People v. McCager

116 N.W.2d 205, 367 Mich. 116
Michigan Supreme Court·Decided July 2, 1962·No. Docket 83, Calendar 49,121·Published·Cited by 22 cases

Opinions

Souris, J.

By this appeal on leave granted we review denial of defendant’s motion to quash an information charging murder in the first degree, defendant’s claim being that his confession, solely upon which the information was based, was inadmissible in evidence against him. Neither at the preliminary examination, nor at the hearings on defendant’s motion to quash, was there offered any evidence that his confession was involuntarily extracted from him by physical or psychological brutality. Instead, defendant relies upon the claim that his detention for 4 days after arrest without a warrant and prior to arraignment was for the manifest purpose of affording the police an opportunity to extract from him the confession which he ultimately made and, therefore, that the confession was inadmissible as a matter of law within our ruling in People v. Hamilton, 359 Mich 410, because extracted from him during a period of unlawful detention.

Two years ago, in People v. Hamilton, supra, at p 417, this Court unanimously held that “an unnecessary and so unlawful delay of compliance with [119] either of said sections 13 and 26, [*] when done for prolonged interrogatory purposes and without proven justification of the delay, renders involuntary and so inadmissible whatever confessional admissions the detained person may have made while so unlawfully detained.”

Thus Michigan became the first State to adopt the exclusionary principle announced in McNabb v. United States, 318 US 332 (63 S Ct 608, 87 L ed 819), which the Federal courts are required to follow. See Culombe v. Connecticut, 367 US 568, 600 (81 S Ct 1860, 1878, 6 L ed 2d 1037, 1056), footnote 53 of Mr. Justice Frankfurter’s opinion; 7 Wayne L Rev 51, 60; and People v. Lundberg, 364 Mich 596, 604.

Our decision in Hamilton, adopting the exclusionary principle of McNabb, was planted not alone on the statutory requirements cited, but also upon Michigan’s own constitutional guarantee of due process. Const 1908, art 2, § 16. By guarding against “actual or inferential judicial sanction of procedures which are violative either of section 13 or section 26,” we also sought to assure an accused “the process that is due him,” p 419.

This appeal comes to us before trial by motion designed either to avoid trial entirely or to insure that, if a trial is held, defendant will not be put in jeopardy of conviction of first-degree murder by the use of a confession alleged by him to be inadmissible in evidence. Normally, when confessions are claimed to be inadmissible because obtained [120] against the confessor’s will by force, or threat of force, actual or more subtle, there are present disputed factual issues appropriately left for jury determination at the time of trial. People v. Barker, 60 Mich 277 (1 Am St Rep 501); People v. Owen, 154 Mich 571 (21 LRA NS 520); People v. Prestidge, 182 Mich 80; People v. Biossat, 206 Mich 334; People v. Foster, 211 Mich 486; People v. Podolski, 332 Mich 508, and opinion for affirmance in People v. Roberts, 364 Mich 60, 61. What we have here, however, is a confession claimed to be made inadmissible not by physically or psychologically oppressive tactics by which it was involuntarily extracted from defendant, but rather, solely by reason of defendant’s allegedly unlawful detention during which he confessed.

On the day following defendant’s arrest, an attorney apparently hired in his behalf caused to be issued a writ of habeas corpus, in obedience to which the police produced defendant before Judge John A. Rieca, one of the judges of the recorder’s court for the city of Detroit. The record discloses that at the police officers’ request, Judge Rieca adjourned the hearing until the following morning, a Saturday, to give the police additional time to conduct their investigation concerning a conflict between defendant’s denial that he had been in the vicinity at the time of the crime and other information possessed by the police which we are told indicated that he had been there the night before the morning of the murder. On Saturday, the adjourned hearing on the writ was again adjourned an additional 48 hours until the following Monday morning. This adjournment resulted, we are told, because the police officers informed the judge that defendant had named another person in whose company he was when he last saw the victim and that the police had not had [121] an opportunity to question that person, although he had been arrested.

Many of our constitutional guardians of liberty were conceived at our country’s birth out of a felt need of our forebears for new restraints upon governmental despotism. The ancient writ of habeas corpus, however, was so fundamental to their notions of an ordered society that it was inherited full grown as it was known in England in 1789. Stidham v. Swope, 82 F Supp 931. Alexander Hamilton ranks it together with the prohibition of ex post facto laws in our Federal Constitution as the greatest securities against the “most formidable instruments of tyranny”. The Federalist Papers, No 84.

Habeas corpus is a civil proceeding the main purpose of which is to cause the release of persons illegally confined, to inquire into the authority of law by which a person is deprived of his liberty. CL 1948, § 637.1 et seq. (Stat Ann § 27.2244 et seq.), and Goetz v. Black, 256 Mich 564 (84 ALR. 802). Application for the writ of habeas corpus is not made in the criminal proceedings; it is made in a new and independent civil action instituted to enforce a civil right, the right to liberty.

“The writ of habeas corpus is the remedy which the law gives for the enforcement of the civil right of personal liberty. Resort to it sometimes becomes necessary, because of what is done to enforce laws for the punishment of crimes, hut the judicial proceeding under it is not to inquire into the criminal act which is complained of, hut into the right to liberty notwithstanding the act. Proceedings to enforce civil rights are civil proceedings, and proceedings for the punishment of crimes are criminal proceedings. In the present case the petitioner is held under criminal process. The prosecution against him is a criminal prosecution, hut the writ [122] of habeas corpus which he has obtained is not a proceeding in that prosecution. On the contrary, it is a new suit brought by him to enforce a civil right, which he claims, as against those who are holding him in custody, under the criminal process. If he fails to establish his right to his liberty, he may be detained for trial for the offence; but if he succeeds he must be discharged from custody. The proceeding is one instituted by himself for his liberty, not by the government to punish him for his crime.” Ex parte Tom Tong, 108 US 556, 559, 560 (2 S Ct 871, 27 L ed 826).

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

People v. McCager, 116 N.W.2d 205, 367 Mich. 116 (Mich. 1962).

116 N.W.2d 205 (People v. McCager) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

Related

Craig G Brown v. Police Officers Labor Council
Michigan Court of Appeals, 2015
People v. Jones
651 N.W.2d 906 (Michigan Supreme Court, 2002)
Caley v. Hudson
759 F. Supp. 378 (E.D. Michigan, 1991)
People v. Cipriano
429 N.W.2d 781 (Michigan Supreme Court, 1988)
Triplett v. Deputy Warden, Jackson Prison
371 N.W.2d 862 (Michigan Court of Appeals, 1985)
People v. Mallory
365 N.W.2d 673 (Michigan Supreme Court, 1985)
Trayer v. Kent County Sheriff
304 N.W.2d 11 (Michigan Court of Appeals, 1981)
People v. Antonio Johnson
271 N.W.2d 177 (Michigan Court of Appeals, 1978)
People v. Williams
172 N.W.2d 515 (Michigan Court of Appeals, 1969)
State v. Bitz
460 P.2d 374 (Idaho Supreme Court, 1969)
People v. Carlton
145 N.W.2d 853 (Michigan Court of Appeals, 1966)
People v. Ubbes
132 N.W.2d 669 (Michigan Supreme Court, 1965)
People v. Walker
124 N.W.2d 761 (Michigan Supreme Court, 1964)
People v. McCager
116 N.W.2d 205 (Michigan Supreme Court, 1962)