Court Opinion

ID: 9704097
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 00:21:45.21224+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:56.368449
License: Public Domain

O’Hara, J.
(concurring in result). I agree with my associates that this conviction should be affirmed. I agree also that the instruction concerning *50the lesser included offense of "attempted possession of a blackjack” need not have been given, but not only for the reasons assigned by them.
I am in complete accord with the position of the prosecution that there simply is no such offense in Michigan as "attempt to possess a blackjack”. I was wrong when I signed the per curiam opinion in People v Miller, 25 Mich App 586 (1970). I mistakenly relied upon People v Webb, 127 Mich 29 (1901), cited in Miller.
The statement ascribed to Webb, "every charge of crime necessarily includes an attempt”, cannot possibly be reconciled by a later modifying statement relating to the following statutory provision:
" 'Every person who shall attempt to commit an offense prohibited by law, and in such attempt shall do any act towards the commission of such offense, but shall fail in the perpetration, or shall be intercepted or prevented in the execution, of the same, when no express provision is made by law for the punishment of such attempt, shall be punished as follows.’ ” (Webb, supra, p 31.)
The Court then went on to say in this regard,
"We have held that this section is declaratory of the common law, and does not change the common-law rule as to what constitutes an attempt to commit an offense.” (Emphasis supplied.)
The common law, to my knowledge, never declared that there was an offense of "attempting” to possess something.
With penitence I confess that, as to the matter of all offenses including an attempt, People v Patskan, 29 Mich App 354, 357 (1971), states the proper interpretation of the statute.
"Defendant relies on MCLA § 768.32 (Stat Ann 1954 *51Rev § 28.1055), which provides: 'Upon an indictment for any offense, consisting of different degrees, as prescribed in this chapter, the jury may find the accused * * * guilty * * * of an attempt to commit such offense.’ A reasonable interpretation of this statute forces the conclusion that it was not meant to apply to all crimes.”
The same reasoning should have applied in Miller, and it applies here. Either an accused possesses a blackjack or he doesn’t. If he possesses it (in the legal sense), the offense is completed. If he doesn’t possess it in the same sense, he has not violated the statute.
If I can console myself at all, I simply say, "Errare humaxmm est; sed erroribus cognovimus. ”
I, too, vote to affirm.