People v. Charles Johnson

233 N.W.2d 246, 62 Mich. App. 240, 1975 Mich. App. LEXIS 1052
CourtMichigan Court of Appeals
DecidedJune 23, 1975
DocketDocket 19594
StatusPublished
Cited by21 cases

This text of 233 N.W.2d 246 (People v. Charles Johnson) 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 v. Charles Johnson, 233 N.W.2d 246, 62 Mich. App. 240, 1975 Mich. App. LEXIS 1052 (Mich. Ct. App. 1975).

Opinion

*242 Danhof, P. J.

Defendant pled guilty to a charge of assault with intent to commit a felony, MCLA 750.87; MSA 28.282. He was sentenced to 5 to 10 years in prison, and he appeals raising one issue. We affirm.

On September 11, 1971, the defendant escaped from the Southern Michigan State Prison at Jackson where he was serving a sentence for a previous felony conviction. He proceeded to Livingston County in the company of a fellow escapee where they encountered a woman in a service station. They forced her at knife point to accompany them while they drove to Detroit in her car. During the ride, the young woman was able to drop a note from the car; the state police were alerted and the defendant and his associate were arrested.

On January 27, 1972, the defendant pled guilty to a charge of prison escape, MCLA 750.193; MSA 28.390, in Jackson County Circuit Court. He was sentenced to a term of from 1 to 5 years in prison. He was also charged with kidnapping, MCLA 750.349; MSA 28.581, and armed robbery, MCLA 750.529; MSA 28.797, in Livingston County. Some uncertainty concerning the proper forum in which to bring these charges was resolved by this Court in People v Riley, 45 Mich App 338; 206 NW2d 458 (1973).

Thereafter, on June 19, 1973, defendant was allowed to plead guilty in Livingston County Circuit Court to an added count of assault with intent to commit a felony. The kidnapping and armed robbery charges were dismissed. Defendant filed a motion to set aside the plea arguing for the first time that further prosecution following his prison escape conviction was barred by the double jeopardy provisions of the Federal and Michigan Constitutions, US Const, Am V; Const 1963, art 1, §15.

*243 The double jeopardy assertion was not made before or at the plea-taking proceeding. The Michigan Supreme Court has held that a claim of double jeopardy is waived if not raised before or during trial. People v Powers, 272 Mich 303; 261 NW 543 (1935), People v McDonald, 306 Mich 65; 10 NW2d 309 (1943), cited in People v Cooper, 58 Mich App 284, 290; 227 NW2d 319 (1975). Additionally, it appears that the defendant offered to plead guilty at a time when all charges were pending, and that he therefore waived his right to a single trial. See People v Goans, 59 Mich App 294; 229 NW2d 422 (1975). Nevertheless, to avoid further uncertainty in the present case, we will evaluate the defendant’s double jeopardy claim in light of the same transaction test.

The Michigan Supreme Court in People v White, 390 Mich 245; 212 NW2d 222 (1973), adopted the same transaction test as the required standard to be applied when examining a claim of double jeopardy. As seen by our Supreme Court, the same transaction test consists of two elements; , it must appear that "the crimes were committed in a continuous time sequence”, and they must "display a single intent and goal”. People v White, supra, 390 Mich at 259.

In White, the defendant was convicted of kidnapping following a jury trial in Wayne County Circuit Court, and subsequently was convicted of rape and felonious assault in Detroit Recorder’s Court. The Supreme Court held that the second trial was improper and reversed the rape and felonious assault convictions because the crimes "were all part of a single criminal transaction” and that they shared a common objective, "sexual intercourse with the complainant”.

Decisions of this Court applying the White same *244 transaction test have also required the close, unified purpose relationship between the crimes, and have demanded that the defendant support his double jeopardy claim by demonstrating a direct factual connection, not mere temporal happenstance. For example, in People v Rolston, 51 Mich App 146; 214 NW2d 894 (1974), lv den, 392 Mich 762 (1974), a barmaid was kidnapped and robbed in Wayne County and taken to Washtenaw County where she was raped and murdered. Defendant was convicted of murder in Washtenaw County and later tried and convicted of kidnapping in Wayne County. On appeal, the kidnapping conviction was reversed in an opinion which acknowledged the then very recent Supreme Court decision in White, and which restated the standard as found in the opinion of this Court in People v White, 41 Mich App 370; 200 NW2d 326 (1972). "It was held in White that where a defendant has one objective and commits several crimes in preparing for and attaining that objective, only one prosecution may be brought.”

Again, the closely related crimes of kidnapping and rape were considered in conjunction with the double jeopardy test in People v Joines, 55 Mich App 334; 222 NW2d 230 (1974). The defendant there had been acquitted on a charge of kidnapping in Genesee County. He was thereafter convicted of assault with intent to rape in Livingston County. The later conviction was reversed by this Court which concluded that as in White, both crimes were part of one criminal transaction, committed in a continuous time sequence and with the single intent and goal of sexual intercourse with the complainant.

Another group of cases in which application of the same transaction test required reversal of *245 subsequent convictions involved less serious offenses. The defendant in People v Davenport (On Remand), 51 Mich App 484; 215 NW2d 702 (1974), lv den, 392 Mich 761 (1974), offered resistance when an officer attempted to arrest him for being a disorderly person. He was acquitted on a disorderly person charge, but later he was tried and convicted of resisting arrest. This conviction was reversed upon application of the White rule:

"As in People v White, supra, the two crimes with which defendant was charged were committed, if committed at all, in a continuous time sequence and in pursuit of a single intent or goal. When a police officer stopped defendant for a traffic infraction, defendant allegedly refused to cooperate with him and directed obscene epithets at him, and then, when the officer attempted to arrest defendant because of those epithets, defendant refused to submit peacefully. The continuousness of the time sequence is obvious. The unity of intent is also readily apparent — a refusal to submit to a police officer’s authority.” 51 Mich App at 486.

Quoting the statement of the standard from Davenport, this Court in People v West, 54 Mich App 527; 221 NW2d 179 (1974), ruled that a motion to quash a resisting arrest charge should have been granted where the defendant had entered a plea of nolo contendere to a charge of being a disorderly person. Even though this case involved a plea, the Court found that the presence of the dual elements of a continuous time sequence and the unity of intent brought the case within the White rule as applied in Davenport.

In contrast to the result reached in these decisions, the White

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Bluebook (online)
233 N.W.2d 246, 62 Mich. App. 240, 1975 Mich. App. LEXIS 1052, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-charles-johnson-michctapp-1975.