Court Opinion

ID: 9665840
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 00:58:04.095155+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:15.174880
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing
Levin, P. J.
Shortly after our decision was announced in this case our attention was directed by the State Appellate Defenders’ Office to the opinion of the Supreme Court of Michigan in People v. Morton (1970), 384 Mich 38. There the Supreme Court ruled that the statute under which defendants Nichols and Scott were convicted was restricted to situations where possession of the stolen automobile is coupled “with intent to fraudulently transfer title” and that the portion of the statute prohibiting possession of a motor vehicle knowing or having reason to know it has been stolen “must either be treated as surplusage or deemed inconsistent with the intent of the statute and deleted from it”.
*70We ordered a rehearing (see People v. Smith [1932], 260 Mich 486) and asked the prosecutor to file a brief addressed to the question of whether the defendants’ convictions should be reversed in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Morton.
In the prosecutor’s responsive brief he concedes that in this case “there was no attempt or intent to pass title”. There was, thus, insufficient evidence to convict the defendants of violating the statute under which they were convicted. The prosecutor, nevertheless, contends that the defendants’ convictions should not be reversed. He contends that the Supreme Court placed a new construction on the statute which should not apply to cases already decided, even those still pending on appeal.1
In People v. Townsend (1970), 25 Mich App 357, 361, 362 — a case pending on appeal when a new rule of law was announced — we held that the defendants were not required to have challenged the Federal Constitutionality of the proviso to the Michigan Constitution (excepting narcotics and certain dangerous weapons seized outside the curtilage of a dwelling from the exclusionary rule making illegally-seized evidence inadmissible at trial) in order to preserve their right to the benefit of decisions announced after their trial holding the proviso unconstitutional.2 We observed:
“In a number of cases the courts have held that a defendant in a criminal case is entitled on direct appeal of his conviction to the benefit of a new rule of law declared after his trial even though he did not preserve the issue by timely raising the question at *71the trial level. The courts have reasoned that a defendant should not be required to anticipate over-rulings or be compelled to make the futile gesture of raising issues to preserve his direct appellate rights in the event of an overruling decision.
“In Bricker v. Green (1946), 313 Mich 218, the Michigan Supreme Court overruled the doctrine that imputed the negligence of a driver to his guest passenger. Shortly thereafter, on the authority of Bricker, the Court reversed three other decisions pending on appeal when it was decided. Upon an examination of the records in those cases, it appears that the imputed negligence doctrine was not challenged at the trial level in any of the three cases and that in only one of the cases did the appellant seek overruling of the doctrine in his brief filed with the Supreme Court.”
In People v. Mutch (1971), 4 Cal 3d 389, 395, 396 (93 Cal Rptr 721, 482 P2d 633), the Supreme Court of California ruled that a prisoner whose conviction had become final was entitled to be discharged in post-conviction proceedings where it appeared that the evidence was insufficient to convict him under a new construction of á kidnapping statute enunciated in a decision of the Court filed after his conviction had become final. The Court observed that, in contrast with the kinds of cases where the retroactivity/prospectivity question had so often recently been considered by the United States Supreme Court, its decision construing a California kidnapping statute did not change any “evidentiary or procedural rules, less still penalize improper police practices; instead, it confirmed a substantive definition of crime duly promulgated by the Legislature”. The Court reasoned that since the conduct of which the defendant had been convicted was never proscribed by the statute under which he had been *72convicted, “finality for purpose of appeal is no bar to relief”.
In Watts v. United States (1969), 394 US 705 (89 S Ct 1399, 22 L Ed 2d 664), the Supreme Court of the United States for the first time construed the statute making- it an offense knowingly and willfully to threaten the life of the President of the United States; in reversing Watts’ conviction, the court distinguished between political hyperbole and a true threat. Subsequently, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in Alexander v. United States (1969), 135 App DC 367 (418 F2d 1203, 1205, 1206), reversed Alexander’s conviction because the jury instructions in Alexander’s case were not in conformity with the new construction placed on the statute by the United States Supreme Court. In holding that the changed construction of the statute required a new trial even though there has been no objection at the trial level to the instructions as given, the Court of Appeals declared:
“True it is that in the absence of objection before the jury retires to deliberate, we normally do not notice errors in the charge. But in resolving appeals we are ‘bound to consider any change, either in fact or in law, which has supervened since judgment was entered.’ Where the trial court has followed case law then but no longer prevailing, ‘our disposition is uninhibited by the requirement that issues proffered on appeal must normally be raised and decided initially in the trial court.’ ”
Similarly see State v. Strickland (1970), 112 NJ Super 425 (271 A2d 605)3 and Hays v. State (1965), 240 Md 482 (214 A2d 573)4.
*73We are convinced that the defendants, Nichols and Scott, are entitled to the benefit of the Michigan Supreme Court’s construction in Morton of the statute under which they were convicted. Since the people concede that the evidence is insufficient to support a conviction under the statute as there construed, their convictions must he reversed and they must he discharged.
Reversed.
All concurred.

 Our order was entered within the twenty-day period within which an application for rehearing can be filed.

 Compare People v. Hampton (1971), 384 Mich 669, where the Michigan Supreme Court dealt with the retroactivity/prospectivity question in a case where the issue had been properly preserved at the trial level.

 In Strickland,, the defendant was sentenced to state prison for issuing worthless cheeks, three of which were in amounts less than $200 and nine of which were for $200 or more. After the defendant was sentenced, a New Jersey appellate court ruled that, as to the nine *73checks over $200 each, the defendant could not be convicted under an omnibus statute prohibiting the obtaining of property or money by false pretenses and only could he convicted of the offense of issuing worthless checks in the amount of $200 or more on the principle that where there is a general statute and a specific statute covering a subject in a more minute and definitive way, the conflict should be resolved by considering the specific statute as prevailing over the general as an exception to it. The New Jersey court held that since the defendant’s appeal was pending at the time that the new construction was placed upon the omnibus statute he was entitled to the benefit of the new construction on the principle that “where a case is on direct review, defendant should be given the benefit of any changes in the case law which have occurred between the time of trial and the date of the appellate argument”.

 In Hays, after the defendant was convicted and while his case was pending on appeal, the state’s highest court overruled the doctrine prohibiting persons who did not profess a belief in the existence of God from serving on a jury. Although the defendant had not preserved the issue at the trial level, the Court said “that if a change in the law after conviction but before final judgment, including the final judgment of the highest court empowered to reverse the conviction, requires reversal of the judgment, the judgment will be reversed, because the decision must accord with the law as it is at the time of final judgment”.
Additionally, see Bell v. Maryland (1964), 378 US 226 (84 S Ct 1814, 12 L Ed 2d 822) (repeal of a statute); Lohman v. United States (CA 6 1958), 251 E2d 951 (the denial of a motion for production of a document was reversible error in the light of the United States Supreme Court’s ruling, after the trial but before the appeal was decided, in Jencks v. United States [1957], 353 US 657 [77 S Ct 1007, 1 L Ed 2d 1103]); People v. Nowicki (1971), 384 Mich 482, reversing People v. Nowicki (1969), 17 Mich App 525, on the authority of People v. Johns (1971), 384 Mich 325, even though the issue decided in Johns had not been preserved in Nowicki at the trial level or raised on appeal before our Court.