Court Opinion

ID: 9593141
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:20:00.877334+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:18.706049
License: Public Domain

Levin, J.
(concurring). We agree, for the reasons *644set forth in Judge Maher’s opinion,1 that the provision of the Mental Health Code,2 requiring that charges against a defendant determined incompetent to stand trial be dismissed fifteen months after the date on which the defendant was originally determined incompetent to stand trial, does not require an uninterrupted period of incompetence and may, as in this case, be comprised of a number of periods of incompetence, totaling fifteen months in duration and occurring after the original determination of incompetence.
The Mental Health Code further provides that if charges are so dismissed "and if the crime charged was punishable by a sentence of life imprisonment, the prosecutor may at any time petition the court for permission to again file charges.”3
The defendant, Willie Albert Miller, was charged with first-degree criminal sexual conduct.4 In the interval between arrest and trial Miller was adjudicated incompetent to stand trial for nearly twelve months, June, 1985, through June, 1986, and for an additional fourteen months, December, *6451986, through February, 1988, for a total of nearly twenty-six months.
In early 1988, Miller moved to dismiss on the basis of the statute. The judge denied the motion, and Miller was found competent to stand trial and was found by a jury to be guilty but mentally ill of first-degree criminal sexual conduct. He was sentenced to served ten to thirty years in prison with credit for 1,160 days served.
Under the circumstance that an earlier opinion of the Court of Appeals5 construed the statute as requiring fifteen consecutive months, and because Miller could again be charged and retried for first-degree criminal sexual conduct, a life-sentence offense, failure of the judge to grant Miller’s motion to dismiss was harmless.
Cavanagh, C.J., and Mallett, J., concurred with Levin, J.

 186 Mich App 238; 463 NW2d 250 (1990).

 The charges against a defendant determined incompetent to stand trial shall be dismissed:
Fifteen months after the date on which the defendant was originally determined incompetent to stand trial. [MCL 330.2044(1)(b); MSA 14.800(1044)(1)(b).]

 MCL 330.2044(3); MSA 14.800(1044)(3).
Subsection 1044(3) further provides:
In the case of other charges dismissed pursuant to subsection (1)(b), the prosecutor may, within that period of time after the charges were dismissed equal to Vi of the maximum sentence that the defendant could receive on the charges, petition the court for permission to again file charges.

 MCL 750.520b(1)(f); MSA 28.788(2)(1)(f).

 People v John, 129 Mich App 664; 341 NW2d 861 (1983).