People v. Coleman

• Decision Date: 26 November 1957
• Docket Number: No. 67,67
• Citation: 86 N.W.2d 281,350 Mich. 268
• Parties: PEOPLE of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. William I. COLEMAN, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

Page 281

86 N.W.2d 281

350 Mich. 268

PEOPLE of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. William I. COLEMAN, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 67.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

Nov. 26, 1957.

Poppen, Street & Sorensen, Harold M. Street, Muskegon, for defendant-appellant.

Robert A. Cavanaugh, Pros. Atty., Muskegon, Thomas M. Kavanagh, Atty. Gen., Edmund E. Shepherd, Sol. Gen., Lansing, for the People.

Before the Entire Bench.

SMITH, Justice.

This case involves al alleged attempt to obstruct justice. The facts are simple. The defendant, William Coleman, had been charged with a violation of the small loan act, C.L.1948, § 493.1 (Stat.Ann. § 23.667(1) and his trial date set. One William Jordan had been subpoenaed as a witness for the people. Jordan was married, but his wife was ignorant of the fact that he had been 'running around' (the expression is his) with a young woman. The ignorance of the wife, however, was not shared by defendant Coleman. Apparently Coleman was, as the saying goes, nobody's fool, for the fact that a prospective witness against him had been 'running around' invested the witness, in Coleman's opinion, with a peculiar vulnerability. This he had both the wit to appreciate and the ingenuity to utilize.

On the evening of September 15, 1955, one Charles Goldsborough came to defendant Coleman to make a payment. After some conversation irrelevant hereto Coleman asked his caller whether or not he knew Jordan. We continue in Goldsborough's words:

'I imagine I told him I had seen him around, but I mean I didn't know him. I didn't know him good.

'An then he asked me if I would go around and talk to him, and I said, 'I don't know, I will go around and see him.' And then he told me what, actually what he wanted me to see him about, that he was-- had the knowledge that this Mr. Jordan had run around with some Jefferson girl that lived on Cedar Street, that Mr. Coleman was aware that he run around with this woman, and that if I would talk to Mr. Jordan and ask him if he didn't show up at the trial his wife wouldn't find out that she was running with him.

'Q. That she was running around with who? A. That this Jefferson girl was running around with Mr. Jordan.

'Q. And what did you say, if anything, to that? A. Well, then he said there was two or three other witnesses that had something to do with this case. And so I said, 'Well, write the names down. I don't know them.' And he wrote their names down for me on a slip of paper, and the address of Mr. Jordan. I think the addresses of the other ones, too.

'I have seen People's Exhibit 1 before. I saw it at 1452 Sanford Street upstairs on the back porch. I got it from Mr. Coleman. He wrote them addresses on the paper for me. * * *

'Q. What appears on the face of that document? A. William H. Jordan, 2421 B Elwood Street. That is in the Heights. And Richard Jordan and Terry Ford at 2425 Manz Street.

And then there's Thomas J.--it looks like Fisher, but it's supposed to be Fikes.

'On the reverse side it says the Jefferson girl at corner of Walton and Cedar Street. Those names and addresses were written there by Mr. Coleman. This was after supper in the evening. It was not dark when I left Coleman's, it was just the latter part of the evening. It hadn't been dark when I left the porch.'

Goldsborough started on his errand. Difficulties in locating Jordan, however, ensued. The numbers on Elwood street had been changed. Goldsborough made inquiries at the Rainbow Cafe but no satisfactory answer was obtained. He then proceeded in his car 'up to the Heights' and decided to consult a telephone directory.

We will interrupt the chronological statement to make some inquiries at this point. Why was Goldsborough thus driving the streets searching for wintess Jordan? Was he seeking to pay a social call on this man he did not know? Or was he carrying Coleman's threat, calculated to persuade Jordan from testifying? If the latter, were steps then and there being taken under Coleman's directions (i.e., was Coleman attempting, by means of an agent) to aid in the administration of justice? Or to obstruct it? Are these steps consistent with any purpose other than evil? Goldsborough continues:

'I went to the desk at the Muskegon Heights Police Department and just asked for the phone book. I laid the piece of paper--they have a little glass shelf there, I put it on there, and Mr. _____ and Detective Sovacool was looking at the numbers. And then he asked me what I was doing with it. And I said, 'I have to look up this----'

* * *

* * *

'Mr. Sovacool said that he had been over to see them same addresses that same day. And I just told him I was looking to see if he had a phone to find his address. And finally he called me in the office, in the back office, and he said--he started telling me about he served subpoenas on them, and finally he got out of me, or I told him what I was going over there for.'

With this knowledge of what was afoot, Detective Sovacool called the prosecuting attorney and the chief of police. We continue in the words of the witness, omitting reference to objection overruled:

'So, anyway, Mr. Sovacool said, 'Well, I am going to call Mr. Cavanaugh.' And he called Mr. Cavanaugh and Mr. Cavanaugh asked to talk to me on the phone. And he asked me what it was about, and I told him.

'And then Mr. Bell was called, and he came up there, and then I was told to go over there and perform the service. And Mr. Sovacool was along when I went over to Mr. Jordan's house. I had my own automobile. I had driven down to Coleman's in my car. Nobody was with me. I drove from Coleman's out to the Rainbow. I drove from the Rainbow over to the Police Station.

'Q. Did you drive your vehicle, then, back to Jordan's place? A. I did.

'Sovacool was in the back seat of the car. There was no one else besides me and Sovacool in the car. We went to Jordan's place.

'I went to the front door, and I hollered if Mr. Willie Jordan was there. And some woman hollered 'Yes.' And he came to the door, and I asked him if I could talk to him. And he said, 'Yes.' And I said, 'Could I talk to you out by the car?' And he said, 'Sure.'

'And he was about three feet from the car, and I would say, and the back window was rolled down, and I told Mr. Jordan--(Objection ommitted).

'I related to Mr. Jordan just what Mr. Coleman advised me to do in regards to him showing up at his trial, in regards to Mr. Jordan Running around with this Jefferson girl.

'Q. You say you told him what Coleman told you. What did you tell him? A. I told him that Mr. Coleman asked me to come over and talk to him. And I asked him if he knew a Jefferson girl, and he said, 'Yes.' And so I told him my name, and I told him I didn't know him and he didn't know me, and that if he was not to show up at the trial he would not get in any trouble with his wife.

'So Mr. Jordan said well, he would show up at the trial, anyway, regardless of the fact. Then he said he would tell his wife about that, about this girl. And I said, 'All right'. And I got in the car and drove away.'

(Notwithstanding the threat made, Jordan did appear at the trial and testified against Coleman.) Returning to the case before us, it proceeded to trial in due course before a jury in the circuit court. Verdict of guilty was returned by the jury and the case is here upon leave granted.

The defendant urges upon us that up to the time Goldsborough entered the police station none of the acts recited constituted an attempt by Coleman to obstruct justice, but only preparations for such an attempt. And, further, that to constitute such an attempt 'required actual contact with Jordan and a transmission of the message to him in a manner calculated to actually deter him from testifying.'

It must be borne in mind that the offense with which defendant is charged is obstruction of justice by 'attempting' to dissuade (by threats and coercion) a witness from testifying. The offense is not peculiar to our modern society (See Rigina v. Loughran [Ir.1839] 1 Craw. & Dix, 79: "It would be better for you to bring you sheet and coffin, than to prosecute my brother Paddy."; Rex v. Lawley [1731] 2 Strange 904) and its applicabe principles are well settled. The crime is committed when the effort is made to thwart or impede the administration of justice. The evil lies in attempt as well as its success. As we said in People v. Boyd, 174 Mich. 321, 325, 140 N.W. 475, 477 (prosecution for obstructing the administration of justice):

'The question in the instant case is not the guilt or innocence of the respondent in the main case, nor the sufficiency of the information or the jurisdiction of the court, but whether the respondent is guilty of obstructing or interfering with the administration of justice. In an examination of the authorities we find none in conflict with the authority above cited. In one of the earliest authorities, where the exact question was before the Supreme Court of the state of Vermont (in 1847), that court said:

"Much of the arugment at the bar has been expended upon supposed irregularities in the original proceedings against Goodale & Poor, and insufficiencies in the indictment against them prepared and laid before the grand jury. That indictment is not recited, and need not be in the present; it is not, consequently, bedore us. In offenses of this character guilt or innocence does not depend upon the guilt or innocence of the original party, against whom the witness may be subpoenaed, or recognized, to appear; nor upon the sufficiency or insufficiency of the original indictment. To thwart or obstruct the due administration of justice by violence, bribery, threats, or other unlawful means, whether in preventing the attendance of witnesses, jurymen, or other officers of court, is a high-handed offense, which strikes at the vitals of judicial proceedings, and subjects to severe animadversion in every well-ordered community. The attempt to commit such an act, it...