Court Opinion

ID: 9720236
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 08:21:40.334073+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:14.529748
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing
Holbrook, J.
(dissenting from order denying rehearing). In this cause a motion for rehearing, a motion to withhold, expunge and stay opinion is filed by the people and the defendant having filed an answer to both motions and Judge Levin and Judge *522Bronson having issued an order denying both motions and the writer feeling compelled to dissent: I would order that the motion for rehearing be granted and that the motion to stay publication of the opinion until after the rehearing and a decision thereon be also granted.
The reasons for my dissent are: (1) the majority opinion in the ease improperly applies the law set forth in the case of People v. Earegood (1968), 12 Mich App 256, because in this case there is nothing in the record to indicate that the trial judge did or would give the defendant a longer minimum sentence in the event he stood trial before a jury; (2) the majority opinion is based upon a post-trial ex parte affidavit by defendant’s attorney. “The defendant’s attorney has submitted an affidavit which purports to record the disposition of every escape case filed in the Jackson county circuit court from January 1, 1967 through February 28, 1969.”1 This Court improperly considered the ex parte affidavit of defendant’s counsel when oral argument was heard by this Court. In the case of O’Connor v. O’Connor (1937), 281 Mich 640, 643, it is stated:
“An omission in the record cannot be supplied by an ex parte affidavit. This court does not consider such affidavit when filed. Wardle v. Cummings, 86 Mich 395, 404.
“We said in Zeilman v. Fry, 213 Mich 504:
“ ‘Cases in this court must be disposed of upon the record as made and not upon post-trial ex parte affidavits. People v. Pretswell, 202 Mich 1.’
“We do not consider matters dehors the record. Anderson v. Jersey Creamery Co., 278 Mich 396.”
In the case of McCarthy v. Wayne Circuit Judge (1940), 294 Mich 368, 374, it is stated:
*523“We are concerned on review only with questions properly presented by the record. Decisions on appeal cannot be motivated by extra-judicial matters.”
We have in the Jackson County Circuit, three circuit judges who are affected by the majority decision in this Court. None of them have been named as party defendants; none of them have been permitted to file a brief or make answer to this ex parte affidavit. As I pointed out in my dissenting opinion, the ex parte affidavit had no validity and should have been stricken from the record in our Court.
Also see, Rinke v. Rinke (1951), 330 Mich 615; City of Garden City v. Holland (1951), 331 Mich 566, 570; and Stein v. Stein (1942), 303 Mich 411, 415.

 Page 512, ante.