correct standard of proof and with the assistance of counsel; a fairly selected, impartial jury was instructed to consider all of the evidence and argument in respect to [the defendant’s] defense . . . .” Id., p 9. Defendant’s trial was not fundamentally unfair and I cannot conclude that the trial was an unreliable vehicle for determining defendant’s guilt or innocence.
Instead of applying Neder's analysis, the majority relies on a pre-Neder case, Harmon v Marshall, 69 F3d 963 (CA 9, 1995), for the proposition that the failure to instruct on all elements of an offense is structural error. The majority makes no attempt to discern whether Harmon remains valid in light of Neder.. Harmon relied in part on Ninth Circuit case law holding that failure to submit one element to the jury “is reversible per se.” Id., pp 965-966. That proposition is no longer correct under Neder.
More importantly, the majority fails to discern the key distinction between Harmon and the instant *62case. Harmon rejected the argument that reversal was not required because the evidence of guilt was “overwhelming.” The court noted that only the jury could find the defendant guilty: “No matter how clear evidence may be, the Sixth Amendment requires that the jury, not the judge, must find the facts necessary to decide the elements of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id., p 966 (citation and internal quotation omitted).
The situation here is quite different. The prosecution does not merely contend that the evidence of guilt was “overwhelming.” Rather, the jury itself found the facts that rationally required a finding that defendant was guilty of felony-firearm. Since a firearm was indisputably used in the murder, the jury found the facts that established defendant’s guilt of felony-firearm when it convicted him of murder. The majority completely overlooks this crucial distinction.
Indeed, even Justice Scalia’s Neder dissent is contrary to the majority’s holding! Justice Scalia observed that a court cannot direct a finding of guilt. Justice Scalia further reasoned:
The failure of the court to instruct the jury properly— whether by omitting an element of the offense or by so misdescribing it that it is effectively removed from the jury’s consideration-—can be harmless, if the elements of guilt that the jury did find necessarily embraced the one omitted or misdescribed. . . . Where the facts necessarily found by the jury (and not those merely discerned by the appellate court) support the existence of the element omitted or misdescribed in the instruction, the omission or misdescription is harmless. For there is then no “gap” in the verdict to be filled by the factfinding of judges. [Neder, supra, pp 35-36.]
*63Here, by finding that defendant murdered the victims with a gun, the jury necessarily found that defendant possessed a firearm during the commission of a felony. Thus, there is no “gap” to be filled by the fact finding of judges. The jury’s findings on the murder counts “necessarily embraced” the essential elements of felony-firearm. The majority contravenes not only the Neder majority, but even the Neder dissent!
Justice Scalia also opined in Neder that reversal may not be required where, as in the instant case, the defendant fails to object to the instructional error. The plain error rule of United States v Olano, 507 US 725; 113 S Ct 1770; 123 L Ed 2d 508 (1993), requires more than a showing of prejudice to warrant reversal. Neder, supra, p 34. Justice Scalia thus observed that “just as the absolute right to trial by jury can be waived, so also the failure to object to its deprivation at the point where the deprivation can be remedied will preclude automatic reversal.” Id., p 35. “[0]ne who sleeps on his rights . ! . may lose them.” Id., n 1.
The majority asserts that my reliance on Justice Scalia’s dissent is misplaced because Justice Scalia stated that all elements of a crime may not be taken from a jury. The majority has ignored the tone and context of Justice Scalia’s statement. Justice Scalia made this assertion as part of his criticism of the Neder majority’s analysis. He was emphasizing what he perceived as the lack of a principled basis for the majority’s decision by noting that the majority had left to future improvisation the number of elements that may be taken from a jury. Justice Scalia’s principal concern was that the majority had departed from the functional equivalence test.
*64In this regard, Justice Scalia’s criticism applies equally to the majority’s holding here. The majority acknowledges that omission of one element may be harmless, but asserts that omission of every element may never be harmless. Where does the majority draw the line? May omission of every element but one be regarded as harmless? Why? The majority has failed to identify any principle that would guide future courts in resolving these questions.
The majority also ignores Justice Scalia’s distinction between speculation that confirms the jury’s verdict and speculation that leads to a decision that the jury never made:
The difference between speculation directed towards confirming the jury’s verdict (Sullivan[4]) and speculation directed towards making a judgment that the jury has never made (today’s decision) is more than semantic. Consider, for example, the following scenarios. If I order for my wife in a restaurant, there is no sense in which the decision is hers, even if I am sure beyond a reasonable doubt about what she would have ordered. If, however, while she is away from the table, I advise the waiter to stay with an order she initially made, even though he informs me that there has been a change in the accompanying dish, one can still say that my wife placed the order—even if I am wrong about whether she would have changed her mind in light of the new information. Of course, I may predict correctly in both instances simply because I know my wife well. I doubt, however, that a low-error rate would persuade my wife that my making a practice of the first was a good idea.
It is this sort of allocation of decisionmaking power that the Sullivan standard protects. The right to render the verdict in criminal prosecutions belongs exclusively to the jury; reviewing it belongs to the appellate court. “Confirm*65ing” speculation does not disturb that allocation, but “substituting” speculation does. Make no mistake about the shift in standard: Whereas Sullivan confined appellate courts to their proper role of reviewing verdicts, the Court today puts appellate courts in the business of reviewing the defendant’s guilt. The Court does not—it cannot—reconcile this new approach with the proposition that denial of the jury-trial right is structural error. [Neder, supra, pp 38-39.]
The majority has not addressed Justice Scalia’s distinction. Unlike the Neder case, the jury’s findings here necessarily embrace the omitted elements. It is not necessary for us to guess what the jury might have found had it been properly instructed. The jury’s findings are the functional equivalent of the felony-firearm elements. Thus, we are simply confirming the jury’s verdict rather than making a decision that the jury never made.
The majority correctly notes that the Neder majority questioned the functional equivalence test. However, one of the Neder majority’s reasons for doing so was that prior cases applying harmless error review would not satisfy the functional equivalence test. Id., p 13. Thus, the case at bar is actually a stronger candidate for affirmance than Neder, since it actually satisfies the test favored by the dissent and rejected by the majority as too difficult to meet!
I do not mean to suggest that Justice Scalia’s dissent rather than the Neder majority opinion controls. My point is simply that the majority here has not fully considered the current state of harmless error jurisprudence.
The majority also fails to consider another key standard identified in Neder. Error is not subject to harmless error review if it vitiates all the jury’s find*66ings. Id., p 10. See also Sullivan v Louisiana, supra. The error here did not vitiate the jury’s findings because the jury did find that defendant possessed a firearm during the commission of a felony despite the court’s instructional omission. Indeed, the majority’s decision vitiates the juiy’s findings!
The majority further ignores Chief Justice Rehnquist’s instructive concurrence in Sullivan. The Supreme Court has definitively “rejected the argument that, as a general matter, the Sixth Amendment prohibits the application of harmless-error analysis in determining whether constitutional error had a prejudicial impact on the outcome of a case.” Sullivan, supra at 282-283. In the case of a constitutionally deficient reasonable doubt instruction, however, the entire premise of harmless error review was absent. Id., p 283. In that circumstance, “there can be no factual findings made by the jury beyond a reasonable doubt in which an appellate court can ground its harmless-error analysis.” Id. While harmless error review always involves some speculation about the jury’s decision-making process, it has nonetheless become “an integral component of our criminal justice system.” Id., p 284. “[A] constitutionally deficient reasonable-doubt instruction is a breed apart from the many other instructional errors that [the Court has] held are amenable to harmless-error analysis” because it “will always result in the absence of ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ jury findings.” Id., pp 284-285.
Unlike Chief Justice Rehnquist’s opinion in Sullivan, the majority here offers no compelling reason to depart from the norm of reviewing for harmlessness. The jury was properly instructed on the ele*67ments of murder. In reaching its verdict on premeditated murder, the jury necessarily found the functional equivalent of the felony-firearm elements. Thus, the jury made the necessary “beyond a reasonable doubt” findings on which to ground harmless error review. On the unique facts of this case, where the jury necessarily found the elements of felony-firearm beyond a reasonable doubt, the court’s failure to instruct is not “a breed apart” from other errors that are subject to harmless error review.5
Harmless error review is unavailable where the wrong entity judged the defendant guilty. Rose v Clark, 478 US 570, 578; 106 S Ct 3101; 92 L Ed 2d 460 (1986). Thus, a directed verdict for the prosecution could never be harmless because it would eviscerate the Sixth Amendment jury trial guarantee. The majority fails to acknowledge the distinction between a directed verdict and the instant case. When a court grants a directed verdict, it takes the decision away from the jury. In contrast, the jury here judged defendant guilty despite the court’s instructional omission. Its finding of guilt of felony-firearm was supported by its implicit findings in connection with the murder counts. Because the correct entity found defendant guilty, the trial court’s error may be harmless.
*68The majority further suggests that because juries may return inconsistent verdicts, defendant has been denied his right to a jury trial. The majority suggests that the jury could have found defendant not guilty of felony-firearm in spite of its implicit finding in connection with the murder counts that defendant possessed a firearm during the commission of a felony.
While a jury has the raw power to return inconsistent verdicts by virtue of the prosecution’s inability to seek appellate review of an acquittal, a defendant has no right to have the jury exercise that power. Indeed, returning an inconsistent verdict is an assumption of power that the jury has no legal right to exercise. United States v Powell, 469 US 57, 66; 105 S Ct 471; 83 L Ed 2d 461 (1984). See also People v Bailey, 451 Mich 657, 671, n 10; 549 NW2d 325 (1996) (“simply because the jury has the power to dispense mercy and reach conclusions contrary to the weight of the evidence does not mean it has the right to do so”). I would not elevate the raw power into a right to seek inconsistent verdicts.
The majority speculates that the trial court may have “tie-barred” the felony-firearm charges to the murder charges. In other words, the majority suspects that by failing to instruct on felony-firearm, the trial court implicitly told the jury that if it found defendant guilty of murder, then it had to find him guilty of felony-firearm. Nothing in the record supports this theory. Indeed, the trial court explicitly told the jury that felony-firearm is a separate crime that must be considered separately from the murder counts. The court went on to explain to the jury that it could “find the defendant guilty of all or any one or any combination of these crimes or guilty of a less serious crime *69or not guilty.” (Emphasis added.) Thus, the record unequivocally repudiates the majority’s “tie-barring” theory.
Finally, a recent Rhode Island Supreme Court case involving similar facts supports the conclusion that defendant’s convictions should not be reversed. In State v Hazard, 745 A2d 748 (RI, 2000), the defendant was convicted following a jury trial of assault with intent to murder, discharging a firearm from a motor vehicle in a manner that created a substantial risk of death or serious personal injury (drive-by shooting), and carrying a pistol without a license. On the drive-by shooting count, the trial court erroneously instructed the jury that the weapon used by the defendant was a firearm as a matter of law. Relying on Neder, the Rhode Island Supreme Court determined that the error was subject to harmless-error analysis because the jury made findings on the other charges that were the “functional equivalent” of the firearm element. Id., p 753.
The testimony at trial demonstrated that the only contact between defendant and Jones [the victim] was a volley of shots. It is clear from the trial record that no other weapon was suggested by the evidence presented at trial, nor was any other form of assault alleged to have occurred. It was therefore necessary for the jurors to find that defendant fired the gun at Jones for them to convict him of the crime of assault with intent to murder. In light of the jury’s finding that defendant fired a volley of shots at Jones, and at least one shot found its target, it is clear that the jury necessarily must have concluded that a firearm was used in the shooting. We conclude that the finding of guilt on count one, assault with intent to murder, is the functional equivalent of the finding of the firearm element in count two. [Id., pp 753-754.]
*70The jury must “have found that there was a firearm for it to have found that defendant shot Jones.” Id., p 755.
The same reasoning applies here. By finding defendant guilty of murder, the jury necessarily found that he possessed a firearm during the commission of a felony. Thus, the jury found the functional equivalent of the felony-firearm elements.
The majority disregards these authorities in favor of a generic rule on the basis of one Ninth Circuit case that failure to instruct on all elements is always structural. At the same time, the majority confuses appellate fact finding with a determination that the jury necessarily found facts that establish the omitted elements.
Weaver, C.J., concurred with Corrigan, J.

 The standard felony-firearm instruction, CJI2d 11.34, provides:
(1) The defendant is also charged with the separate crime of possessing a firearm at the time [he/she] committed [or attempted to commit] the crime of_.
(2) To prove this charge, the prosecutor must prove each of the following elements beyond a reasonable doubt:
*59(3) First, that the defendant committed [or attempted to commit] the crime of_, which has been defined for you. It is not necessary, however, that the defendant be convicted of that crime.
(4) Second, that at the time the defendant committed [or attempted to commit] that crime [he/she] knowingly carried or possessed a firearm.

 In the context of plain error review, the United States Supreme Court has left open the possibility of a special category of errors, yet to be defined, in which prejudice is presumed or that may be corrected regardless of the effect on the outcome. See Cannes, supra, p 763, n 8.

 It should be recalled that Neder involved a harmless error analysis. Whether all the examples in Neder of structural error would require reversal in the context of plain error review is unclear.

4 Sullivan v Louisiana, 508 US 275; 113 S Ct 2078; 124 L Ed 2d 182 (1993).

 The situation would be different if the court had failed to instruct on elements of a crime for which the jury did not make functionally equivalent findings. Suppose, for example, that the court here had failed to instruct on the elements of murder. The jury then would have made no findings that necessarily embraced the omitted elements of murder. In such a circumstance, “the absence of ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ jury findings” would make harmless error review inconsistent with the Sixth Amendment jury trial guarantee.