People v. Lewis

• Decision Date: 08 July 1987
• Docket Number: Docket No. 84748
• Citation: 160 Mich.App. 20,408 N.W.2d 94
• Parties: PEOPLE of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. James Michael LEWIS, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US

Page 94

408 N.W.2d 94

160 Mich.App. 20

PEOPLE of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. James Michael LEWIS, Defendant-Appellant.

Docket No. 84748.

Court of Appeals of Michigan.

Submitted Jan. 14, 1987.

Decided May 5, 1987.

Released for Publication July 8, 1987.

Frank J. Kelley, Atty. Gen., Louis J. Caruso, Sol. Gen., Donald E. Martin, Pros. Atty., Robert B. Ebersole, Chief Appellate Asst. Pros. Atty., and Susan L. LeDuc, Asst. Pros. Atty., for the People.

James R. Neuhard, State Appellate Defender by Mardi Crawford, Detroit, for defendant-appellant on appeal.

Before HOLBROOK, P.J., and WAHLS and G.W. CROCKETT, III, ^* JJ.

G.W. CROCKETT, III, Judge.

Defendant was convicted by an Ingham Circuit Court jury of first-degree felony murder, M.C.L. Sec. 750.316; M.S.A. Sec. 28.548. The murder victim, Lee Vond Sweezer, was the defendant's uncle. Defendant was sentenced to a mandatory life term in prison and appeals his conviction as of right. On appeal, defendant raises a total of ten issues which he claims require reversal of his conviction.

On October 31, 1983, the Lansing police found the body of Lee Vond Sweezer in the basement of his home at 714 Johnson in Lansing. Sweezer had been dead for several days and the evidence at the scene indicated that he may have died a violent death. At about the same time on October 31, 1983, two Lansing police officers were called to investigate a complaint by the proprietor of the Spartan Motel in Lansing that a bronze-colored Cadillac had been illegally parked on the motel's parking lot for several days. As the police approached the vehicle, defendant got in the car and began to drive away. The police stopped the vehicle and asked defendant for his driver's license and inquired why he was using the motel's parking lot. Defendant did not have a driver's license, but did produce the registration for the car. The car was registered to Lee Vond Sweezer of 714 Johnson in Lansing. Defendant told the officers that the name and address on the registration was his, as was the car. The officers testified that the 714 Johnson Street address "rang a bell" because they remembered a recent radio dispatch saying that crime scene investigators had been called to that location to investigate a serious crime involving a body, such as a suicide or homicide. The officers were then ordered by their superiors to bring the defendant in for questioning. Defendant was searched and a knife was removed from his sock and a pair of homemade "numchucks" were taken from the front seat of the car.

Once in custody, defendant was questioned extensively by the police about his knowledge of the events surrounding Sweezer's death. Initially, defendant claimed that Sweezer was his father and he knew nothing about the incident. During his third statement, however, defendant asserted that two people by the name of "Snake" and Victor Williams (also known as Victor Hamler) killed his father in his presence. Subsequently, the police learned of defendant's true identity and accused him of lying about what really happened to Sweezer. Finally, in defendant's seventh and eighth statements to the police he confessed to participating in a robbery of his uncle's house. Defendant asserted that a struggle ensued between his uncle, Snake and Victor, during which he struck his uncle on the side of the head with a piece of firewood. Based on this information, defendant was charged with murder for the death of his uncle.

On appeal, defendant initially argues that the trial court clearly erred in refusing to suppress evidence of his statements to the police which he claims were the result of an unconstitutional arrest. According to the defendant, his detention by the police for questioning was unconstitutional because the police lacked probable cause to arrest him. Since the statements were made as a direct result of his illegal detention, defendant asserts they must be suppressed.

When a defendant is detained or taken into custody by the police acting without a warrant, the detention is illegal unless the police have probable cause to arrest that defendant. People v. Hamoud, 112 Mich.App. 348, 351, 315 N.W.2d 866 (1981), lv. den. 414 Mich. 959 (1982). Probable cause to arrest exists when the facts and circumstances within the officers' knowledge are sufficient to a prudent person, or one of reasonable caution, to believe that the suspect has committed or is committing a felony. People v. Mitchell, 138 Mich.App. 163, 167, 360 N.W.2d 158 (1984). Where there is no probable cause to arrest, but the police take a defendant into custody for investigatory purposes, any evidence obtained as a result of that unlawful detention or any statement made while unlawfully detained must be suppressed. People v. Irby, 129 Mich.App. 306, 314, 342 N.W.2d 303 (1983). This Court reviews a trial court's decision on a motion to suppress evidence to determine if it is clearly erroneous. Id.

In this case, the determination of whether the police had probable cause to detain the defendant for custodial questioning is a close question. The trial court in this case determined that the actions of the police were reasonable. However, after reviewing the record, we agree with the defendant that probable cause to arrest did not exist, and therefore his detention was unlawful and evidence of his subsequent statements to the police should have been suppressed.

At the time the police detained the defendant for questioning, they were in the process of investigating a possible homicide. The police had discovered a partially decomposed body at 714 Johnson Street. However, at that point they were unsure of the identity of the body or the cause of death. At about the same time, two other officers encountered the defendant when they went to the Spartan Motel to respond to a complaint by the manager that a car had been illegally parked on the motel's lot for several days. The officers stopped the car the defendant was driving as it was leaving the lot and asked to see the defendant's driver's license. Defendant indicated that he did not have a driver's license but did produce the car's registration which indicated the car was owned by Lee Vond Sweezer who resided at 714 Johnson Street in Lansing. Since the address on the registration was the same as the homicide scene, the officers called their superiors for instructions and were told to bring the defendant in for questioning. At the suppression hearing, however, the officers admitted that they would not have detained the defendant but for the instructions from their superiors to bring him in for questioning.

Thus, the record clearly reveals that when defendant was taken into custody he had committed no crime of which the officers were aware and was not a suspect in any crime. Rather, defendant was taken into custody for investigatory purposes only. However, when the police detain a person for investigation of a crime, they are in fact admitting that there is a lack of probable cause that the individual committed the crime. See People v. Martin, 94 Mich.App. 649, 653, 290 N.W.2d 48 (1980). The prosecutor asserts that defendant was properly arrested because the police found a knife in his possession. This argument is unpersuasive, however, since the police did not discover the knife or the other weapon until after the defendant was taken into custody. In our opinion, based on the information available to the officers at the time the defendant was taken into custody, probable cause to detain the defendant simply did not exist. Accordingly, the defendant's detention was illegal and the trial court clearly erred in refusing to suppress evidence of the defendant's statements to the police. Therefore, defendant's conviction must be reversed and a new trial ordered.

Although we have determined that a new trial is warranted in this case based on the first issue, we will briefly consider the defendant's other allegations of error in an effort to prevent them from reoccurring in the event of a new trial.

We initially note that the trial court erred in admitting evidence of electrophoretic analysis of dried blood-stained evidence discovered at the murder scene. In People v. Young (After Remand), 425 Mich. 470, 391 N.W.2d 270 (1986), our Supreme Court held that serological electrophoresis of evidentiary dried bloodstains has not achieved general scientific acceptance for reliability among impartial disinterested experts in the scientific community and is therefore inadmissible in a criminal prosecution. Thus, at any retrial this evidence cannot be admitted. In passing, we further note that the error in admitting the evidence was compounded by the fact that the trial court refused to allow the defendant to challenge the reliability of the evidence before the jury, so as to attempt to influence the jury's decision as to how much weight should be given to the scientific evidence. While it is up to the judge, not the jury, to determine if a scientific test is admissible, the trial court should not prevent a defendant from attempting to persuade the jury that little weight should be given to the scientific evidence despite the fact that it is admissible. In certain cases, such a limitation may violate a defendant's right to confrontation guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Next, we reject defendant's contention that the prosecutor improperly bolstered the credibility of a proposed expert witness by eliciting the fact that the witness had been qualified as an expert in other cases. The determination of whether a witness is an expert is within the discretion of the trial court, and will not be reversed absent an abuse of discretion. People v. Whitfield, 425 Mich. 116, 122, 388 N.W.2d 206 (1986). In our opinion, a trial court may properly consider other trial experience in determining whether a witness should be allowed to testify as an expert.

Defendant also argues that the...