Court Opinion

ID: 9660512
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:14:49.271517+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:20.089134
License: Public Domain

Cavanagh, J.
(dissenting). In Denio, the majority holds that the consecutive sentencing provision of MCL 333.7401(3); MSA 14.15(7401)(3), falls within the term “penalty” in the conspiracy statute, MCL 750.157a; MSA 28.354(1). Because this holding is in direct contravention of the express language of § 7401(3), I dissent.
*714The conspiracy statute provides that a person convicted of a conspiracy “shall be punished by a penalty equal to that which could be imposed if he had been convicted of committing the crime he conspired to commit . . . MCL 750.157a(a); MSA 28.354(l)(a). It seems obvious that the conspiracy statute’s reference to the underlying substantive offense is simply a shortcut for allotting prison terms without having to enact separate statutory provisions for conspiracy that are merely repetitions of the allowable prison terms or fines enumerated for every underlying substantive offense in the Penal Code and the controlled substances act. A mere reference in one statutory section to the punishment enumerated in a separate statutory section does not, without more, incorporate the entirety of the latter section into the former.
Section 7401(3) provides, in relevant part:
A term of imprisonment imposed pursuant to subsection (2)(a) or section 7403(2)(a)(i), (ii), (iii), or (iv) shall be imposed to run consecutively with any term of imprisonment imposed for the commission of another felony. [MCL 333.7401(3); MSA 14.15(7401)(3).]
It is indisputable that Denio’s convictions were obtained pursuant to the conspiracy statute, MCL 750.157a; MSA 28.354(1), and, therefore, it is equally indisputable that his sentences were, and could only be, imposed pursuant to that statute. Notwithstanding the majority’s tortured parsing of the term “penalty” and its heavy reliance on the mere truism that sentencing provisions are directed at sentencing courts, the dispositive fact is that neither charge to which he pleaded guilty subjected him to a term of imprison*715ment pursuant to § 7401(2)(a) or any of the subsections of § 7403(2) (a).
The majority also ignores the black-letter principle that the specific controls the general. The general reference in the conspiracy statute to the penalty prescribed for the relevant underlying crime is superseded by the specific requirement of § 7401(3) that a mandatory imposition of consecutive sentences applies only when a defendant has a “term of imprisonment imposed pursuant to subsection (2) (a) [of § 7401(3)] or § 7403(2)(a)(i), (ii), (iii), or (iv) And the fact that the more specific statutory provision was enacted more than a decade after the general language of the conspiracy statute further supports this conclusion.
For the foregoing reasons, I would reverse the decisions of the Court of Appeals and the trial court in Denio and would remand the case for resentencing.
I also dissent in Banks and Tucker because I continue to believe that People v Morris, 450 Mich 316; 537 NW2d 842 (1995), was wrongly decided. See id. at 338-348 (Levin, J., joined by Cavanagh, J., dissenting).
Kelly, J., concurred with Cavanagh, J., only in Denio and took no part in the decisions of Banks and Tucker.