Court Opinion

ID: 9706639
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:48:27.041452+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:24.118558
License: Public Domain

Levin, J.
(dissenting). The Motor Vehicle Code was amended in 1958 to provide that on a third or subsequent conviction within a period of ten years for driving under the influence of intoxicating liquor, the offender shall be guilty of a felony, punishable by a sentence of not more than five years.1
Before the 1958 amendment, the Motor Vehicle Code provided that "[o]n a second or subsequent conviction,” including, therefore, a third, fourth, or still another conviction, of driving under the influence of intoxicating liquor, the offender was guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment for not more than one year.2
The majority states, "it is reasonable to assume that when [in 1958] the Legislature drafted the *79ouiLf-3] provisions it was aware, and at all times since then has been aware, of the habitual offender act . . . .”3 If so, the Legislature was more conversant with the law than prosecutors, who seem to have been unaware, during the first twenty-five years or so after the 1958 amendment, providing that an ouil-3 offender is deemed to be guilty of a felony, that ouil-3 could be charged as an habitual offense under the Code of Criminal Procedure.
It appears that the first effort by a prosecutor to further escalate the penalty for ouil-3 is reflected in People v Tucker, 177 Mich App 174; 441 NW2d 59 (1989). The Court of Appeals there held that the habitual offender provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure4 could not be invoked to further enhance the penalty for ouil-3. I agree with that conclusion, and dissent from today’s decision.
Tucker had pled guilty to ouil-35 and to being an habitual offender, fourth offense.6 "The prior felonies were procurement of a controlled substance and two convictions for larceny in a building.”7
Before Tucker was decided, this Court had ruled that a person who had stolen a shirt, slacks, or pants from a department store valued at under $1008 could be charged with having committed either the felony of larceny in a building, or the misdemeanor of larceny under $100, as the prosecutor determined in the exercise of discretion.9 People v Ford, 417 Mich 66; 331 NW2d 878 (1982). *80Last year this Court ruled that a person could be convicted as a four-time habitual offender if the fourth offense was preceded by three felony convictions arising from separate criminal incidents. People v Preuss, 436 Mich 714, 717; 461 NW2d 703 (1990).
Those decisions, in combination with today’s decision, mean that if a person has been thrice convicted of larcenies in buildings arising out of separate shoplifting offenses, then, upon conviction of ouil-3, the court would be empowered to sentence him to life in prison as if he had been convicted of a capital offense.
The majority recognizes that a departure from the literal meaning of statutes may be justified when a literal construction " 'would produce an absurd and unjust result and would be clearly inconsistent with the purposes and the policies of the act in question.’ ”10 This is a case where a departure from a literal construction is justified to avoid producing an absurd and unjust result, and where a literal construction would not be consistent with the purpose and policy of the drunk-driving provision of the Motor Vehicle Code.
The purpose and policy of the drunk-driving provision is to punish drunk drivers. Neither Tucker nor Bewersdorf, by reason of their prior records of conviction for felonies other than drunk driving, represented greater menaces to users of the highway than other persons convicted of ouil-3 for the first time. Johnson did, indeed, have three prior drunk-driving convictions and, there being no ouil-4, could only be charged with ouil-3. The majority argues that not to permit a prosecutor to charge as an habitual offender a person with four *81drunk-driving convictions during the ten-year period "would produce the absurd result of assuring recidivist drunk drivers that there could be no increase in punishment for convictions after the third ouil violation.”11
It is debatable which result is more absurd, subjecting a person convicted of ouil-3 to life imprisonment because he has been convicted three times of larceny in a building for separate incidents of shoplifting, or limiting the sentence that may be imposed on a second conviction of ouil-3 to a maximum sentence of five years in prison rather than empowering the judge to impose a maximum sentence of IVi years, as may be done under today’s decision if the offender is convicted of ouil-3 charged as a second habitual offense,12 or ten years if charged and convicted as a third habitual offense,13 or life or a lesser term if charged and convicted as a fourth habitual offense.14
For over twenty-five years, prosecutors throughout the state, aware that the maximum penalty for a second or subsequent ouil-3 offense was five years, apparently thought it was beyond the policy of the Motor Vehicle Code to seek to enhance the penalty for ouil-3 under the habitual offender provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure.15
As the majority observes, a sentencing judge is *82not obliged to impose the maximum punishment permissible under the habitual offender provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Bewersdorf was sentenced to one year in the county jail when he was convicted of ouil-3, charged as a second habitual offense, even though he could have been sentenced to a maximum of IVi years, one and one-half times the five-year maximum sentence for the predicate ouil-3.16
The sentence imposed on Bewersdorf may be typical in that the maximum sentence actually imposed for a first or possibly even a second ouil-3 conviction will generally not be greater than might be imposed on a first conviction of ouil-3 not charged as an habitual offense. The prosecutor, nevertheless, seeks the authority to charge ouil-3 offenders as habitual offenders when they have a record of prior felony conviction, without regard to whether the prior felony is for ouil-3 or is unrelated to drunk driving, and thereby to provide the judge with greater sentencing power. It is the threat of the exercise of such enlarged sentencing power that makes unjust the literal construction adopted by the majority.
A person charged with ouil-3 as an habitual offense may, depending on the perceived sentencing climate in the court where he is charged, be constrained to plead guilty and thereby relieve the prosecutor of the burden and risk of proving the *83ouil-3 charge, and the judge of the time commitment involved, lest substantially greater punishment be imposed for having exercised the right to stand trial. Today’s decision, thus, will assist prosecutors in obtaining pleas of guilty and help move the docket. Assisting the prosecutor in plea bargaining and the court in moving the docket are not purposes or policies of the drunk-driving provisions of the Motor Vehicle Code or of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
Today’s decision would be less troubling if this Court had empowered, or were to empower and encourage, the appellate judiciary to rectify abuse in the exercise of charging or sentencing discretion.

 1958 PA 113, amending MCL 257.625; MSA 9.2325. The language was rewritten by 1982 PA 309 to provide that a person who violates the prohibition against drunk driving within ten years of "2 or more prior convictions” is guilty of a felony.
As originally enacted in 1949, the Motor Vehicle Code provided that unless a different penalty is expressly provided, a person convicted of a felony shall be punished by imprisonment for not less than
1 year nor more than 5 years, or by a fine of not less than $500 nor more than $5,000, or by both such fine and imprisonment. 1949 PA 300, MCL 257.902; MSA 9.2602.

 1956 PA 34 reflected the last amendment of § 625 before enactment of 1958 PA 113. It was, and continues to be, provided that in the discretion of the court, a fine of not more than $1,000 could be imposed.

 Ante, p 71.

 Code of Criminal Procedure, 1927 PA 175, MCL 769.10-769.13; MSA 28.1082-28.1085.

 MCL 257.625(6); MSA 9.2325(6).

 MCL 769.12; MSA 28.1084.

 People v Tucker, p 176.

 MCL 750.360; MSA 28.592.

 MCL 750.356; MSA 28.588.

 Gobler v Auto-Owners Ins Co, 428 Mich 51, 62; 404 NW2d 199 (1987), quoting Salas v Clements, 399 Mich 103, 109; 247 NW2d 889 (1976).

 Ante, p 71.

 MCL 769.10; MSA 28.1082.

 MCL 769.11; MSA 28.1083.

 MCL 769.12; MSA 28.1084.

 The majority writes that its construction is supported by 1978 PA 77, which amended the habitual offender provisions to except from their application certain major controlled substance offenses governed by other provisions of law. The majority concludes that the Legislature has demonstrated thereby that it is capable of excluding a particular category of felonies from sentencing enhancement under the habitual offender provisions. The majority further reasons that the Legislature’s failure to enact a similar exception for an ouil-3 conviction reinforces its conclusion that the Legislature intended the habitual offender act to apply to ouil-3 felonies.
*82The 1978 amendment was enacted to prevent a bypassing of the mandatory minimum sentences for major controlled substances that might result, were a predicate major substance offense charged as an habitual offense, because imposition of a greater sentence is not mandatory under the habitual offender provisions.
The argument that the Legislature has not seen fit to enact a similar exception for an ouil-3 conviction ignores that, until a year or so before People v Tucker was decided in 1989, it had not been suggested in any reported decision that the act might be read as the Court reads it today.

 MCL 769.11; MSA 28.1083.