People of Michigan v. James Donald Holkeboer

CourtMichigan Court of Appeals
DecidedApril 18, 2024
Docket365964
StatusUnpublished

This text of People of Michigan v. James Donald Holkeboer (People of Michigan v. James Donald Holkeboer) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Michigan Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People of Michigan v. James Donald Holkeboer, (Mich. Ct. App. 2024).

Opinion

If this opinion indicates that it is “FOR PUBLICATION,” it is subject to revision until final publication in the Michigan Appeals Reports.

STATE OF MICHIGAN

COURT OF APPEALS

PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, UNPUBLISHED April 18, 2024 Plaintiff-Appellee,

v No. 365964 Kent Circuit Court JAMES DONALD HOLKEBOER, LC No. 22-11187-FH

Defendant-Appellant.

Before: BOONSTRA, P.J., and FEENEY and YOUNG, JJ.

James Donald Holkeboer appeals by leave granted1 the trial court’s order denying his motion to quash his bindover. Holkeboer stands charged with election fraud for falsifying election returns or records, MCL 168.932(c), and using a computer to commit a crime, MCL 752.796. Principally at issue here is the first of his two charges and, specifically, the meaning of the words “remove” and “secrete” in MCL 168.932(c). In denying Holkeboer’s motion to quash his bindover, the trial court found that inserting one’s own flash drive into an election laptop and downloading a copy of the voter roll amounts to removing and/or secreting election records. We disagree. Therefore, we vacate and remand for the trial court to quash Holkeboer’s bindover.

I. BACKGROUND

Holkeboer was hired to work as an election inspector in the August 2022 primary election. He was assigned a precinct and, within that precinct, assigned a station. Holkeboer’s station job was to verify the identity of all individuals who came to vote and to assign each individual a voter number and a ballot number. For this work, Holkeboer’s station had a laptop computer. The laptop computer, which was not connected to the Internet, contained the electronic poll book. At the close of polls, election workers run several reports on their provided laptop computer, including a report that lists the name and ballot number of each voter, and save the reports to a secure USB

1 People v Holkeboer, unpublished order of the Court of Appeals, entered October 5, 2023 (Docket No. 365964).

-1- flash drive. Michael Grew, the clerk of Gaines Charter Township, received the secure flash drive from Holkeboer’s precinct.

Approximately two weeks after the election, an election worker from Holkeboer’s precinct reported to the Gaines Charter Township clerk’s office that after the poll closed, another election worker placed a personal USB flash drive into the provided election laptop computer and downloaded information from the computer. Clerk Grew reported the allegation to the Kent County Clerk and to the Kent County Sheriff. Grew gave the laptop computer and the secure USB flash drive to Detective Christopher Goehring of the Kent County Sheriff’s Department.

Detective Goehring met with Holkeboer and asked Holkeboer about the primary election. Holkeboer said that, toward the end of the day, he became “the electronic poll book worker.” His duties included running reports on the laptop computer after the poll closed and saving those reports to a secure flash drive. Holkeboer admitted that he placed his own personal flash drive into the laptop computer and exported a report detailing the election list of voters from the electronic poll book onto the flash drive. He explained that, either the night before the primary election or the morning of the election, he came up with the idea of trying to obtain records from the laptop computer and to compare those records with “a FOIA-able copy” that he would obtain from the clerk’s office after the election. Holkeboer had already filed his FOIA request with Grew for a list of all individuals who voted in the primary, and Grew honored the request. Detective Goehring had no information that any of the original files from the laptop computer were damaged or destroyed.2

The prosecutor charged Holkeboer with election fraud and using a computer to commit the crime of election fraud. The prosecutor argued at Holkeboer’s preliminary examination that in copying the voter roll to his personal USB flash drive, Holkeboer “fraudulently removed” an election list of voters. The prosecutor emphasized that Holkeboer accessed information from the laptop computer that was generally not accessible. It was irrelevant, the prosecutor argued, that Holkeboer’s conduct did not affect the election results.

Holkeboer countered that no crime was committed under MCL 168.932(c) because no election record was destroyed, mutilated, defaced, or falsified; no record was removed or secreted; and there were no false entries. Under the statute, Holkeboer argued, it was not a crime to “copy.” He also argued that if this crime could not be proven under MCL 168.932(c), he could not have used a computer to commit a crime under MCL 752.796.

The district court bound Holkeboer over on the two charges. The district court judge reasoned that while she “never sat down and read MCL 168.972 in detail,” she was nevertheless confident that Holkeboer’s actions, namely taking information that he had “no right to take,” was “exactly” what MCL 168.932(c) is “talking about.”

2 Detective Goehring sent the laptop computer and the secure flash drive to the Michigan State Police. At the time of Holkeboer’s preliminary examination, he was not aware of the results of any audits done on them.

-2- Holkeboer moved to quash this bindover. At the motion hearing, Holkeboer argued that the issue was whether “copying,” which is what he did, was “tantamount to removing or secreting.” According to Holkeboer, it was not; instead, the activity proscribed in MCL 168.932(c) was conduct—such as destroying, mutilating, defacing, and removing—that affects the integrity of the election record. There was no evidence, Holkeboer argued, to suggest that his act of copying the list of voters had any impact or effect on “the digital file itself.” The trial court denied Holkeboer’s motion to quash.

This Court granted Holkeboer’s application for leave to appeal. Because this case presents an issue of first impression as to the meaning of the language in MCL 168.932, it is to the statutory language we turn next.

II. STATUTORY LANGUAGE AND RULES OF INTERPRETATION

Holkeboer stands charged with violating MCL 168.932(c) and using a computer to commit that offense. We review the denial of his motion to quash for an abuse of discretion, but review interpretation of the underlying statute de novo. See People v Schaefer, 473 Mich 418, 427; 703 NW2d 774 (2005).

The relevant portion of MCL 168.932 provides:

A person who violates 1 or more of the following subdivisions is guilty of a felony:

* * *

(c) An inspector of election, clerk, or other officer or person having custody of any record, election list of voters, affidavit, return, statement of votes, certificates, poll book, or of any paper, document, or vote of any description, which pursuant to this act is directed to be made, filed, or preserved, shall not willfully destroy, mutilate, deface, falsify, or fraudulently remove or secrete any or all of those items, in whole or in part, or fraudulently make any entry, erasure, or alteration on any or all of those items, or permit any other person to do so. [Emphasis added.]

A review of this statute begins with its language. “If the statute’s language is clear and unambiguous, we assume that the Legislature intended its plain meaning, and we enforce the statute as written.” Reese v James, ___ Mich App ___, ___; ___ NW2d ___ (2023) (Docket No. 362140); slip op at 4 (citation omitted). Further, “[i]n reviewing the statute’s language, every word should be given meaning, and we should avoid a construction that would render any part of the statute surplusage or nugatory.” Id.

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Related

People v. Hill
786 N.W.2d 601 (Michigan Supreme Court, 2010)
People v. Schaefer
703 N.W.2d 774 (Michigan Supreme Court, 2005)
Feyz v. Mercy Memorial Hospital
719 N.W.2d 1 (Michigan Supreme Court, 2006)
People v. Miller
869 N.W.2d 204 (Michigan Supreme Court, 2015)
People v. O'Hara
270 N.W. 298 (Michigan Supreme Court, 1936)
Wardell v. Hincka
822 N.W.2d 278 (Michigan Court of Appeals, 2012)
People v. Pinkney
912 N.W.2d 535 (Michigan Supreme Court, 2018)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
People of Michigan v. James Donald Holkeboer, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-of-michigan-v-james-donald-holkeboer-michctapp-2024.