People v. Fisher

559 N.W.2d 318, 220 Mich. App. 133
CourtMichigan Court of Appeals
DecidedFebruary 25, 1997
DocketDocket 167938
StatusPublished
Cited by21 cases

This text of 559 N.W.2d 318 (People v. Fisher) 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. Fisher, 559 N.W.2d 318, 220 Mich. App. 133 (Mich. Ct. App. 1997).

Opinions

White, P.J.

Defendant, Dr. Charles Fisher, was tried on charges of inciting perjury, MCL 750.425; MSA 28.667, and attempted obstruction of justice, the latter offense charged pursuant to MCL 750.505; MSA 28.773, which provides for punishment of offenses indictable at common law, and MCL 750.92; MSA 28.287, the statute regarding attempts to commit crime. A jury convicted defendant of inciting perjury. He appeals, challenging whether venue was proper in Wayne County, the admission of evidence claimed to be hearsay, and the prosecutor’s conduct. We affirm.

i

It is undisputed that defendant’s wife was murdered in 1984 in the home she shared with defendant in Wayne County. Defendant was tried and convicted of that murder in 1984 in Detroit Recorder’s Court. The conviction was set aside by the trial court and defendant was retried and convicted in 1988. Defendant was then imprisoned in Jackson from April 1988 to June 1990, during which time his appeal of the second conviction was pending and the incidents underlying the instant case occurred. On November 25, 1991, defendant’s second conviction was reversed by the Michigan Supreme Court and the case was [136]*136remanded to the Detroit Recorder’s Court for a new trial. People v Fisher, 439 Mich 884; 476 NW2d 889 (1991).

In January 1993, defendant was charged in the instant case by a two-count felony complaint, which stated, inter alia, that defendant had been convicted and was sentenced to life in prison on April 1, 1988, and that while confined at Jackson Prison between 1988 and 1990 defendant had an appeal pending, which included a remand to the Detroit Recorder’s Court for evidentiary hearings conducted in 1989, as well as other postconviction motions heard in 1988 and 1989. With regard to the inciting perjury count, the complaint stated that defendant knowingly attempted to persuade, incite, and procure R.B. (Ricardo Bush) to swear to a false affidavit for use by defendant’s appellate attorney in legal pleadings that would either further defendant’s appeal of his murder conviction or be used to help him obtain a new trial. The complaint stated under the attempted obstruction of justice count that defendant attempted to interfere with the orderly administration of justice by “knowingly, willfully, and corruptly attempting to interfere with the proper and legitimate criminal investigation and prosecution of the murder case of People v Charles Ray Fisher [Wayne County Circuit Court No. 88-500087].”

At the June 1993 trial of this case, Ricardo Bush testified that he was an inmate at Jackson State Prison in 1988, where he met defendant while both were in quarantine before being placed inside the prison. Bush was serving time for violating probation and breaking and entering and was a convicted fourth-offense habitual criminal. According to Bush, [137]*137he and defendant discussed why they were in prison, exchanged presentence reports, and defendant initially told him he did not commit the murder, but, rather, he had been home by himself when some “black guys” came in, knocked him out, and tied him up, later doing the same to his wife when she came home. Bush testified that he told defendant that defendant should either find out who actually murdered his wife or pay someone to confess to the crime. After both men left quarantine, Bush was sent to maximum security, where he received a note from defendant asking him to find someone who would do what they had talked about. Bush was later placed in the same security level as defendant and saw defendant in the recreation yard, where defendant asked Bush if he knew anyone who would say he broke into the Fisher house.

Bush testified that he told defendant that he would do it for $1,500, and defendant agreed. Bush told defendant that $500 was for Bush, and $1,000 was for his rap partner, Anthony Smith. Bush testified that, in reality, he did not have a rap partner, and had lied to defendant. The arrangement was that defendant would pay Bush in dollar tokens, which inmates could draw every two weeks.

Bush testified that defendant started giving him details of the house, “things that only the police and the criminal would know.” Bush testified that defendant described his Canton home as being ranch-style, with a swimming pool, and bushes in the front. He told Bush that there were beer cans left at the scene of the crime, a point only the police and person who broke in would know, and which was not in the police reports. Bush testified that over the course of a [138]*138few months, defendant told him other details of the crime and crime scene, and gave him a sketch of the layout of the home. Bush no longer had the sketch. Defendant told Bush that the Fisher dog left from the garage, that there were boxes in the garage, and that there was a beer can left on the counter. He also told him about the layout of the house. Bush testified that defendant told him to say that a “white guy” had driven Bush and Smith out to the home during the day, that they returned that night and, after the crime, left the defendant’s truck near Tiger Stadium. Bush testified that defendant told him that the perpetrators had entered through an unlocked door, that when defendant came out of the bedroom, the perpetrators had jumped him and taped him up, and that the perpetrators had then sat around drinking and ransacked the house. When defendant’s wife arrived, the perpetrators did the same to her, robbed her of money and plane tickets in her purse, and drove away in defendant’s truck after leaving her on the living room floor.

Bush further testified that the arrangement was that, in return for the $1,500, Bush would sign an affidavit under oath and send it to defendant’s attorney, the affidavit stating that Bush had committed the crime and did not want to see the wrong guy go to jail. Bush testified that, eventually, defendant admitted that he was responsible for killing his wife and that he had done it because she was running off and leaving him for a cousin. Bush testified that defendant told him that if Bush confessed to the crime he would be convicted only of manslaughter and would not receive an additional sentence. Bush said he received about three hundred dollar tokens from defendant. He further testified that Christina Smith, a pen buddy [139]*139of his, was aware of the arrangement between Bush and defendant, as were two inmates, Eric Docket and William Mundy. Bush testified that as a result of his agreement with the prosecutor to testify, he would receive three years off the ten- to fifteen-year sentence he was serving.

Bush said that he last received money from defendant in 1988, that he and defendant eventually broke ties because Bush was not going to sign the affidavit and they stopped running into each other, and that he had no further contact with defendant after he left Jackson Prison. Bush testified that he next heard about defendant when he read a newspaper article stating that defendant had won his appeal and that he, Bush, then wrote the Wayne County Prosecutor because he had been in jail for ten years and seeing a man he knew had killed somebody get out of jail “didn’t sit well” with him. Bush testified that he received no response to his first letter, which he had sent to the wrong address, and that he wrote a second letter in which he mentioned the beer cans. He was eventually taken from prison to speak to two prosecutors and a detective.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
559 N.W.2d 318, 220 Mich. App. 133, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-fisher-michctapp-1997.