People v. Anderson

295 N.W.2d 488, 409 Mich. 474, 1980 Mich. LEXIS 247
CourtMichigan Supreme Court
DecidedAugust 28, 1980
Docket60502, (Calendar No. 1)
StatusPublished
Cited by50 cases

This text of 295 N.W.2d 488 (People v. Anderson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Michigan Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Anderson, 295 N.W.2d 488, 409 Mich. 474, 1980 Mich. LEXIS 247 (Mich. 1980).

Opinion

Levin, J.

After the prosecution had examined some, but not all, of its witnesses in a murder case, the trial judge, over vigorous prosecutorial objection, accepted Anderson’s plea of guilty to the charge of manslaughter, dismissed the murder charge and discharged the jury. The prosecution seeks, by this appeal, the opportunity to retry Anderson on a charge of first-degree murder. The issue is whether retrial is barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause. 1

We hold:

*479 The trial judge’s action represented a resolution of "some or all of the factual elements” of the murder charge and was therefore an acquittal for double jeopardy purposes, barring reprosecution. It is irrelevant that the acquittal

a) was not so denominated by the trial judge,

b) may have been erroneous both procedurally and in terms of the questions of law on which it was founded, and

c) came about with defendant’s cooperation and consent.

I

Elva Jean Anderson was charged with first-degree murder. Willie Young testified that he saw her shoot and kill Willie Ray Russell. 2

Young, a doorman at a hotel, testified that Barbara Golden and Russell came to the hotel and went to the front desk. Golden kept looking "funny” at Young. She talked with the desk clerk and with Young. After Young said, "You turn around and go on back out the door. I don’t want no trouble in here”, Russell left the hotel. Golden made a telephone call, and then waited with Young in the hallway of the hotel.

About 20 minutes later, a taxicab pulled up and two passengers stepped out; Anderson was one of them. Golden ran up to Anderson, who slapped her. Anderson, Golden and the other person who had arrived in the cab walked around the side of the hotel. About two to three minutes later, Young saw Anderson pull a shotgun out of her "britches” and open the door to the car in which Russell was *480 now sitting. A brief conversation ensued, Young heard Golden say "don’t shoot him”, and then he heard a shot. After the shot, Young heard Anderson say "[m]otherfucker, I bet you won’t try to rape nobody else”.

Anderson was bound over on a charge of first-degree murder. A pretrial motion to quash was denied.

At trial, the prosecution had presented its first five witnesses, but had not yet completed presenting its case, when the judge entertained a motion for reduction of bond. Over the prosecutor’s objection the judge granted Anderson’s release on personal bond, stating that "the proofs [of murder] in this case are not strong”.

Thereupon, an off-the-record side bar conversation was held with counsel. Immediately thereafter, following an apparently brief conversation between Anderson and her counsel, she offered to plead guilty to a charge of manslaughter.

Over the prosecutor’s objection, the judge proceeded to take Anderson’s guilty plea, advising her of her rights and establishing a factual basis for her plea. She said that Golden was her lover and had called her saying that a man was waiting outside the hotel with a gun and was trying to rape her and asked Anderson to come pick her up. Anderson said that she brought her shotgun because she believed Golden when she said that a man with a gun was waiting outside the hotel and was trying to rape her. Anderson said that she approached the car in which Russell was sitting because she believed that he had attempted and still intended to rape Golden. She asked Russell to get out of the car, "because I didn’t want to shoot him”, and repeated the request several times. Anderson thought that Russell "was digging for a *481 gun or something” and when he didn’t come out she shot him.

The judge accepted Anderson’s plea to the charge of manslaughter, said he was dismissing the "charges of murder in the first degree and murder in the second degree” and discharged the jury. 3

The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded for trial on first-degree murder. It held that the judge was not. authorized to accept a plea to a lesser offense and dismiss the murder charge over the prosecutor’s objection, and declared that "no double jeopardy question arises”.

n

The people contend, relying on Genesee Prosecutor I 4 and Genesee Prosecutor II, 5 that the Court of Appeals correctly found that the judge erred in dismissing the murder charge. Anderson claims that the Double Jeopardy Clause bars further prosecution for murder whether the judge erred or not. We agree that reprosecution is constitutionally impermissible.

In Genesee Prosecutor I this Court held that a judge is not authorized, over the prosecutor’s objection, to accept a plea of guilty of an offense not charged or included in the information or indictment. Genesee Prosecutor II enlarged this holding and declared that a judge cannot, over the prosecutor’s objection, accept a plea of guilty of a lesser included offense and dismiss the charge of the *482 greater offense; we set aside a plea of guilty of manslaughter and remanded for trial on the charged offense of murder. In those cases, however, the plea was offered and the charge dismissed before trial and impaneling of a jury. We noted that there was no double jeopardy issue in Genesee Prosecutor II because the defendant "has not been tried for murder”. 6

The judge’s actions in accepting a plea of guilty of the lesser offense of manslaughter and dismissing the murder charge appear to have been violative of Genesee Prosecutor II. It is, however, a separate question, one controlled by the decisions of the United States Supreme Court, whether the Double Jeopardy Clause would be violated by a retrial of Anderson for murder after jeopardy had attached in respect to that charge. We conclude (Part III, infra) that the Double Jeopardy Clause would be violated by retrial because the judge made a factual determination upon the prosecutor’s proofs that one or more elements of murder could not be established. This is true notwithstanding that the judge’s acceptance of a plea to a lesser offense over the prosecutor’s objection appears to have violated the specific dictates of Genesee Prosecutor II.

A

The constitutional protections of the Double Jeopardy Clause are implicated only when jeopardy has "attached”. Jeopardy attaches in a jury trial when the jury has been impaneled and sworn. 7

The Clause secures the defendant’s interests in *483 (1) the finality of judgments, 8

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Bluebook (online)
295 N.W.2d 488, 409 Mich. 474, 1980 Mich. LEXIS 247, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-anderson-mich-1980.