Court Opinion

ID: 9661079
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:28:45.985946+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:25.397700
License: Public Domain

Boyles, J.
(concurring). This is another example •of the unsatisfactory manner in which cases are sometimes brought to this Court for review. It is true, as Mr. Justice Dethmers states, that in the record appellant’s statement of reason and ground for appeal raises only 1 ground for reversal, that the conviction was “based entirely on testimony which *365should have been suppressed at the trial * * * because of illegal means used in obtaining the facts of the trial in the complaint.” Also, we have frequently held that no other question would be considered. But appellant’s brief brings to us under the heading “Statement of questions involved” the 3 questions which are discussed by- Mr. Justice Smith. And in appellant’s “Statement of facts” in his brief, I find the facts on which those questions are predicated. The people’s brief, for the appellee, merely points out briefly 2 “insufficiencies” in appellant’s statement of facts, namely, that the 2 employees of Charles Services, Inc., were special deputy sheriffs, and that no arrest had been made by them, merely that a traffic violation ticket had been given the defendant. Appellee’s ■ counterstatement of facts concludes with equal brevity that “with the exception of the insufficiencies pointed out above, appellee accepts the statement of facts in the brief of appellant.” While these “facts” should have been shown in the record, they seem to have been agreed upon.
I cannot ignore the provisions in our Michigan Court Rule No 67 .(1945) which require thp. appellant to begin his brief, on page 1, with a concise “statement of questions involved” in the appeal, and follow it with a “statement of facts.” Rule No 67 further specificálly requires that the appéllant’s statement of questions involved he used as, “topical subheadings” throughout the argument in appellant’s brief. And the rule expressly states that ordinarily no point will be considered which is not set forth or necessarily suggested by that statement of questions involved.
Consequently, I feel that the record and briefs on this appeal, unsatisfactory as they are, justify the consideration given by Mr. Justice Smith to appellant’s statement of questions involved in his brief, *366under Rule No 67. I agree with the conclusions reached by Mr. Justice Smith in his consideration of the statement of questions involved as found in appellant’s brief, but do not agree that we should reverse on that ground.
I am bound by the uncontroverted statement in the testimony of 1 of the employees of Charles Services, Inc., who stopped the defendant on the highway, “I am a special deputy sheriff,” and that “I am paid by the week and my immediate superior is Mr. Spencer and Mr. Buder, the sheriff, from whom we get a lot of orders.”
I agree with Mr. Justice Dethmers that inasmuch as this “employee” was a deputy sheriff, the conviction should be affirmed, based on that ground. And finally, the record does show that the defendant violated the speed law.