Court Opinion

ID: 9720648
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 08:38:13.590434+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:20.283667
License: Public Domain

Mahinske, J.
(dissenting). The majority opinion relies heavily, to my way of thinking, on prior decisions where attempts were made (and some successfully) by the defendant to have prior pleas set aside. Thereafter the same defendant argues he should have res judicata benefits because of his prior plea *83(which, he had had set aside) used as a double jeopardy defense to that prior pled-to-charge and greater charges then pending. To this legal (lockup) logic, I, of course, disagree. Such logic would dictate that every retrial or new trial, at defendant’s insistence, must be for the next lesser offense. Such just is not the law.
It is my opinion that the law of the State of Michigan is that a conviction of a lesser included offense is an acquittal of a greater degree of the same offense. MCLA § 768.33 (Stat Ann 1954 Rev § 28-.1056); People v. White (1969), 15 Mich App 527; Green v. United States (1957), 355 US 184 (78 S Ct 221, 2 L Ed 2d 199); Benton v. Maryland (1969), 395 US 784 (89 S Ct 2056, 23 L Ed 2d 707). A plea of guilty, when accepted, is itself a conviction; nothing remains but to give judgment and determine punishment. Boykin v. Alabama (1969), 395 US 238 (89 S Ct 1709, 23 L Ed 2d 274); People v. Bower (1966), 3 Mich App 585.
The Federal constitutional right to the defense of double jeopardy cannot be waived by failure to raise the question below. People v. McPherson (1970), 21 Mich App 385; Henry v. Mississippi (1965), 379 US 443 (85 S Ct 564, 13 L Ed 2d 408).
The rule set out in McPherson, applying the Federal standards announced in United States, ex rel. Hetenyi, v. Wilkins (CA2, 1965) 348 F2d 844, cert den 383 US 913 (86 S Ct 896, 15 L Ed 2d 667), and Benton v. Maryland, supra, catches this case of Willie J. Harper. Harper’s plea to manslaughter was accepted by the court as a valid plea to a lesser included offense. Defendant Harper did not move to set aside his plea. The court, on its own motion, set aside such plea.
I agree that under MCLA § 750.318 (Stat Ann 1954 Rev § 28.550) a hearing need not be conducted *84to determine the degree of murder when a defendant pleads guilty to a specific degree of murder. But, on a plea, the court must examine a defendant and upon examining defendant Harper the trial court below found the plea to second-degree murder was not proper and held out the next lesser offense to defendant which defendant and the trial court accepted.
By virtue of GCR 1963, 785.1(1) as applied to GCR 1963, 527.4 and 529.1, the trial court below was precluded from acting (July 10, 1967), on its own motion, to set aside the manslaughter plea offered and accepted more than 20 days prior thereto (June 8, 1967).
I do not agree that by “the deliberate choice of strategy” in accepting the manslaughter offer the defendant waived his rights to a double jeopardy defense if it later were to come into play. I further disagree with the majority opinion’s application of Henry v. Mississippi, supra, as that illegal search and seizure conviction was reversed in Henry and remanded with utterances by five members of the United States Supreme Court calling for a finding of Henry having “knowingly waived” his Federal rights. It should be noted that Mr. Henry was also represented by counsel.
In my opinion this case should be reversed and remanded for sentencing on the manslaughter conviction, with credit to be given for time served on the void second-degree murder conviction.