Court Opinion

ID: 9689017
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 18:16:29.860147+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:09:26.967867
License: Public Domain

Blair Moody, Jr., J.
(concurring in part and dissenting in part). I concur with parts A through *392D of Justice Kavanagh’s opinion reinstating defendant’s perjury conviction. I also agree with his holding that, with reference to People v Alvin Johnson, 396 Mich 424; 240 NW2d 729 (1976), cert den 429 US 951 (1976), defendant has not waived his entrapment defense by pleading guilty. In view of the jurisprudential significance of this question, I write separately to record my analysis of this issue.
Furthermore, I cannot agree that under the facts of this case, defendant was entrapped as a matter of law. Therefore, I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals insofar as it affirmed defendant’s conviction of attempted delivery of heroin.
I
The general rule in Michigan is that a plea of guilty waives all non-jurisdictional defects in the proceedings. People v Ginther, 390 Mich 436; 212 NW2d 922 (1973).
However, in People v Alvin Johnson, our most recent detailed discussion of the issue, this Court limited the broad scope of this plea-waiver rule. Holding that pleading guilty did not foreclose defendant from raising a double jeopardy defense, we delineated a more specific test to distinguish between those rights which are waived by the entry of a guilty plea and those which a defendant may assert in spite of an admission of factual guilt:
"Certainly it is true that those rights which might provide a complete defense to a criminal prosecution, those which undercut the state’s interest in punishing the defendant, or the state’s authority or ability to proceed with the trial may never be waived by guilty *393plea. These rights are similar to the jurisdictional defenses in that their effect is that there should have been no trial at all. The test, although grounded in the constitution, is therefore a practical one. * * * Wherever it is found that the result of the right asserted would be to prevent the trial from taking place, we follow the lead of the United States Supreme Court and hold a guilty plea does not waive that right.” (Emphasis added.) (Footnotes omitted.) Alvin Johnson, 444.
Thus, the list of rights which are not subsumed by a guilty plea encompasses not only strictly jurisdictional defenses, but also those that resemble jurisdictional defenses in that, if proven, they would bar the prosecution from bringing defendants to trial in the first place.
The entrapment defense fits logically within the category of protected rights as specified by the language of the Alvin Johnson test. If successfully raised, entrapment provides "a complete defense to a criminal prosecution” and undercuts "the state’s interest in punishing the defendant” and "authority or ability to proceed with the trial”.1 More importantly, holding that the entrapment claim does not merge into the guilty plea is consistent with not only the underlying rationale of Alvin Johnson, but also the exceptions to the plea-waiver doctrine recognized by the United States Supreme Court which provide the foundation for that rationale.
*394A guilty plea conclusively resolves the question of a defendant’s factual guilt. It relieves the state of the burden of producing sufficient evidence to prove defendant’s criminal activity beyond a reasonable doubt. See Shwartz, Note: The Guilty Plea as a Waiver of 'Present but Unknowable” Constitutional Rights: The Aftermath of the Brady Trilogy, 74 Colum L Rev 1435 (1974).
In a series of cases, including the guilty-plea trilogy of Brady v United States, 397 US 742; 90 S Ct 1463; 25 L Ed 2d 747 (1970), McMann v Richardson, 397 US 759; 90 S Ct 1441; 25 L Ed 2d 763 (1970), and Parker v North Carolina, 397 US 790; 90 S Ct 1458; 25 L Ed 2d 785 (1970), and later Tollett v Henderson, 411 US 258; 93 S Ct 1602; 36 L Ed 2d 235 (1973), the Supreme Court recognized that a guilty plea has an additional effect: once a defendant admits guilt, he is precluded from challenging any constitutional violations that may have occurred before the plea was entered.2 As the Court said in Tollett:
"We thus reaffirm the principle recognized in the Brady trilogy: a guilty plea represents a break in the chain of events which has preceded it in the criminal process. When a criminal defendant has solemnly admitted in open court that he is in fact guilty of the offense with which he is charged, he may not thereafter *395raise independent claims relating to the deprivation of constitutional rights that occurred prior to the entry of the guilty plea. He may only attack the voluntary and intelligent character of the guilty plea * * *.” 411 US 267.
However, even in the face of this broad statement, the Supreme Court has not construed the rule to constitute an absolute bar to the assertion of all claims. Depending on the nature of the right, the Court will look beyond "the voluntary and intelligent character of the guilty plea” to examine the underlying substantive violation.
In Blackledge v Perry, 417 US 21, 30; 94 S Ct 2098; 40 L Ed 2d 628 (1974), the Court held that a challenge based on "the very power of the State to bring the defendant into court to answer the charge brought against him” may survive a guilty plea.3 In contrast to the coerced confession and "curable” tainted indictment alleged in McMann and Tollett respectively, the due process right raised in Blackledge is "markedly different” in that " 'its practical result is to prevent a trial from taking place at all, rather than to prescribe procedural rules that govern the conduct of a trial’ ”. Blackledge, 31, quoting Robinson v Neil, 409 US 505, 509; 93 S Ct 876; 35 L Ed 2d 29 (1973).
The Blackledge distinction was further explained in Menna v New York, 423 US 61; 96 S Ct 241; 46 L Ed 2d 195 (1975), where the defendant pled guilty to a charge brought allegedly in violation of the Double Jeopardy Clause. The New York *396Court of Appeals, relying on Tollett, held that defendant’s right to bring his double jeopardy claim was "waived” by his plea. In a per curiam opinion, the Supreme Court rejected the lower court’s analysis, citing Blackledge for the proposition that:
"Where the State is precluded by the United States Constitution from haling a defendant into court on a charge, federal law requires that a conviction on that charge be set aside even if the conviction was entered pursuant to a Counseled plea of guilty.” Menna, 62.
The Court went on to clarify the holdings of the earlier guilty plea cases:
"Neither Tollett v Henderson, 411 US 258 (1973), nor our earlier cases on which it relied, e.g., Brady v United States, 397 US 742 (1970), and McMann v Richardson, 397 US 759 (1970), stand for the proposition that counseled guilty pleas inevitably 'waive’ all antecedent constitutional violations. If they did so hold, the New York Court of Appeals might be correct. However, in Tollett we emphasized that waiver was not the basic ingredient of this line of cases, 411 US 266. The point of these cases is that a counseled plea of guilty is an admission of factual guilt so reliable that, where voluntary and intelligent, it quite validly removes the issue of factual guilt from the case. In most cases, factual guilt is a sufficient basis for the State’s imposition of punishment. A guilty plea, therefore, simply renders irrelevant those constitutional violations not logically inconsistent with the valid establishment of factual guilt and which do not stand in the way of conviction, if factual guilt is validly established. Here, however, the claim is that the State may not convict petitioner no matter how validly his factual guilt is established. The guilty plea, therefore, does not bar the claim.” Menna, 62-63, fn 2. (Emphasis changed.)
Thus, where the claim is one that the state may *397not prosecute regardless of defendant’s factual guilt, a guilty plea does not waive the right to subsequently raise that claim.
A literal interpretation of the language of Menna and Blackledge might allow a defendant to preserve a wide variety of defenses in spite of his guilty plea.4 However, the spirit of those cases, and respect for the state’s interest in the finality of conviction and judicial economy as reflected in the guilty-plea procedure, undercuts the wisdom of such a construction. Further, the underlying rationale of the guilty plea in many cases is the notion of bargain and exchange.5 When a defendant pleads guilty he gives up a series of important rights, including the right to a jury trial, the right to confront accusers and present witnesses, and the right to remain silent. In exchange, he may be convicted of a lesser crime or receive a shorter sentence. Courts should be hesitant to allow a defendant to upset a bargain by which he knowingly and intelligently admitted his guilt.
In light of these functions of the guilty plea in the criminal justice system, the distinction implicit in Menna and Blackledge and that underlying the *398"complete defense” language of Alvin Johnson would insulate only a narrow class of rights against a waiver by plea. Only those rights and defenses which reach beyond the factual determination of defendant’s guilt and implicate the very authority of the state to bring a defendant to trial are preserved.6 Examples include: the prohibition against double jeopardy, Menna; the right to challenge the constitutionality of the statute under which one is charged, Journigan v Duffy, 552 F2d 283 (CA 9, 1977); the challenge that a charge is brought under an inapplicable statute, People v Beckner, 92 Mich App 166; 285 NW2d 52 (1979).7 These defenses are "similar to the jurisdictional defenses”, Alvin Johnson, 444, in that they involve the right of the government to prosecute the defendant in the first place. Such rights may never be waived.
In contrast, those rights which are subsumed in a guilty plea relate to a different aspect of government conduct in the criminal process. When a defendant pleads guilty, he waives his right to a trial. Therefore, he necessarily gives up all the rights and challenges associated with that trial. Thus, important safeguards relating to the capacity of the state to prove defendant’s factual guilt, and those regulating the prosecution’s conduct at trial are among those defendant waives when he pleads guilty. These rights, which essentially relate to the gathering and presentation of evidence, are lost even if a successful challenge would pro*399vide a "complete defense” by in effect rendering the state unable to continue with the prosecution. For example, under this test, the right to challenge the legality of a search which produced the evidence against the defendant8 would not survive a guilty plea.9
II
Under the test outlined, White’s claim of entrapment is not waived by his plea of guilty.
In People v D’Angelo, 401 Mich 167, 179, 182; 257 NW2d 655 (1977), we stressed the fact that entrapment is a conceptually unique defense:
"When an accused claims entrapment he is asserting, in essence, entitlement to the benefit of a judicial policy that his claim, if true, is a bar to the prosecution of the case. His claim does not involve an assessment of guilt or innocence and, in fact, is irrelevant to it. It is in that respect that the entrapment claim is unique and distinguishable from the more common defenses in criminal cases such as alibi, insanity, self-defense, lack of specific intent and the like, which assert the absence of one or more elements of the crime charged and involve therefore the assessment of guilt or innocence. The defense of entrapment is not interjected to establish the absence of an essential element of the crime but to present facts *400collateral or incidental to the criminal act which justify acquittal on the ground of an overriding public policy to deter instigation of crime by enforcement officers in order to get a conviction.
"Essentially, a hard analysis of each entrapment case invariably leads to the conclusion that the accused is affirmatively alleging that, even if culpable, he should be insulated from prosecution due to the impropriety of the government conduct. The challenge focuses exclusively upon the nature of the police conduct which, if improper, will not be mitigated, justified or excused in any fashion by the disposition of the accused.” (Emphasis added.)
At the heart of this judicially created defense is the policy that
"law enforcement conduct which essentially manufactures crime is a corruptive use of governmental authority which, when used to obtain a conviction, taints the judiciary which tolerates its use. It is a practice which relies for its success upon judicial indifference, if not approval, and it must be deterred. Its deterrence is a duty which transcends the determination of guilt or innocence in a given case and stands ultimately as the responsibility of an incorruptible judiciary.” D’Angelo, 174.
In Michigan, these policy considerations are emphasized by the adoption of the objective test of entrapment, which focuses upon the propriety of government conduct with respect to the criminal activity rather than upon defendant’s "predisposition” to commit the crime.10
Thus, like the protected class of rights defined in Menna, the question of factual guilt is irrelevant *401to the entrapment defense. The accused asserting the entrapment claim does not dispute participation in the criminal act, but rather challenges the authority of the state to punish that activity. Also, like the double jeopardy claim in Menna, entrapment "stand[s] in the way of conviction, [even] if factual guilt is validly established”. 423 US 63, fn 2. Further, in that it focuses the attention of the court upon the illegal use of the power of government to gain convictions, and tests "whether the actions of the police were so reprehensible under the circumstances”, People v Turner, 390 Mich 7, 22; 210 NW2d 336 (1973), that defendant should not have been brought to trial in the first place, the entrapment claim is distinguishable from those defenses which relate solely to the state’s ability to prove its case.
Equally important conceptually, entrapment in essence precedes the jurisdictional defenses in the criminal process. Whereas the jurisdictional defenses operate to prevent a trial from taking place, entrapment assumes that, without police involvement, the crime itself would not have taken place.11 If a defendant may preserve, in the face of a guilty plea, the right to challenge the government’s authority to bring him to trial, he should be able to similarly preserve a claim based on government involvement in the creation of the crime which eventually leads to the trial. Thus, especially as it is defined in Michigan, entrapment *402is a defense that should not be barred under this Court’s interpretation of the plea-waiver doctrine.
For all the foregoing reasons, I concur with Justice Kavanagh’s holding that defendant White may appeal the denial of his entrapment claim in spite of the fact that he pled guilty to the substantive offense of attempted delivery of heroin.12
III
For purposes of judging whether, under the circumstances of a particular case, a defendant was entrapped, Michigan courts have applied the objective test as stated by Justice Stewart in his dissent in United States v Russell, 411 US 423, 445; 93 S Ct 1637; 36 L Ed 2d 366 (1973):
"But when the agents’ involvement in criminal activities goes beyond the mere offering of such an opportunity, and when their conduct is of a kind that could induce or instigate the commission of a crime by one not ready and willing to commit it, then — regardless of the character or propensities of the particular person induced — I think entrapment has occurred. For in that situation, the Government has engaged in the impermissible manufacturing of crime, and the federal courts should bar the prosecution in order to preserve the institutional integrity of the system of federal criminal justice.” (Emphasis added.)
*403As determined by my colleague, the trial judge in the instant case did not properly apply this entrapment test because he appeared to place undue emphasis upon defendant’s propensity to commit the crime. I agree. However, I cannot agree that the facts of this case compel the conclusion that defendant was entrapped as a matter of law.
Under the objective test, the defendant bears the burden of proving entrapment. D’Angelo. In the instant case, the proofs showed that on three separate occasions, the undercover police officer sought out defendant White in an effort to buy narcotics from him. The officer also provided the transportation which enabled defendant to obtain the drugs for the sale.13 However, according to the police officer’s testimony, before arrangements were made for this ride to Detroit, he gave the defendant an opportunity to cancel the proposed drug transaction and return the money advanced, and White refused, stating that he would still like to obtain the heroin for the officer.
This is not a case where the police induced defendant to commit the crime by means of such impermissible activities as pleas of desperate illness, appeals based on sympathy, pity or friendship, Turner, offers of exorbitant amounts of money,14 or the use of sexual favors, People v Wisneski, 96 Mich App 299; 292 NW2d 196 (1980). See Grossman v State, 457 P2d 226 (Alas, 1969), modified in Pascu v State, 577 P2d 1064 (Alas, 1978). Based on the record before us, the police conduct did not go beyond the mere offering of an opportunity to engage in criminal activity. The *404actions of the undercover agent in attempting several times to arrange the heroin sale and in providing the necessary transportation were not "so reprehensible under the circumstances”, Turner, as to amount to entrapment as a matter of law.
Accordingly, in addition to reinstating defendant’s conviction of perjury without prejudice to his filing a motion seeking post-conviction relief on the ground of ineffective assistance of counsel, I would affirm defendant’s conviction of attempted delivery of heroin.
Ryan, J.
Although I have signed the opinion prepared by Justice Kavanagh and concur fully in its reasoning and result, I concur as well with Parts I and II only of Justice Moody’s opinion.

 Entrapment arguably also is one of those defenses "grounded in the due process clause” that is protected under the Alvin Johnson test. While the entrapment defense is not specifically mentioned in the state or federal constitution, it can be said to be "grounded in the due process clause” in that it is " 'indistinguishable from other law enforcement practices which the courts have held to violate due process. Entrapment is an affront to the basic concepts of justice. Where it exists, law enforcement techniques become contrary to the established law of the land as an impairment to due process’ ”, People v Turner, 390 Mich 7, 19; 210 NW2d 336 (1973), quoting United States v Chisum, 312 F Supp 1307, 1312 (CD Cal, 1970).

 In Brady and Parker defendants pled guilty to avoid the possibility of a death sentence that could, according to statute, only be imposed after a jury trial. Though the Supreme Court had subsequently declared such statutory schemes unconstitutional, it held that Brady’s and Parker’s right to challenge their convictions on this basis had been waived by their guilty plea. In McMann, the Court held that the defendant had similarly waived his right to challenge a procedure whereby the same jury that determined the voluntariness of his confession also decided his guilt. In Tollett, defendant alleged that the indictment against him had been returned by a grand jury from which blacks had been unconstitutionally excluded. Again, the Supreme Court held that his right to question such a defect in the proceedings against him had been waived by his guilty plea.

 In Blackledge, defendant pled guilty to a felony charge brought while he was awaiting an appeal of a misdemeanor conviction based on exactly the same conduct. The Court held that the "very initiation of the [felony] proceedings against [defendant] * * * operated to deny him due process of law”. 417 US 30-31. Once the state chose to charge the defendant with a misdemeanor, it was precluded from charging him with a more serious crime based on the same behavior.

 For example, reversal of a conviction on the grounds of an invalid search and seizure is "perfectly consistent with a recognition that the defendant is, in fact, guilty. Thus, it may be argued that, unlike some other claims, Fourth Amendment claims are not undercut by a guilty plea in which guilt is solemnly admitted”. Lefkowitz v Newsome, 420 US 283, 296, fn 3; 95 S Ct 886; 43 L Ed 2d 196 (1975) (White, J„ dissenting). Further, if the only evidence against defendant is that which has been invalidly seized, "the charge is one which the State may not constitutionally prosecute”. Menna, 63, fn 2. Yet a number of courts, including the Michigan Court of Appeals, have held that a plea of guilty bars a subsequent Fourth Amendment challenge. See, e.g., United States v Cox, 464 F2d 937 (CA 6, 1972); People v Riley, 88 Mich App 727; 279 NW2d 303 (1979) (nolo plea); People v Hill, 86 Mich App 706; 273 NW2d 532 (1978) (nolo plea). Under the test enunciated in this opinion, those decisions would be approved.

 In the instant case, defendant pled guilty of perjury and attempted delivery of heroin. In exchange, the prosecutor moved to dismiss the charge of delivery of heroin.

 See People v Hall, 97 Mich App 143; 293 NW2d 742 (1980).

 See also People v Webb, 89 Mich App 50; 279 NW2d 573 (1979), where the Court of Appeals held that defendant’s plea of guilty did not waive his right to object to the failure to hold a revocation hearing before his youthful trainee status was revoked. The court seemed to apply a quasi-jurisdictional test to reach its result; it noted that without a hearing, criminal charges could not be reinstated against the defendant.

 Therefore, we disagree with the conclusion in Alvin Johnson that defenses relating to "failure to suppress illegally obtained evidence without which the people could not proceed” are not waived by a guilty plea. See, however, People v Riley, supra, 732, where Judge Riley, dissenting in part, argues convincingly that forcing a defendant to go to trial merely to preserve such a Fourth Amendment challenge undercuts the goal of judicial economy.
This analysis intimates no opinion regarding the propriety of the qualified (conditional) plea procedure in which the defendant and prosecutor agree that certain specified issues may be preserved for appeal as part of the plea agreement.

 See also People v Hall, supra, where the Court of Appeals held that defendant’s failure to object to a lack of a preliminary examination before he pled guilty barred him from raising the issue on appeal.

 Under the objective test as defined in Michigan, defendant need not admit guilt to raise an entrapment claim. People v D’Angelo, 401 Mich 167; 257 NW2d 655 (1977).

 In this sense, entrapment falls between a challenge based on the unconstitutionality of the statute under which defendant is charged and one based on double jeopardy. When the unconstitutionality of the statute is questioned, defendant is alleging that the act he committed is not a crime. Journigan v Duffy, 552 F2d 283 (CA 9, 1977). When defendant raises a double jeopardy claim, he does not dispute the commission of a crime but protests the state’s ability to charge him for the act. In the case of entrapment, defendant agrees that there has been criminal activity but alleges that but for impermissible police involvement, there would have been no crime.

 Thus, the reasoning of People v Bonner, 102 Mich App 514; 302 NW2d 253 (1980), which held that the right to raise an entrapment claim is waived by a guilty plea, is specifically disapproved.
See also Eaton v United States, 458 F2d 704 (CA 7, 1972), and Williams v State, 437 SW2d 82 (Mo, 1969), where both courts, essentially without analysis, also held that a plea of guilty precludes appeal on the entrapment issue. In these cases, the courts used the subjective test for entrapment, which focuses on defendant’s "predisposition” to engage in criminal activity. Even if the difference in the test used would not lead to a different result, we disagree with the holdings of these cases.

 Apparently this ride was obtained at the defendant’s request.

 The price paid to defendant for the heroin was $65 per gram. White was given a total of $200 to cover the cost of three grams and gasoline for the trip to Detroit.