People v. Parrott

• Decision Date: 04 February 2021
• Docket Number: No. 350380,350380
• Citation: 335 Mich.App. 648,968 N.W.2d 548
• Parties: PEOPLE of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. David Mark PARROTT, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US

335 Mich.App. 648

968 N.W.2d 548

PEOPLE of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.David Mark PARROTT, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 350380

Court of Appeals of Michigan.

Submitted June 2, 2020, at Lansing.

Decided February 4, 2021, at 9:10 a.m.

Dana Nessel, Attorney General, Fadwa A. Hammoud, Solicitor General, Jason Haag, Manistee County Prosecuting Attorney, and Jordan Miller and Jonathan P. Hauswirth, Assistant Prosecuting Attorneys, for the people.

The Nichols Law Firm, PLLC, East Lansing (by Michael J. Nichols ), Krolczyk and Quinn, PC (by Mark Quinn, Manistee), and Speaker Law Firm (by Liisa R. Speaker, Kalamazoo) for defendant.

Before: Cameron, P.J., and Boonstra and Letica, JJ.

Cameron, P.J.

In this intoxicated-driving prosecution, defendant, David Mark Parrott, appeals three district court orders that: (1) prohibited defendant from using his preliminary breath test (PBT) results at trial; (2) held that the area in which defendant's vehicle was stuck was, as a matter of law, generally accessible to motor vehicles; and (3) denied defendant's motion in limine to exclude evidence regarding his occupation and display of his "badge." Defendant appealed the orders to the circuit court, which denied his application for leave to appeal. We then granted leave to appeal.¹ For the reasons stated in this opinion, we affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

After leaving a 2018 Christmas Day gathering at approximately 6:20 p.m., defendant lost control of his car and slid off the roadway. Defendant then "backed down [an] embankment" and into a "flat area" that turned into a field. Defendant spent the next 30 to 35 minutes attempting to return his car to the roadway. Unable to extricate his car, a tow truck driver was called to assist him. Shortly after the tow truck driver arrived at the scene, he called the police because he suspected that defendant was intoxicated. The Manistee County Sheriff's Office dispatched Sergeant Paul Woroniak to the scene at 7:08 p.m. He arrived approximately ten minutes later and saw defendant's car stuck "in the ditch," 5 to 10 feet from the roadway.

Sergeant Woroniak also suspected that defendant was intoxicated. He noted that defendant smelled like alcohol and had "bloodshot[,] ... watery" eyes and "labored" speech. After defendant denied that he had consumed alcohol, Sergeant Woroniak attempted to administer a field sobriety test to defendant but abandoned the test because defendant was not following his instructions. About this time, defendant showed Sergeant Woroniak "his badge" "[a]nd inquired if anything could be done."² Undeterred, Sergeant Woroniak continued his investigation. Defendant consented to a PBT at the scene. The PBT result showed an unlawful blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.109.³

Sergeant Woroniak informed defendant that the PBT result suggested that defendant was operating his vehicle with a BAC that was over the legal limit. In response, defendant told Sergeant Woroniak "that he was going to lose a quarter of his pay," and defendant again asked him "what could be done." Sergeant Woroniak placed defendant under arrest for operating while intoxicated, MCL 257.625(1), and transported defendant to a hospital where his blood was drawn at 8:08 p.m. The chemical test revealed that defendant's BAC was 0.152 grams of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood. Defendant was then charged with operating while intoxicated.

In preparation for trial, defendant retained an expert who would testify that, at the time defendant was operating his vehicle on the roadway, his BAC was likely below the legal limit, but it had increased above the legal limit after the accident. Specifically, the expert believed that "at all relevant times prior to about 7:10 p.m., [defendant's] blood-alcohol concentration would be expected to be less than the per se level of 0.080g/dL" required for a conviction. Defendant asserted that his PBT result must be admitted at trial because it supported his rising BAC defense.⁴

The district court then decided several motions that are at issue in this appeal. Specifically, the district court granted the prosecutor's motion to exclude any reference to the PBT result at trial under MCL 257.625a(2)(b). The district court denied defendant's motion asking the court to hold that the area where defendant's car was found was not "generally accessible to motor vehicles" under MCL 257.625(1).⁵ Lastly, the court denied defendant's motion to exclude any reference to defendant's occupation and his display of a "badge" under MRE 401 and MRE 403.

Defendant appealed these decisions in the circuit court, which denied defendant's interlocutory application for leave to appeal. This Court then granted his interlocutory application.

II. ANALYSIS

A. RIGHT TO PRESENT A COMPLETE DEFENSE—THE PBT RESULT

Defendant argues that the district court erred when it excluded "the PBT because the application of the evidentiary statute— MCL 257.625a(2)(b) —unreasonably offends [his] [c]onstitutional right to present a complete defense." We disagree.

"We review issues of constitutional law de novo." People v. Benton , 294 Mich. App. 191, 203, 817 N.W.2d 599 (2011). "Preserved evidentiary rulings are reviewed for an abuse of discretion." People v. Unger , 278 Mich. App. 210, 216, 749 N.W.2d 272 (2008). A trial court abuses its discretion when it "chooses an outcome that falls outside the range of reasonable and principled outcomes." Id. at 217, 749 N.W.2d 272. "[D]ecisions regarding the admission of evidence frequently involve preliminary questions of law, e.g., whether a rule of evidence or statute precludes admissibility of the evidence. This Court reviews questions of law de novo." People v. Lukity , 460 Mich. 484, 488, 596 N.W.2d 607 (1999). Therefore, "when such preliminary questions of law are at issue, it must be borne in mind that it is an abuse of discretion to admit evidence that is inadmissible as a matter of law." Id.

MCL 257.625a(2)(b) addresses when PBT results are admissible for intoxicated-driving prosecutions.

"Our overriding goal for interpreting a statute is to determine and give effect to the Legislature's intent. The most reliable indicator of the Legislature's intent is the words in the statute." People v. Peltola , 489 Mich. 174, 181, 803 N.W.2d 140 (2011) (citations omitted). "The Legislature is presumed to have intended the meaning it plainly expressed in the statute." People v. Allen , 499 Mich. 307, 315, 884 N.W.2d 548 (2016).

PBT results are generally not admissible in intoxicated-driving prosecutions. Under MCL 257.625a(2)(b), PBT results are admissible only under the following circumstances:

(i ) To assist the court or hearing officer in determining a challenge to the validity of an arrest....

(ii ) As evidence of the defendant's breath alcohol content, if offered by the defendant to rebut testimony elicited on cross-examination of a defense witness that the defendant's breath alcohol content was higher at the time of the charged offense than when a chemical test was administered under [ MCL 257.625a(6) ].

(iii ) As evidence of the defendant's breath alcohol content, if offered by the prosecution to rebut testimony elicited on cross-examination of a prosecution witness that the defendant's breath alcohol content was lower at the time of the charged offense than when a chemical test was administered under [ MCL 257.625a(6) ].

Therefore, under the Michigan Vehicle Code, MCL 257.1 et seq., PBT results "are only admissible to challenge the validity of an arrest or to rebut testimony regarding a defendant's breath alcohol content at the time of the offense." People v. Booker , 314 Mich. App. 416, 420, 886 N.W.2d 759 (2016). As a practical matter, this means that PBT results are rarely admitted at trial for intoxicated-driving prosecutions.

The parties agree that MCL 257.625a(2)(b) prohibits defendant from admitting his PBT result to support his rising BAC defense. The dispute is whether this statutory restriction imposes an unconstitutional impediment on defendant's right to present a complete defense.

"[T]he Constitution guarantees criminal defendants a meaningful opportunity to present a complete defense." Crane v. Kentucky , 476 U.S. 683, 690, 106 S. Ct. 2142, 90 L. Ed. 2d 636 (1986) (quotation marks and citation omitted). Specifically, "[a] criminal defendant must be provided a meaningful opportunity to present evidence in his or her own defense." People v. Bosca , 310 Mich. App. 1, 47, 871 N.W.2d 307 (2015). However, a defendant's right to present a complete defense "is not unlimited and is subject to reasonable restrictions." People v. King , 297 Mich. App. 465, 473, 824 N.W.2d 258 (2012). A defendant's "right to present a complete defense may, in appropriate cases, bow to accommodate other legitimate interests in the criminal trial process." Id. (quotation marks and citation omitted).

As a result, state and federal rulemakers have broad latitude under the Constitution to establish rules excluding evidence from criminal trials. Such rules do not abridge an accused's right to present a defense so long as they are not arbitrary or disproportionate to the purposes they are designed to serve. [ United States v. Scheffer , 523 U.S. 303, 308, 118 S. Ct. 1261, 140 L. Ed. 2d 413 (1998) (quotation marks and citation omitted).]

1. ARBITRARINESS

Defendant first argues that the restrictions in MCL 257.625a(2)(b) are arbitrary. To analyze defendant's claim, we must examine the purpose the statute is designed to serve.

This Court has previously held that "[t]he long-range goal of the drunk driving laws is to reduce the carnage caused by drunk drivers by preventing intoxicated persons from driving." People v. Tracy , 186 Mich. App. 171, 179, 463 N.W.2d 457 (1990). Additionally, this Court has concluded that the Legislature's "purpose of the PBT use restrictions seems to be to prevent unwarranted convictions based solely on evidence obtained from a testing system which is comparatively unreliable; the breath, blood,...