Court Opinion

ID: 9667518
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:47:52.705054+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:38.602642
License: Public Domain

T. M. Burns, J.
(dissenting). Defendant appeals as of right a July 27, 1979, jury verdict convicting him of felonious assault. MCL 750.82; MSA 28.277. On August 22, 1979, he was sentenced to a term of from 1-1/2 to 4 years imprisonment. I would reverse his conviction.
Defendant’s single issue in this appeal concerns whether the lower court judge erred when instructing the jury regarding the element of intent in the crime of felonious assault. Specifically, the jury was instructed, "[i]ntent is a decision of the mind to knowingly do an act with a conscious objective of accomplishing a certain result. There can be no crime of assault with intent to commit great bodily harm less than the crime of murder, or [felonious] assault under our law where there is no intent to commit such an offense, and the burden rests upon the prosecution to show beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant at the time of doing the act had that wrongful intent.”
. Thus, the jury was instructed that the evidence was sufficient to convict defendant of felonious assault if it established that defendant had the intent "to commit such an offense”. This instruction focused the jury’s attention on defendant’s intent with regard to the act that he was engaged in rather than his intent with regard to his victim. As such, it was error under the holding of our Supreme Court in People v Joeseype Johnson, 407 Mich 196, 210; 284 NW2d 718 (1979), where it was held that the crime of felonious assault is not made out unless there is evidence that the defendant acted with "an intent to injure or an intent *592to put the victim in reasonable fear or apprehension of an immediate battery”.1
Under the holding of this Court in People v Szymanski, 102 Mich App 745; 302 NW2d 316 (1981), defendant’s conviction should be reversed.

 "A majority of the Justices are of the opinion that:
"1) a simple criminal assault is made out from either an attempt to commit a battery or an unlawful act which places another in reasonable apprehension of receiving an immediate battery. People v Sanford, 402 Mich 460, 479; 265 NW2d 1 (1978),
"2) the jury should be instructed that there must be either an intent to injure or an intent to put the victim in reasonable fear or apprehension of an immediate battery,
"3) the instruction in Johnson was deficient in two respects; it failed adequately to inform the jury of the intent requirement and it neglected to present the alternative 'reasonable apprehension of receiving an immediate battery’ form of felonious assault; the jurors in Ring should be instructed that defendant can be convicted if he intended to injure the victim or put him in reasonable apprehension of receiving an immediate battery.” 407 Mich 210. (Emphasis supplied.)