Court Opinion

ID: 9669608
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:01:29.683566+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:58.588393
License: Public Domain

Levin, J.
(concurring). For the reasons stated in dissent in People v Bewersdorf, 438 Mich 55, 78; 475 NW2d 231 (1991), I am unable to join in the majority’s characterization of the statute as “a precisely drafted statute, unambiguous on its face . . .1
The majority also states:
Our holding today is grounded in the belief that it is perfectly clear that anyone reading the habitual offender act and the Motor Vehicle Code easily could have concluded that the Tuckeri[2] decision was contrary to their plain meanings. [Ante, p 113 (emphasis added).]
*114This Court denied leave to appeal in People v Tucker, 433 Mich 873 (1989). The only “anyone” on this Court to whom it may have been “perfectly clear” “that the Tucker decision was contrary to” the plain meanings of the habitual offender act and the Motor Vehicle Code was Chief Justice Brickley, who alone was shown as “would grant leave to appeal.”
I join in reversing the Court of Appeals because this Court granted leave to appeal in Bewersdorf3 on July 18, 1990, almost a year before defendant Michael Robert Doyle once again drove while he was drunk. Bewersdorf was decided on August 22, 1991, over six weeks before Doyle chose to plead guilty to the drunk driving charges, and moved to dismiss the habitual offender information. The prosecution notified Doyle in the course of the plea proceedings that it intended to appeal a dismissal of the habitual offender charge.
Although I believe, for the reasons stated in dissent in Bewersdorf, that it was not correctly decided, I agree with the majority, for essentially the reasons stated in the majority opinion, that no adequate reason has been proffered why Bewersdorf should not be applied retroactively to the charges of which Doyle was convicted on his plea of guilty over six weeks after Bewersdorf was decided.

 Ante, p 113.

 People v Tucker, 177 Mich App 174; 441 NW2d 59 (1989).

 435 Mich 867. The Court of Appeals in People v Bewersdorf, 181 Mich App 430; 450 NW2d 271 (1989), followed Tucker, one judge dissenting. There were, thus, five Court of Appeals judges who were of the opinion that it was not perfectly clear that Tucker was contrary to the plain meaning of the statutes.