Court Opinion

ID: 9691069
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 20:06:49.083985+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:09.845767
License: Public Domain

Cavanagh, J.
(dissenting). The majority states that it will not consider defendant’s assertion that the testimony of Officer Benden was inadmissible because it was designed to impeach the witness on a collateral matter because “[t]he record shows that no objection was made at trial on the grounds now asserted on appeal.” Ante at 684. Because the majority’s refusal to consider defendant’s argument is contrary to prior Michigan Supreme Court cases as well as federal law, I respectfully dissent.
First, People v Stanaway, 446 Mich 643, 693; 521 NW2d 557 (1994), stated that “a prosecutor may not use an elicited denial as a springboard for introducing substantive evidence under the guise of rebutting the denial. People v Bennett, 393 Mich 445; 224 NW2d 840 (1975).” Therefore, Stanaway itself relied on the collateral-matter rule asserted in Bennett. As stated several times in Stanaway, the only objection to the impeachment testimony was on hearsay grounds. The Court stated:
*689While the prosecutor could have presented defendant’s alleged admission by way of the nephew’s statement, he could not have delivered it by way of the officer’s testimony because the statement would be impermissible hearsay.
[Id. at 693 (emphasis added).]
Second, in Bennett, supra, the exact position relied on by the majority was specifically rejected by the Bennett majority. The dissent in Bennett tried to make the same assertion the majority now makes when it stated that “[d]efense counsel objected to the rebuttal testimony in question, but only in general terms. He did not' raise the [collateral] rationale in objection. In the absence of specifically framed objection, the trial court permitted defendant rebuttal .. . .” Id. at 452. However, this did not stop the Court from holding that the prosecution cannot elicit a denial from a witness on a material matter so that it can later introduce evidence in rebuttal.
Finally, even the federal court case cited by the majority, People v Ince, 21 F3d 576 (CA 4, 1994), disallowed a collateral attack where the only .objection was on hearsay grounds. The court stated:
[T]he trial judge should have recognized the Government’s tactic for what it was — an attempt to circumvent the hearsay rule and to infect the jury with otherwise inadmissible evidence of [the defendant’s] alleged confession. [Id. at 582.]
The entire reason that the matter in this case was collateral is because it involved a hearsay statement that otherwise would have been inadmissible. To hold that an objection on hearsay grounds was not specific enough flies in the face of Michigan Supreme Court *690precedent as well as federal law. For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.
Kelly, J., concurred with Cavanagh, J.