Court Opinion

ID: 9531937
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:16:10.404543+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:37.758775
License: Public Domain

Levin, J.
(concurring in part; dissenting in part). We granted leave to appeal because we saw merit in the defendant’s contention that the procedures followed in the revocation of his probation were not in accord with the statute and due process of law. The majority does not reach this issue but, rather, disposes of the case on another issue raised by defendant which, in my opinion, he has no standing to raise.
*228I
Sixty years ago the Legislature enacted that a person convicted of armed robbery may not be placed on probation. Yet in the intervening years the practice developed of imposing sentences other than to state prison.
In a recent year 43 of the 75 persons convicted of armed robbery were not sentenced to state prison. Odell Davis, in lieu of a sentence to state prison, was sentenced to serve six months in the county jail and placed on three years probation.
The 43 persons not sentenced to state prison in that one year were sentenced by 8 judges in the circuit courts of Wayne, Oakland, Jackson, Gene-see and Ingham Counties and by at least 7 recorder’s court judges. We are informed that this was not an atypical year.
These judges who do not sentence some persons convicted of armed robbery to state prison would, no doubt, defend this practice not only in human and practical terms but on legal grounds as well. We ought not easily to assume that the literal meaning apparent to some of us is the only possible meaning.
On full adversary presentation we may, indeed, conclude that this diversion from the rigors of state prison is contrary to the statute, but we should not attempt to decide that question except at the instance of someone who may properly be heard to complain — a prosecuting attorney or the Attorney General. We should not so decide in a case where leave was granted for another reason; we should not reach out to decide this question although it may seem to be poetic justice to hoist this defendant — -and others who may be affected by this decision — by his misaimed petard.
*229II
Odell Davis was convicted of armed robbery and placed on probation. He appeals from a judgment convicting him of probation violation and a sentence to state prison on the original armed robbery conviction.
Having accepted, without appeal, in lieu of a - sentence to state prison, the trial court’s judgment placing him on probation, Davis cannot properly be heard to claim that the statute does not authorize a probationary sentence for a person convicted of armed robbery. MCLA 771.1; MSA 28.1131.
Neither the prosecutor nor the Attorney General cross-appealed from the judgment placing Davis on probation or from the subsequent order of the Court of Appeals denying Davis’s application for leave to appeal the judgment of probation violation. They have not complained on brief or during oral argument that the judge erred in placing Davis on probation.
There is, thus, no need to discuss the validity of the probationary sentence. Whether valid or invalid, the judgment imposing that sentence is final. The only persons, the prosecuting attorney and the Attorney General, who might be heard to seek relief from that judgment do not complain. We cannot properly, sua sponte, revise or vacate that final judgment. Davis cannot now properly be sentenced for armed robbery unless he is guilty of probation violation.
Ill
A person charged with probation violation is entitled to notice of the charges against him, to an opportunity to retain counsel or, if indigent, to the appointment of counsel at public expense, to a *230hearing, to be confronted with the evidence against him and an opportunity to present rebuttal evidence, and to a determination of the judge, after argument of counsel, on the evidence, and to appellate review of that determination.
Davis was placed on probation on August 7, 1969. Notice of probation violation was filed over a year later, October 2, 1970. It appears that the notice of violation was first delivered to Davis on April 25, 1972, the day before the hearing, almost 19 months after its issuance. The prosecutor does not claim that a diligent effort earlier to serve the notice was unavailing.
The violation alleged a failure to have paid (as of October 2, 1970) more than $10 on $240 of court costs. Although Davis claimed he had paid $200 and that his wife and brother could substantiate his claim of cash payment, the judge, relying on a 19-month old record of payment of only $10, convicted Davis without further ado. No further check was made of the record. Nor was Davis given an opportunity to call witnesses.
The charge was too dated, the hearing too attenuated, to support a judgment convicting Davis of probation violation and a sentence to state prison.
Davis’s conviction of probation violation should be reversed. There is nothing left to remand to the trial court. Davis cannot properly be convicted on the basis of a notice of probation violation served 19 months after its issuance, there being no showing that the failure to earlier serve the notice was attributable to Davis. Nor may he be resentenced for armed robbery unless he is properly convicted of probation violation.
T. G. Kavanagh, J., concurred with Levin, J.
J. W. Fitzgerald, J., did not sit in this case.