People v. Lyon

• Decision Date: 03 February 1998
• Docket Number: Docket No. 202442
• Citation: 227 Mich.App. 599,577 N.W.2d 124
• Parties: PEOPLE of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Jeffery Thomas LYON, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US

Page 124

577 N.W.2d 124

227 Mich.App. 599

PEOPLE of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Jeffery Thomas LYON, Defendant-Appellant.

Docket No. 202442.

Court of Appeals of Michigan.

Submitted Oct. 7, 1997, at Lansing.

Decided Feb. 3, 1998, at 9:00 a.m.

Released for Publication April 30, 1998.

Frank J. Kelley, Atty. Gen., Thomas L. Casey, Sol. Gen., Patrick M. Shannon, Special Prosecuting Atty., and Charles D. Hackney, Asst. Atty. Gen., for People.

Ronald J. Varga, Cheboygan, for defendant-appellant.

Before JANSEN, P.J., and DOCTOROFF and GAGE, JJ.

GAGE, Judge.

This case is before us on remand from the Michigan Supreme Court for our plenary consideration. We now affirm the district court's denial of defendant's motion to suppress the results of a blood alcohol test.

On June 29, 1995, the arresting state police trooper had been notified to respond to a report of an automobile parked on an exit ramp of Interstate-75. When the officer arrived at the location, he observed two individuals (defendant and a second man) arguing over the keys to defendant's automobile. The keys were in the possession of the second man. Defendant's automobile was parked with the passenger side tires approximately six inches to the right of the outside fog line and the driver's side of the vehicle partially blocking the exit lane. The vehicle was unoccupied and the engine was not running.

Defendant admitted to the officer that he had driven the automobile and had parked it in that position. The officer noted that defendant's face was flushed and his eyes were watery. Defendant's speech was slurred, his balance was poor, and he smelled of alcohol. The second man informed the officer that he had found defendant asleep behind the steering wheel of the vehicle. He smelled alcohol and took defendant's keys in order to prevent him from driving. Defendant told the officer that he was an attorney and requested a preliminary breath test, which showed a blood alcohol content of 0.353 percent. According to the officer, defendant also failed three of four field sobriety tests. The officer arrested defendant without a warrant for operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor (OUIL), M.C.L. § 257.625(1)(a); M.S.A. § 9.2325(1)(a). He then read defendant his chemical test rights and asked if he would submit to a blood alcohol test. Defendant agreed and was taken to a hospital. The laboratory test results indicated a 0.34 percent blood alcohol content.

Defendant filed a motion in the district court to suppress the evidence obtained after his arrest, including the results of the blood alcohol test, arguing that his arrest was illegal in that the offense, a misdemeanor, did not occur in the presence of the arresting officer. The district court denied defendant's motion, noting that defendant had admitted driving the automobile to the location where it was parked. Moreover, any reasonable person upon viewing defendant would have concluded that he was under the influence of intoxicants. The court also found that M.C.L. § 764.15(1)(h); M.S.A. § 28.874(1)(h), the vehicle accident exception to the warrant requirement, which allows a misdemeanor arrest without a warrant, applies in a situation where parking a vehicle on a public highway "was undesirable or unexpected by any of the parties directly involved." The court thus concluded that the arrest was lawful on the basis of this statutory exception. Defendant brought an interlocutory appeal in the circuit court and the circuit court affirmed the district court's order primarily because defendant failed to timely file a brief, although the court also found that defendant would have been "deemed to have been operating a motor vehicle within the parameters of the OUIL statute" and his misdemeanor arrest was "certainly lawful."

Upon remand to the district court, defendant entered a conditional guilty plea with regard to one count of OUIL, first offense. Under the terms of the plea agreement, a second count, driving while impaired, was to be dismissed and defendant's driver's license was not to be revoked. The plea was conditioned upon defendant's filing an application for leave to appeal to this Court regarding the suppression issue, and sentencing was stayed pending disposition of the application. Defendant was later allowed to withdraw his conditional plea, because the Michigan Secretary of State refused to honor that portion of his plea agreement relating to the nonrevocation of defendant's license, and the district court stayed all proceedings pending action by the Court of Appeals.

Citing People v. Spencley, 197 Mich.App. 505, 495 N.W.2d 824 (1992), a panel of this Court entered an order on September 17, 1996 (Docket No. 196752), reversing the district court's order denying the suppression motion and remanding the matter to the district court. This Court's order stated that the arresting officer did not observe defendant operating a motor vehicle and an improperly parked vehicle does not constitute an accident under M.C.L. § 764.15(1)(h); M.S.A. § 28.874(1)(h). As previously noted, the Michigan Supreme Court, in lieu of granting leave to appeal, vacated this Court's order and remanded for our plenary consideration. 454 Mich. 886, 562 N.W.2d 783 (1997).

The sole issue raised in defendant's appeal is whether his arrest without a warrant was statutorily invalid because the offense did not occur in the presence of the arresting officer and the facts do not fit within the accident exception provided in M.C.L. § 764.15(1)(h); M.S.A. § 28.874(1)(h). Statutory construction is a question of law that this Court reviews de novo. Haworth, Inc. v. Wickes Mfg. Co., 210 Mich.App. 222, 227, 532 N.W.2d 903 (1995). The primary purpose of statutory interpretation is to ascertain and give effect to the intent of the Legislature. Id.

As a general rule, a police officer may not arrest an individual for a misdemeanor if the offense was not committed in the officer's presence. M.C.L. § 764.15; M.S.A. § 28.874; People v. Wood, 450 Mich. 399, 403, 538 N.W.2d 351 (1995). The Michigan Legislature has, however, carved out several exceptions to this rule. The exception relevant to the present case is codified in M.C.L. § 764.15(1)(h); M.S.A. § 28.874(1)(h), which provides that an officer may arrest a person without a warrant

[w]hen the peace officer has reasonable cause to believe that the person was, at the time of an accident, the driver of a vehicle involved in the accident and was operating the vehicle upon a public highway or other place open to the general public, including an area designated for the parking of vehicles, in the state while [under the influence of intoxicating liquor, a controlled substance, or a combination of intoxicating liquor and a controlled substance]. ¹

Section 36 of the Michigan Vehicle Code, M.C.L. § 257.36; M.S.A. § 9.1836, defines an "operator" as anyone "in actual physical control of a motor vehicle upon a highway." The statutes do not define the term "accident."

In the present case, the district court held that the accident exception was applicable. The court cited the decision of the Michigan Supreme Court in People v. Keskimaki, 446 Mich. 240, 521 N.W.2d 241 (1994), in which the Court noted that certain factors may be regarded as the distinguishing characteristics of an accident. The Court stated:

[W]e believe consideration should be given to whether there has been a collision, whether personal injury or property damage has resulted from the occurrence, and whether the incident either was undesirable for or unexpected by any of the parties directly involved. [Id. at 255-256, 521 N.W.2d 241.]

The district court held that the act of parking an automobile partially on the roadway of a highway exit was neither desirable nor expected by any of the parties involved (specifically, the state trooper and the second man at the scene). The court recognized, however, that the officer never saw defendant in a position "which is typically associated with the driving of an automobile," the officer never offered any testimony to show that defendant's vehicle was involved in an accident, and there was no evidence of personal injury or property damage. Nonetheless, the court concluded that the accident exception applied and defendant's arrest was lawful and thus denied defendant's motion to suppress the results of his blood alcohol test. Affirming the order of the district court, the circuit court noted that the misdemeanor arrest was legal because defendant was a person "who would be deemed to have been operating a motor vehicle within the parameters of the OUIL statute." Because the circuit court concluded that defendant was operating his vehicle in the presence of the arresting officer, the court never addressed whether the accident exception was applicable.

On appeal, the prosecutor primarily addresses the issue whether defendant was an "operator" of his vehicle within the meaning of the statute. The prosecutor asserts that defendant was "operating" the vehicle because he had not yet returned the vehicle to a position that posed no risk of collision. In support of this contention, the prosecutor cites Wood, supra, in which the Supreme Court considered whether an individual found unconscious and intoxicated in his van at a McDonald's drive-through window was "operating a motor vehicle" within the meaning of the OUIL statute. The Wood defendant was found in his vehicle with the engine running and the automatic transmission in drive. His foot was on the brake pedal, which kept the vehicle from moving. The defendant moved to suppress the resulting blood alcohol and field sobriety tests, arguing that the evidence was the result of an unlawful arrest. The Supreme Court held that the defendant was operating a vehicle when the police found him. Id. at 405, 538 N.W.2d 351. The Court stated:

We conclude that "operating" should be defined in terms of the...