People v. Reichard
| Citation | 949 N.W.2d 64,505 Mich. 81 |
| Decision Date | 30 March 2020 |
| Docket Number | No. 157688,157688 |
| Parties | PEOPLE of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Tiffany Lynn REICHARD, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | Michigan Supreme Court |
Dana Nessel, Attorney General, Fadwa A. Hammoud, Solicitor General, Jerard M. Jarzynka, Prosecuting Attorney, and Jerrold Schrotenboer, Chief Appellate Attorney, for the people.
Michael A. Faraone, PC, Lansing (by Michael A. Faraone ) for defendant.
D. J. Hilson, Kym L. Worthy, Jason W. Williams, and Timothy A. Baughman, Detroit, Amici Curiae for the Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan.
BEFORE THE ENTIRE BENCH
The issue in this case is whether duress is an affirmative defense to a charge of felony murder. For the reasons below, we hold that duress may be asserted as an affirmative defense to felony murder if it is a defense to the underlying felony.
Defendant is charged with open murder for assisting her boyfriend, Michael Beatty, in an armed robbery that resulted in the stabbing death of the victim, Matthew Cramton. According to the evidence presented at the preliminary examination, defendant agreed to help Beatty conduct a robbery by knocking on the door of Cramton's home. When Cramton came to the door, Beatty entered the home with a gun to rob him. Defendant acted as a lookout while Beatty was inside. When Beatty left Cramton's home, he was covered in blood and carrying a knife. Defendant then drove Beatty to his mother's house and helped him dispose of his clothing. Cramton died from multiple stab wounds
.
Prior to trial, defendant filed a motion to present a duress defense to the felony-murder charge. Defendant claimed that Beatty had physically and sexually abused her in the past and that she aided him in the armed robbery that resulted in Cramton's death because she was under duress. Therefore, because defendant committed the underlying felony under duress, she contends that she cannot be guilty of felony murder. The trial court granted the motion, ruling that defendant would be permitted to present her duress defense.
The prosecutor appealed, and the Court of Appeals reversed. In deciding that duress cannot be asserted as a defense to felony murder, the Court of Appeals relied on People v. Henderson , 306 Mich. App. 1, 5, 854 N.W.2d 234 (2014), which held that duress is not available as a defense to aiding and abetting murder. The panel reasoned:
It is the existence of the predicate felony that raises the principal's liability from second-degree murder to first-degree murder. We fail to see why aiding and abetting the murder itself should disallow the duress defense, while aiding and abetting the predicate felony would allow for it. That is, if this were simply a second-degree murder case but the facts otherwise the same, with defendant's liability being based upon an aiding and abetting theory, both defendant and the principal would be guilty of second-degree murder, and the duress defense would be unavailable to defendant. With the addition of the predicate felony, the principal's liability is raised to first-degree murder. Yet defendant's role as an aider and abettor has remained the same, so her criminal responsibility should also be raised to first-degree murder. Simply put, in both cases she aided and abetted a crime that resulted in the taking of a human life.[1 ]
The Court of Appeals also posited that, to convict defendant under an aiding and abetting theory, the prosecutor would need to show "(1) that she intended to aid in the charged offense, or (2) that she knew that the principal intended to commit the charged offense, or (3) that the charged offense was a natural and probable consequence of the crime that she intended to aid and abet."2 Thus, the Court of Appeals reasoned:
If the prosecutor is able to make this showing, then defendant will have intentionally or knowingly participated in a homicide or, at a minimum, participated in a crime for which homicide was a natural and probable consequence. Therefore, to allow the duress defense in this context would, in fact, allow it to be used as a defense to murder.[3 ]
Consequently, the Court of Appeals held "that the trial court erred by granting defendant's motion to raise duress as a defense to the murder charge, including the felony-murder theory."4 Defendant then sought leave to appeal in this Court. We ordered oral argument on the application, directing the parties to address "whether the Court of Appeals correctly determined that duress is not an available defense to the charge of felony murder under any circumstances."5
"Whether common law affirmative defenses are available for a statutory crime and, if so, where the burden of proof lies are questions of law."6 As such, they are reviewed de novo.7
Defendant was charged with open murder under a felony-murder theory with armed robbery as the underlying felony.8 MCL 750.316 provides, in part:
At common law, the felony-murder doctrine "recognize[d] the intent to commit the underlying felony, in itself, as a sufficient mens rea for murder."9 By contrast, under our felony-murder statute, malice has to be separately shown.10 As in every murder case, to convict a person of felony murder under this statute, "it must be shown that he acted with intent to kill or to inflict great bodily harm or with a wanton and willful disregard of the likelihood that the natural tendency of his behavior is to cause death or great bodily harm."11 Thus, MCL 750.316(1)(b) operates only to elevate a second-degree murder to first-degree murder if it was committed in the commission of one of the enumerated felonies.12
Defendant seeks to present a duress defense. "Duress is a common-law affirmative defense."13 To merit a duress instruction, a defendant bears the burden of producing some evidence from which the jury could conclude the following:
Regarding the first factor, "[T]he threatening conduct or act of compulsion must be ‘present, imminent, and impending ...,’ and ... the threat ‘must have arisen without the negligence or fault of the person who insists upon it as a defense.’ "15
Historically, duress was not permitted as an affirmative defense to murder. In the seventeenth century, Sir Matthew Hale wrote:
[I]f a man be desperately assaulted, and in peril of death, and cannot otherwise escape, unless to satisfy his assailant's fury he will kill an innocent person then present, the fear and actual force will not acquit him of the crime and punishment of murder, if he commit the fact; for he ought rather to die himself, than kill an innocent[.][16 ]
Blackstone, nearly a century later, explained the rule as follows:
Another species of compulsion or necessity is what our law calls duress per minas ; or threats and menaces, which induce a fear of death or other bodily harm, and which take away for that reason the guilt of many crimes and misdemeanors; at least before the human tribunal.... This however seems only, or at least principally, to hold as to positive crimes, so created by the laws of society; and which therefore society may excuse; but not as to natural offences, so declared by the law of God, wherein human magistrates are only the executioners of divine punishment. And therefore though a man be violently assaulted, and hath no other possible means of escaping death, but by killing an innocent person; this fear and force shall not acquit him of murder; for he ought rather to die himself, than escape by the murder of an innocent.[17 ]
The Court of Appeals first recognized the rule in People v. Dittis , 157 Mich. App. 38, 41, 403 N.W.2d 94 (1987), in which the Court of Appeals held that "duress is not a valid defense to homicide in Michigan." And it has repeatedly recognized the rule in subsequent cases.18
Other jurisdictions have also recognized the common-law rule or adopted it by statute.19
This Court has not directly addressed whether duress is a defense to felony murder,20 but the Court of Appeals has considered this argument. In People v. Gimotty , 216 Mich. App. 254, 549 N.W.2d 39 (1996), the defendant was convicted of felony murder. A coperpetrator had gone into a women's clothing store and stolen six dresses before getting into defendant's vehicle, which defendant was driving. The police pursued them, and the defendant got into a fatal collision with a third party. The defendant claimed that he did not know his coperpetrator planned to steal any items and that his coperpetrator had slapped him on the head to force him to drive. The Court of Appeals found that no duress instruction was warranted because "[i]t is well settled that duress is not a defense to homicide."21
However, Gimotty ’s conclusion makes...
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