Court Opinion

ID: 9732884
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 16:41:24.6851+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:26:54.330758
License: Public Domain

Black, J.
{dissenting). I appropriate temporarily a deathless phrase appearing in one of Mr. Justice Holmes’ regularly recalled dissenting opinions (Northern Securities Company v. United States [1904], 193 US 197, 401 [24 S Ct 436, 48 L Ed 679]). It is that all we have to do in this case is “to read English intelligently.” Then, having read, we must either apply that English or shamefully repudiate still another judicial pledge.
These decisive and presently applicable words appear in a fully contextual paragraph of present Chief Justice Kavanagh’s opinion of People v. Cole (1969), 382 Mich 695, 720, 721:
*681“We feel that Lyles v. United States, supra, is the better reasoned authority and hold that in all criminal trials or retrials taking place after the date of the filing of this opinion, where the defense of insanity is present and that issue is made submissible by the proofs, the defendant, upon his own timely request, or upon request of the jury, shall be entitled to an instruction in accord with the rule of Lyles”
Despite this firm commitment, what does today’s newly assembled majority say? Why only that we, exercising the raw power of temporal control, do now cast aside what thus was laid down — a bare 14 months ago — for the specific guidance of prosecutors, defenders and appealers of criminal cases, and surely for trial judges themselves; that in the place thereof we now hold that Lyles “properly” applies to all criminal cases for the purpose of total retroactivity. For the specifics of this latest breed of retrogression, read the majority opinion, ante at 673.
This defendant was jury convicted in 1966 of the crime of assault with intent to murder. That particular offense against the peace and dignity of the people of our state is still regarded as a bit reprehensible, for it amounts in fact to a calculated effort to murder a human being that fails through no fault of the felon himself.
His trial proceeded to verdict and sentence. At that time the prosecutor, the defense counsel, and certainly the trial judge himself, were obligated upon oath to attend the trial according to the law of our state as it read then in our books;1 not as a then totally unknown Court seated in early 1971 might solemnly declare to the very contrary. No one *682then, not even a Cardozo, possibly could have foreseen that the rule of Lyles would be adopted here, prospectively, some four years later. Nor could any of the then participants in this 1966 trial have dreamed that Cole would be outdone blithely in 1971, by a peremptory order for total application ex post facto of the Lyles rule.
There is a grimly portentous message here, as our majority issues this latest order for new trial of one who, like so many of his kind, probably cannot be tried again. It is that all law enforcement officers, all public prosecutors and all trial judges may no longer depend upon plainly written precedents as they go about their duties in the sworn area of criminal justice. They might better employ their time upon what to them is the sure case, than to spend useless effort on appeals by the people for justice under what we once knew as dependable precedents; dependable because the word of the Court stood back of them. They should realize by now that a felony prosecution in Michigan is never over, or concluded legally, until the defendant is either acquitted or dead, or released nolle on joint motion of a discouraged prosecutor and a toilworn trial judge. The prosecutor and trial judge who, upon release of these opinions, cannot read this new handwriting on our wall of criminal justice will surely need quick eyetests.
This of course is an opinion of dissent. To express it I have already employed words of dissent written by Justice Holmes. I conclude discussion of this phase of the present prosecutor’s vain appeal with submission of more like words, written by Mr. Justice Roberts for Smith v. Allwright (1944), 321 US 649, 670 (64 S Ct 757, 88 L Ed 987):
“It is regrettable that in an era marked by doubt and confusion, an era whose greatest need is stead*683fastness of thought and purpose, this court, which has been looked to as exhibiting consistency in adjudication, and a steadiness which would hold the balance even in the face of temporary ebbs and flows of opinion, should now itself become the breeder of fresh doubt and confusion in the public mind as to the stability of our institutions.”
I really fear that, ere another six months expire, ours will be known as the biennially pendulous Supreme Court of Michigan.
There is another little matter of majority error here; the error of ignoring a statutory fact as the Court hastens to another wholly retroactive overrulement. Citing in support “Section 28.967 Michigan Statutes Annotated,” counsel for defendant erroneously requested that the jury be given this instruction :
“When a person accused of any felony shall have been acquitted upon trial upon the ground of insanity, the Court shall ascertain the issue of insanity.
“If such person is found insane, the Court shall order that he be turned over to the sheriff for safe custody and removal to the Ionia State Hospital, to which hospital such person shall be committed to remain until restored to sanity.”
Quite aside from Lyles, the trial judge would have erred grossly had he so instructed the jury. If any instruction upon the point of acquittal by reason of insanity was to be given at all, that instruction should have been delivered pursuant to CL 1948, § 766.15c (Stat Ann 1954 Eev § 28.933[3]).2 Bead § 766.15c:
*684“Sec. 15c. Any person, who is tried for the crime of murder and is acquitted by the court or jury by reason of insanity, shall forthwith be committed by order of said court to a state hospital for the criminally insane for the remainder of his natural life. The governor may, however, discharge such person upon recommendation of the commission, based upon an investigation by it and its determination that such discharge will not be harmful to other persons or their property.”
I realize that none of this will faze the Court, headlong bent as it is to provide another retroactive avenue leading to another plethora of delayed appeals and applications for habeas corpus by those long since properly convicted of serious crimes. But some record ought to be made, as the Court opens the floodgates. Waiting in the wings, as present counsel have stipulated, are four already known like cases, arising in Genesee and Washtenaw counties only. This Court has yet another, up for submission during the coming April term. Who knows how many others lie asleep, all due for gleeful awakening when People v. Hampton hits the great fan of liberal license?
As for People v. Herrera (1970) 383 Mich 49, it need only be said that we there laid down no rule of retroactivity contrary to People v. Cole. Able to agree only upon an order for reversal and remand for new trial of Herrera, the Court limited disposition of the appeal as it did for so many dissident reasons that no one of us cared to record what in total separation would have resulted in a fruitless vomitus of words. In sum, our disposition of Herrera was no more than a 24 word special order under GCB-1963, 865.1(7), the mandate of which was a new trial for Mrs. Herrera, she alone. I do not in fact understand from the present majority opinion that *685the endorsers thereof have concluded otherwise. Their aim, as I perceive, is something else, that is, a wide open invitation to those who wish to be retried aided by a § 766.15c jury instruction.
To bolster its misguided opinion that the trial judge should have granted the defendant’s equally misguided request to charge (under that wrong statute), today’s majority adopts for a conclusion Justice T. G. Kavanagh’s homespun homily that “To do a little evil to accomplish a great good is a temptation as old as Eve.”
The quality of that kind of mercy for this particular felon really is strained. Did not Bassonio appeal rightfully and successfully to the judge, in The Merchant of Venice (act 4, sc 1):
“And I beseech you
Wrest once the law to your authority, —
To do a great right, do a little wrong, —
And curb this cruel devil of his will.”?
I vote to reverse for entry of an order affirming an errorless judgment of the trial court; a judgment entered five years ago, long before the Lyles rule entered our reports for declared prospective effect.
T. E. Brennan, J.
(for reversal). My view on the question of prospectivity vs. retroactive is already on record. Smith v. Ginther (1967), 379 Mich 208.
Prospective overrulement is nothing more than an unkeepable judicial promise to apply overruled precedents to certain future cases.
There wouldn’t be any argument here if the Court had been satisfied with the long standing rule that the jury is not supposed to speculate upon the disposition of the defendant which may follow their verdict.
*686Lyles is not a well reasoned opinion. The Lyles Court’s imputation of common understanding of the effects of verdicts missed the mark widely. The Lyles rule, applied in Michigan via People v. Cole (1969), 382 Mich 695, is a mistake. The doors it opens for more invitations to jury speculation will soon bang loudly in the winds.
I vote to reverse.

 On that score, see the majority opinion of People v. Cole (1967), 8 Mich App 250; also Chief Justice Kavanagh’s open recognition, on review of Cole, of the majority rule (382 Mich at 718, 719).

 This section was repealed effective March 10, 1967 (some 13 months after Hampton was tried and convicted), by PA 1966, No 266. It was “the law” nevertheless, when this erroneous request to charge was submitted to and denied properly by the trial judge.