People v. Danto

294 Mich. App. 596
CourtMichigan Court of Appeals
DecidedNovember 8, 2011
DocketDocket Nos. 302986, 302991, 303064, and 303525
StatusPublished
Cited by134 cases

This text of 294 Mich. App. 596 (People v. Danto) 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. Danto, 294 Mich. App. 596 (Mich. Ct. App. 2011).

Opinions

MARKEY, RJ.

In these four consolidated, interlocutory appeals both the prosecution and defendants, Michael Danto and Andrew Nater, appeal the trial court’s pretrial evidentiary rulings. In Docket No. 302986 (Danto) and Docket No. 302991 (Nater), the prosecution appeals by leave granted the trial court’s order denying its motion to admit evidence of other acts committed by the respective defendants. In Docket No. 303064 (Nater) and Docket No. 303525 (Danto), the respective defendants appeal by leave granted the trial court’s order granting the prosecution’s motion to preclude assertion of the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act (MMA), MCL 333.26421 et seq.,1 as an affirmative defense and to preclude reference to the MMA at trial. Danto also appeals the trial court’s order denying his motion for an evidentiary hearing and to dismiss under the provisions of the MMA. We affirm the trial court’s orders in Docket Nos. 303064 and 303525, reverse the trial court’s orders in Docket Nos. 302986 and 302991, and remand for further proceedings.

In Docket No. 302986, the prosecution argues that the trial court abused its discretion by barring the admission of evidence of other acts Danto committed. We agree. We review a trial court’s evidentiary decisions [599]*599for an abuse of discretion. People v Martzke, 251 Mich App 282, 286; 651 NW2d 490 (2002). A trial court abuses its discretion when its decision falls outside the range of principled outcomes. People v Blackston, 481 Mich 451, 460; 751 NW2d 408 (2008).

MRE 404(b)(1) provides:

Evidence of other crimes, wrongs, or acts is not admissible to prove the character of a person in order to show action in conformity therewith. It may, however, be admissible for other purposes, such as proof of motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, scheme, plan, or system in doing an act, knowledge, identity, or absence of mistake or accident when the same is material, whether such other crimes, wrongs, or acts are contemporaneous with, or prior or subsequent to the conduct at issue in the case.

“To be admissible under MRE 404(b), bad-acts evidence must satisfy three requirements: (1) the evidence must be offered for a proper purpose; (2) the evidence must be relevant; and (3) the probative value of the evidence must not be substantially outweighed by [the danger of] unfair prejudice.” People v Kahley, 277 Mich App 182, 184-185; 744 NW2d 194 (2007). Also, the trial court, on request, may instruct the jury regarding the limited use of the evidence. People v Watson, 245 Mich App 572, 577; 629 NW2d 411 (2001).

Evidence relevant to a noncharacter purpose is admissible under MRE 404(b) even if it also reflects on a defendant’s character. Evidence is inadmissible under this rule only if it is relevant solely to the defendant’s character or criminal propensity. Stated another way, the rule is not exclusionary, but is inclusionary, because it provides a nonexhaustive list of reasons to properly admit evidence that may nonetheless also give rise to an inference about the defendant’s character. Any undue prejudice that arises because the evidence also unavoidably reflects the defendant’s character is then considered under the MRE 403 [600]*600balancing test, which permits the court to exclude relevant evidence if its “probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice .. .MRE 403. [People v Mardlin, 487 Mich 609, 615-616; 790 NW2d 607 (2010) (citations omitted).]

All relevant evidence is prejudicial; only unfairly prejudicial evidence may be excluded. People v McGhee, 268 Mich App 600, 613-614; 709 NW2d 595 (2005). “Unfair prejudice exists when there is a tendency that evidence with little probative value will be given too much weight by the jury.” Id. at 614. Unfair prejudice may arise where considerations extraneous to the merits of the case, such as jury bias, sympathy, anger, or shock, are injected. Id.

Here, the prosecution moved to admit evidence that on the same date that Danto and Nater’s residence was searched, officers executed a search warrant at a café in which marijuana was sold and smoked. At the café, Danto was found at a table with 323 grams of marijuana packaged for sale, hashish, THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) candy, packaging material, a scale, a tally sheet, a cell phone, and $2,434 in cash. A document in the cashbox at the front door of the café indicated that Danto had paid an entrance fee to sell marijuana at the café. The proper purposes for the evidence included estabhshing Danto’s knowledge of and control over the marijuana found in his residence. “Constructive possession of an illegal substance requires proof that the defendant knew of its character.” Id. at 610. Evidence is relevant if it has “any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence.” MRE 401. Danto was not present in the home when the search warrant was executed, and he contended that the small amount of marijuana found in his bedroom was within the amount permitted by the MMA. Therefore, whether Danto knew [601]*601about and controlled the larger amount of marijuana found in the living room was a material issue. Evidence that Danto was found in possession of a large quantity of marijuana that was packaged for sale identically to the marijuana found in the living room of his home on the same day would tend to make it more likely than not that he knew the substance in the living room was marijuana and that he controlled it.

The prosecution has identified the additional proper purpose of establishing Danto’s intent to distribute the marijuana. “[Possession with intent to distribute an illegal substance requires the specific intent to distribute.” McGhee, 268 Mich App at 610. In People v Williams, 240 Mich App 316, 324; 614 NW2d 647 (2000), this Court upheld the admission of evidence of the defendant’s prior drug transactions within five weeks before his arrest because “the evidence was directly relevant to intent, knowledge, and scheme, all of which were at issue in the case. The relevance was direct, in that there was a direct relationship between the prior sales and the crimes charged, and did not involve an impermissible intermediate inference to character.” And in People v Mouat, 194 Mich App 482, 484; 487 NW2d 494 (1992), this Court affirmed the admission of testimony about prior drug activity that showed the defendant’s intent to distribute cocaine. Here, a reasonable inference exists that the marijuana grown in Danto’s home was the source of the marijuana he possessed at the cafe given the identical packaging and the substantial number of plants being grown in the residence. Also, Danto’s packaging of the marijuana for sale and possession of other accouterments of drug trafficking at the café tends to increase the likelihood that he intended to distribute the marijuana found at his residence.

[602]*602The next question is whether the probative value of the evidence was substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice. As discussed, evidence is unfairly prejudicial when it tends to adversely affect the objecting party’s position by injecting extraneous considerations such as jury bias, sympathy, anger, or shock. McGhee, 268 Mich App at 614. No such extraneous considerations have been identified here.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
294 Mich. App. 596, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-danto-michctapp-2011.