People v. Pfaffle

Citation632 N.W.2d 162,246 Mich. App. 282
Decision Date23 August 2001
Docket NumberDocket No. 218480.
PartiesPEOPLE of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Mark Clayton PFAFFLE, Defendant-Appellant.
CourtCourt of Appeal of Michigan (US)

Jennifer M. Granholm, Attorney General, Thomas L. Casey, Solicitor General, Gary L. Walker, Prosecuting Attorney, and Terrence Dean, Appellate Counsel, for the people.

State Appellate Defender (by P.E. Bennett), for the defendant on appeal.

Before SAWYER, P.J., and SMOLENSKI and WHITBECK, JJ.

PER CURIAM.

Defendant, Mark Pfaffle, appeals as of right his bench trial conviction of two counts of inducing a minor to commit a felony1 and fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct (CSC IV).2 The trial court sentenced him to concurrent sentences of life in prison for the two inducement offenses and one year in prison for CSC IV. We affirm.

I. Basic Facts And Procedural History

Pfaffle is a mentally disturbed, self-described Satanist who allegedly attempted to convince a fifteen-year-old boy hereinafter (John Doe)3 to help him find young children to rape and kill by giving him alcohol and cigarettes and, on at least one occasion, lending him money. Pfaffle may have chosen Doe to help him carry out his plan because, as he wrote in several notes detailing his plan, he loved Doe and viewed him as a "spouse." According to Doe, Pfaffle assembled a kit to carry out his plan to rape and kill children; the kit included duct tape, knives, condoms, rubber gloves, and a rubber ball. In a handwritten note, Pfaffle precisely described the types of victims he wanted: males ages seven to ten, ten to twelve, and thirteen to fifteen years old. Doe claimed that he and Pfaffle discussed the plan ten to fifteen times and set up a camp in the woods near a medical center from which to carry out the attacks. On one occasion, Pfaffle hid in the woods by a trail, where he prepared duct tape strips to use to restrain and gag the children that Doe was to lure into the woods according to their plan. However, Doe said that he never actually attempted to lure any children to the tent, nor did he intend to do so. Rather, he lied to Pfaffle, telling him that no children came down the path on the day they hid in the woods. Doe said that he did not admit to Pfaffle that he had no intention of helping him carry out his plan because he wanted Pfaffle to continue to give him alcohol and cigarettes.

On July 7, 1997, Pfaffle allegedly tried to abduct a four-year-old boy hereinafter (John Smith) from his front yard. According to Smith's mother, Smith said that Pfaffle told him he had nice toys and wanted the boy to go with him for a walk in the woods. When Smith's mother saw the boy talking to Pfaffle, she came out of the house and asked Pfaffle what he wanted, but he did not respond before walking away from her.

Christopher Ollie and Fred Black, area residents, saw what they perceived to be a suspicious tent in the woods three hundred yards behind the Smith's house on July 8, 1997. Ollie found that the tent was well camouflaged and asked Black to approach the camper with him. When the two men arrived at the tent, no one was there. Ollie opened the tent and saw a legal pad that contained a description of a plot to rape and murder children. The two men then summoned the authorities.

Undersheriff James Bjorne testified that the police arrived at the scene and, after securing the area, entered the tent to see if there were any victims in it. There was no one in the tent. The officer, seeing the note on the legal pad, took a photograph of it. The police then obtained a search warrant and seized the contents of the tent, which included knives, lingerie, photographs of young boys, the legal pad, and astrology books. Ultimately, the police arrested Pfaffle and charged him with two counts of inducing a minor to commit a felony for his efforts to entice Doe to help him commit CSC I and murder. The separate CSC IV charge stemmed from an incident in 1997 in which Pfaffle fondled Doe's genitals during a "teaching session." Pfaffle, who was found competent to stand trial although suffering from a "schizotypal" personality, waived his right to a jury trial. Following Pfaffle's conviction and sentencing. the trial court denied his motion for a new trial and disqualification of the prosecutor for conflict of interest.

II. Prosecutorial Conflict Of Interest
A. Standard Of Review

Pfaffle first argues that he is entitled to a new trial because the prosecutor who worked on this case had a personal connection to the case. Pfaffle claims that he suffered prejudice from the prosecutor's bias stemming from that relationship because the prosecutor took a hard-line approach to prosecution, refused to negotiate a plea agreement Pfaffle found acceptable, and sought the most severe sentence available. Essentially, this is a prosecutorial misconduct claim. We generally review de novo allegations of prosecutorial misconduct.4 To the extent that we must review the trial court's factual determination that there was no reason to disqualify the prosecutor, our review would be for clear error.5 However, because Pfaffle failed to preserve this issue at trial,6 our review is actually for plain error that affected his substantial rights.7

B. The Prosecutor's Comments

Pfaffle states that he first became aware of the prosecutor's conflict of interest at sentencing when the prosecutor argued that the trial court should impose a life sentence without the possibility of parole or a life sentence with the possibility of parole. The prosecutor, responding to defense counsel's argument that Pfaffle had not actually murdered or raped a child, pointed out that Pfaffle had done more than merely think "evil" thoughts, he had made significant preparations and attempts to commit the crimes:

So this was not just an evil wish. This was an evil wish that came within a hair's breath [sic] of completion.
When [Smith] was brought in for the lineup and he pointed out the defendant as being the person who had talked to him in his yard, after the lineup was completed, I walked in to talk to [Smith] and his mother and [Smith] looked at me and he said, "you're ["Jimmy's"8] dad, aren't you?" I have a little boy who's exactly the same age as [Smith] and, in fact is one of [Smith's] best friends.
What this brought home to me, your Honor, is the impact on the community had the defendant carried out this crime would have been enormous. It would have changed how we view ourselves. It would change how we act in our everyday lives. And, therefore, the crime that was planned here was an enormously evil crime.9

According to the testimony at the postsentencing hearing concerning the motion to disqualify the prosecutor's office,10 Pfaffle's trial counsel, Theodore Fulsher, knew about this connection between Smith and the prosecutor's son from an early point in the case, but Pfaffle did not personally know of the connection before sentencing. Fulsher said that he believed that the prosecutor had strong feelings about this case, that the prosecutor "was not going to give Mr. Pfaffle any quarter at all," and that the prosecutor took the case personally. Nevertheless, Fulsher said that he had not moved to disqualify the prosecutor because he thought that the fact that the prosecutor's son and Smith were in the same preschool class was insufficient evidence of a conflict of interest. The prosecutor also testified, explaining that even though Smith recognized him, the day he saw Smith at the lineup was the first time they had ever met each other. The prosecutor said that Smith had never been to his house, he had never been to Smith's house except in connection with this case, he and the Smith family were merely "acquaintances," and his son was no longer friends with Smith because they attended different schools. Though the prosecutor said that he felt strongly about the case, he said that he made calculated decisions regarding his tough approach to his case, including the thirty-year-minimum sentence he offered in return for a guilty plea, because he thought Pfaffle was a danger to the community and could not be reformed.

The trial court, in a written opinion and order denying the motion to disqualify the prosecutor, commented regarding the small number of times that the prosecutor and the Smith family came into contact, noting:

Such a connection in a small community like Marquette is commonplace. If prosecutors were to disqualify themselves every time they had such a casual connection with a witness or a victim, it would indeed create severe problems in judicial efficiency in the criminal law area.... As the judge who presided over the trial in this case, I had numerous opportunities to view [the prosecutor's] conduct of the case. I saw no indication during the trial and post-trial proceedings of [his] personal involvement. What I did see was a prosecutor who took a hard stance on this prosecution. He argued for a life sentence, without parole, which this Court declined to give. [The p]rosecutor ... gave valid reasons for his tough prosecution of the defendant. It was his opinion that the defendant was a pedophile [and] not susceptible to rehabilitation and would constitute a menace to children as long as he was not imprisoned. The prosecutor decided that he would settle for nothing less than a 30-year minimum prison term, which was not acceptable to the defendant.

* * *

Mr. Fulsher also testified that he thought [the prosecutor] took the case personally and saw his son as a potential victim, and yet Mr. Fulsher did not see this as a conflict of interest or make any objection or even tell his client about it, although he knew about the connection with the [Smiths] well before the trial. I do not find from this record that [the prosecutor] became personally involved in the case to the extent that he lost his objectivity.
...

To continue reading

Request your trial
16 cases
  • People v. Abraham
    • United States
    • Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US
    • May 29, 2003
    ...We disagree. Generally, a claim of prosecutorial misconduct is a constitutional issue reviewed de novo. People v. Pfaffle, 246 Mich.App. 282, 288, 632 N.W.2d 162 (2001). The test of prosecutorial misconduct is whether the defendant was denied a fair and impartial trial (i.e., whether prejud......
  • People v. Tanner
    • United States
    • Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US
    • May 6, 2003
    ...605 N.W.2d 28 (1999), while the factual findings of the trial court are reviewed for clear error, MCR 2.613(C); People v. Pfaffle, 246 Mich. App. 282, 288, 632 N.W.2d 162 (2001); People v. Adams, 232 Mich.App. 128, 140, 591 N.W.2d 44 Defendant first moved to dismiss the charges before trial......
  • Bentley v. Bock
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Michigan
    • December 31, 2002
    ...question and therefore could be raised on appeal despite failure to first raise issue in trial court), with People v. Pfaffle, 246 Mich. App. 282, 288, 632 N.W.2d 162, 166 (2001) (reviewing double jeopardy allegation for plain error only), and People v. Wilson, 27 Mich.App. 395, 397, 183 N.......
  • In re Nestorovski Estate
    • United States
    • Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US
    • March 31, 2009
    ...of a Supreme Court decision. See Lamp v. Reynolds, 249 Mich.App. 591, 604, 645 N.W.2d 311 (2002), and People v. Pfaffle, 246 Mich.App. 282, 303-304, 632 N.W.2d 162 (2001). 7. Throughout Wold Architects & Engineers, supra at 235, 713 N.W.2d 750, the Supreme Court referred to statutory arbitr......
  • Request a trial to view additional results
1 books & journal articles
  • THE PROSECUTION BAR.
    • United States
    • Washington University Law Review Vol. 101 No. 1, August 2023
    • August 1, 2023
    ...1323 (9th Cir. 1993) ("The prosecutor's job isn't just to win, but to win fairly, staying well within the rules."); People v. Pfaffle, 632 N.W.2d 162, 167 (Mich. Ct. App. 2001) ("The law is clear that a prosecutor's fundamental obligation is 'to seek justice, not merely to convict.'" (quoti......

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT