People of Michigan v. William Charles Ruleau

CourtMichigan Court of Appeals
DecidedSeptember 17, 2020
Docket347092
StatusUnpublished

This text of People of Michigan v. William Charles Ruleau (People of Michigan v. William Charles Ruleau) 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. William Charles Ruleau, (Mich. Ct. App. 2020).

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PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, UNPUBLISHED September 17, 2020 Plaintiff-Appellee,

v Nos. 347091; 347092 Menominee Circuit Court WILLIAM CHARLES RULEAU, LC Nos. 18-003932-FH; 18- 003933-FH Defendant-Appellant.

Before: REDFORD, P.J., and BECKERING and M. J. KELLY, JJ.

PER CURIAM.

Defendant, William Charles Ruleau, appeals as of right his jury convictions of breaking and entering a building with intent to commit a larceny, MCL 750.110(1), and possession of burglar’s tools, MCL 750.116.1 The trial court, applying a fourth-offense habitual offender enhancement under MCL 769.12, sentenced defendant to 6 to 30 years in prison for breaking and entering and to a concurrent term of 5 to 30 years in prison for possession of burglar’s tools. We affirm.

Defendant’s convictions arose from a breaking and entering that occurred at a woodworking business in Menominee in September 2017. The perpetrator broke into a building, used a tire iron or crow bar to break into cabinet drawers, and stole approximately $800. A surveillance-video system captured the perpetrator committing the crimes, although the quality of the video was not particularly good. The dispute at trial centered on whether defendant, who had long hair and a long beard at the time of trial, was the clean-shaven perpetrator captured in the surveillance video. The prosecutor presented testimony from defendant’s first cousin, Gregory Ruleau (Gregory), that the person in the video was, in fact, defendant.

1 The two charges were assigned separate lower court docket numbers, but a single trial took place. The appellate briefs filed in Docket Nos. 347091 and 347092 are identical. This Court consolidated the appeals for administrative efficiency. People v Ruleau, unpublished order of the Court of Appeals, entered January 22, 2019 (Docket Nos. 347091 and 347092).

-1- I. ADMISSIBILITY OF IDENTIFICATION TESTIMONY

Defendant first contends that the trial court erred by allowing Gregory’s identification testimony at trial because Gregory was no more capable than the jury of identifying the perpetrator in the video. We disagree. We review for an abuse of discretion a trial court’s decision regarding the admission of evidence. People v Denson, 500 Mich 385, 396; 902 NW2d 306 (2017). “A trial court abuses its discretion when it chooses an outcome falling outside the range of principled outcomes.” People v Watkins, 491 Mich 450, 467; 818 NW2d 296 (2012). We review de novo, as a preliminary question of law, whether a rule precludes admission of evidence. See Denson, 500 Mich at 396.

The admissibility of Gregory’s testimony is governed by MRE 701, which states:

If the witness is not testifying as an expert, the witness’ testimony in the form of opinions or inferences is limited to those opinions or inferences which are (a) rationally based on the perception of the witness and (b) helpful to a clear understanding of the witness’ testimony or the determination of a fact in issue.

The federal evidentiary rule corresponding to MRE 701 is worded nearly identically to MRE 701; thus, federal precedent could be looked to in analyzing the Michigan rule. People v Fomby, 300 Mich App 46, 50; 831 NW2d 887 (2013). In United States v LaPierre, 998 F2d 1460, 1465 (CA 9, 1993), the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals stated that lay opinion testimony regarding the identity of a person in a photograph is permissible in two types of cases: those in which the witness has had substantial and sustained contact with the person in question, or those in which the person’s appearance differs in the photograph from how the person looks in court and the witness is familiar with the person’s appearance as depicted in the photograph. See also Fomby, 300 Mich App at 52. “ ‘The common thread binding these two types of cases is that in both there is reason to believe that the witness is more likely to identify correctly the person than is the jury.’ ” Id., quoting LaPierre, 998 F2d at 1465. The case at bar involves both scenarios.

The prosecutor sought a pretrial ruling regarding the admissibility of Gregory’s identification testimony. At the pretrial hearing, Gregory averred that he had known defendant, his first cousin, since defendant was born. He testified that defendant “grew up right next door to us” and that “[h]is parents lived next door to my parents” for about 10 years. He also testified that they worked together one summer on a fishing boat used in the company co-owned by their fathers and captained by Gregory. Defendant and Gregory worked off and on in the business until defendant was about 17 years old. Under questioning by the court, Gregory testified that he and defendant did not have a relationship after defendant moved from home; he would see defendant occasionally, perhaps less than twice a year, but did not approach him. Gregory said he saw defendant at defendant’s father’s funeral and at a family fishing event, both in the 1990s, and that he had seen defendant walking near the courthouse in the summer of 2016. Gregory stated that he was now 63 years old and defendant was now in his mid-fifties. In September 2017, a police officer showed up at Gregory’s door with video footage and asked if Gregory could identify the person in the footage. Gregory said that he “knew right away,” within “five seconds,” that the person was defendant. He claimed that it was not possible that it was someone else on the video and that he was “100 percent sure” that it was defendant. Defense counsel asked what distinguishing characteristics of the person in the video stood out, and Gregory mentioned

-2- defendant’s “profile” and his “big nose.” Gregory said that the police made no suggestion regarding who was in the video and that he had initially thought the video was related to a recent break-in at his own home. The court asked if defendant looked different in the video than he looked in court during the hearing, and Gregory said that in the video, defendant did not have as much head or facial hair and agreed that defendant “looks quite a bit different on the video than he does in court here today.”

The trial court’s ruling regarding the admissibility of Gregory’s testimony aligns with LaPierre. Gregory had substantial and sustained contact with defendant, and defendant looked different in the video and the still photographs derived from it than he did at the time of the proceedings, and Gregory was familiar with how defendant looked in the video (i.e., without as much hair). See LaPierre, 998 F2d at 1465.

Defendant contends that Gregory’s contact with defendant was too attenuated in time to be admissible. However, the record shows that the trial court considered whether the passage of time and other circumstances necessarily extinguished Gregory’s heightened ability to identify someone, in this instance his cousin, with whom he had had sustained and substantial contact. Gregory testified at the hearing that, although he and defendant had had a good relationship and spent a lot of time together 30 years ago, he had had little contact with defendant since 1998. He admitted that the two did not have a good relationship, but stated, “I’m not interested in causing anybody any harm.” Asked how he was able to identify defendant in the video, Gregory answered, “Well I’ve known him since he was born, and, I mean, I can tell who it is right now very well, so if you’re around somebody a long time, I think, they don’t change that much.”

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People of Michigan v. William Charles Ruleau, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-of-michigan-v-william-charles-ruleau-michctapp-2020.