Court Opinion

ID: 9698779
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 19:59:46.077345+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:43.290479
License: Public Domain

*647M. F. Cavanagh, J.,
(dissenting). I strongly disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the grant of a new trial in this case was error. My brothers note that the strict rule prohibiting any communication with the jury outside of the courtroom and the presence of counsel has been relaxed in some states. This is not so in Michigan.
There is no dearth of Michigan law on this point, yet my brothers fail to mention, let alone distinguish, the decisions in Zaitzeff v Raschke, 387 Mich 577; 198 NW2d 309 (1972), People v Heard, 388 Mich 182; 200 NW2d 73 (1972), People v Olson, 66 Mich App 197; 238 NW2d 579 (1975), lv den 396 Mich 824 (1976), People v Percy Harris, 43 Mich App 746; 204 NW2d 734 (1972), People v Kangas, 366 Mich 201; 113 NW2d 865 (1962), People v Zeegers, 61 Mich App 546; 233 NW2d 76 (1975), lv den 395 Mich 807 (1975).
In Zaitzeff, supra, 579, Justice Black stated:
"With what was written so plainly in 1961 for Wilson v Hartley, 365 Mich 188 [112 NW2d 567], concerning the indefensible practice of entering the jury room while the jurors are there, no matter by whom done, one would think that this Court had said enough to prevent what took place here. Yet the practice seems to go on, and on, and on, encouraged occasionally by 'no prejudice shown’ conclusions of a group of Justices who cannot hope to know what was said, or done, or gestured, or hinted, in the sanctity of the jury room.”
In People v Kangas, supra, the Court stated at pages 206-207:
"[C]ommunications or instructions by the court to the jury, after they have retired for deliberations, out of court and in the absence of the parties or their counsel, are grounds for a new trial, regardless of whether such communications or instructions were prejudicial.” (Emphasis added.)
*648How much more explicitly can it be stated?
In the instant case the communication to the jury was in the nature of an instruction, off the record and without counsel, in (at the perimeter of) the jury room, and while the jury was deliberating. The facts of this case are indistinguishable from those in People v Zeegers, supra, and People v Kangas, supra. Accordingly, I think leave was improvidently granted by this Court, and I would affirm the trial court’s granting of a new trial.