Court Opinion

ID: 9734318
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:31:52.738713+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:47.891022
License: Public Domain

Levin, J.
(dissenting). I would hold as a matter of statutory construction, and thus have no need to reach the constitutional issue, that 1987 PA 255, amending the statute of limitations for pros*621ecutions of criminal sexual conduct. where the victim is under the age of eighteen, is prospective, and thus extends the time for the commencement of prosecution only where the offense is committed after the effective date of the amendment. See Harrison v Metz, 17 Mich 377, 382 (1868), where this Court, speaking through Justice Cooley, said that it had no doubt the Legislature intended that legislation shortening the statute of limitations affects "only the causes of action which should accrue subsequent to its taking effect as law. There is nothing in the act itself from which we can gather any different intent, and it is a sound rule of construction that legislation is to have a prospective operation only, except where the contrary intent is expressly declared or is necessarily to be [inferred] from the terms employed.”1 (Emphasis added.)
A legislative intent to make Act 2552 retrospective is neither expressly declared nor necessarily to be inferred from the terms employed.3 Nor has there been adduced any other evidence of legislative intent._

 Similarly, see McKisson v Davenport, 83 Mich 211, 215; 47 NW 100 (1890); Angell v West Bay City, 117 Mich 685, 688; 76 NW 128 (1898); cf. Hathaway v Washington Milling Co, 139 Mich 708, 711; 103 NW 164 (1905); In re Davis Estate, 330 Mich 647, 653; 48 NW2d 151 (1951); Tarnow v Railway Express Agency, 331 Mich 558, 565; 50 NW2d 318 (1951). See also Ferris v Beecher, 85 Mich App 208, 214; 270 NW2d 658 (1978); Pryber v Marriott Corp, 98 Mich App 50, 55; 296 NW2d 597 (1980).

 The pertinent amendatory language reads as follows:
Notwithstanding subsection (1), if an alleged victim was under 18 years of age at the time of the commission of the offense, an indictment for an offense under section 145c or 520b to 520g of the Michigan penal code, Act No. 328 of the Public Acts of 1931, being sections 750.145c and 750.520b to 750.520g of the Michigan Compiled Laws, may be found and filed within 6 years after the commission of the offense or by the alleged victim’s twenty-first birthday, whichever is later.

 The clause, "if an alleged victim was under 18 years of age at the *622time of the commission of the offense,” (see ante, p 597) is stylistically preferable to alternatives such as "if an alleged victim shall have been under 18 years of age at the time of the commission of the offense,” and imparts nothing regarding the prospectivity/retroactivity question. See Selk v Detroit Plastic Products, 419 Mich 1, 25-26; 345 NW2d 184 (1984) (Levin, J., dissenting), On Resubmission, 419 Mich 32, 39-40; 348 NW2d 652 (1984) (Levin, J., dissenting).