Court Opinion

ID: 9657740
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 20:36:27.907921+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:47.959771
License: Public Domain

Neff, P.J.
(dissenting). I respectfully dissent from § ii of the majority opinion in this case because I believe that conviction of and punishment for both ouil and felonious driving on the facts of this case constitute double jeopardy in violation of the state and federal constitutions, US Const, Am V; Const 1963, art 1, § 15.
As noted in the majority opinion, proof of defendant’s intoxication was the sole proof of negligence supporting the felonious driving conviction. Quite obviously, the same proof formed the basis of the ouil conviction. In my view, those facts point inexorably to the conclusion that the two statutes involved prohibit violations of the same social norm, although in a different manner. On that basis, I conclude that the Legislature did not intend multiple punishment on these facts. People v Robideau, 419 Mich 458; 355 NW2d 592 (1984).
The statutes involved in this case prohibit violations of the same social norm. People v Stewart, 138 Mich App 629, 636; 361 NW2d 16 (1984). The ouil statute focuses on the danger to the public created by driving while intoxicated. The felonious driving statute punishes the actual causation of crippling injury to an individual as a result of something more than ordinary negligence. People v Chatterton, 102 Mich App 248, 250; 301 NW2d 490 (1980), aff'd 411 Mich 867 (1981). Thus, the felonious driving statute focuses on both the result of the defendant’s actions and, like the ouil statute, on the nature of his actions.
*356Where, as here, the showing of something more than ordinary negligence is made solely because the defendant was driving while intoxicated, the two statutes prohibit violations of the same social norm. I believe that the Legislature did not intend multiple punishment in this situation, and, accordingly, I would reverse defendant’s ouil conviction. People v Jankowski, 408 Mich 79, 96; 289 NW2d 674 (1980); People v Martin, 398 Mich 303, 313; 247 NW2d 303 (1976).
I join in the remainder of the majority opinion with the exception of the discussion in § v concerning certain portions of the closing argument of the prosecutor. While I agree that the remarks quoted are not sufficient grounds on which to base reversal, I conclude that the prosecutor’s arguments amounted to an appeal to emotionalism which injected into the trial issues greater than the guilt or innocence of this defendant and encouraged the jurors to suspend their own powers of judgment. I believe that the remarks as quoted clearly constituted an improper civic-duty argument and, therefore, were impermissible. People v Wright (On Remand), 99 Mich App 801, 809; 298 NW2d 857 (1980).