People v. Smith

• Decision Date: 12 February 2002
• Docket Number: 209326
• Parties: PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. STEVEN DWAIN SMITH, Defendant-Appellant.MICHIGAN COURT OF APPEALS
• Court: Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US

PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, Plaintiff-Appellee v STEVEN DWAIN SMITH, Defendant-Appellant

No. 209326

MICHIGAN COURT OF APPEALS

February 12, 2002

Washtenaw Circuit Court

LC No. 96-007188-FH

Before: Whitbeck, P.J., and Hoekstra and Owens, JJ.

ON REMAND

PER CURIAM.

A jury found defendant Steven Dwain Smith guilty of first-degree criminal sexual conduct,¹ armed robbery,² possession of a firearm by a felon,³ and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony⁴ for sexually assaulting a student at the University of Michigan at gun point and stealing money from her wallet. Smith appealed his convictions as of right, and this Court affirmed in People v Smith.⁵

Smith then appealed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court, while retaining jurisdiction, has remanded to this Court so that it may clarify its previous decision. Of concern to the Supreme Court is the possibility that this Court articulated the correct legal standard for determining whether a preserved constitutional error is harmless, but applied the lesser standard that is relevant to preserved nonconstitutional error in order to find the error at issue harmless.

People v Anderson (After Remand)⁶ established that the party that benefits from an error, constitutional in nature and preserved for appeal, must demonstrate on appeal that "there is no '"reasonable possibility that the evidence complained of might have contributed to the conviction."'"⁷ In contrast, People v Lukity⁸ holds that an error, nonconstitutional in nature and preserved for appeal, is subject to reversal only when "'after an examination of the entire cause, it shall affirmatively appear' that it is more probable than not that the error was outcome determinative."⁹ Substantively, these two standards differ concerning which party bears the burden of persuading the appellate court that the error was harmless and regarding the degree to which the appellate court must be convinced that the error is harmless before it may affirm. Without a doubt, Anderson articulates the more difficult standard to surpass, which is more favorable to an appellant such as Smith. Thus, the Supreme Court is justifiably concerned any time it suspects that a criminal defendant whose constitutional rights were impinged at trial is forced to satisfy the incorrect standard for reversal on appeal.

In this case, the published opinion demonstrates that this Court was aware of which standard to apply to Smith's claim that admitting his wife's untrustworthy statements under MRE 804(b)(6) was error. In articulating the correct standard, this Court cited¹⁰ People v Carines,¹¹ which draws directly from Anderson in announcing the harmless error standard for preserved constitutional issues.¹² The unintended confusion stems, we believe, from this Court's statement in the Smith opinion that

we would repeat ourselves unnecessarily to outline all the evidence the prosecutor introduced that supported the convictions in this case that had absolutely nothing to do with Wendy Smith's statements to the police or Crystal Smith. For the reasons we found the trial court's decision to admit the evidence concerning the Clarion Hotel robbery harmless, we also find this error harmless.[¹³]

This Court did not intend to imply that it was applying the lower harmless error standard to preserved nonconstitutional issues. Rather, it was referring to the fact that the harmless error standards each set the minimum evidentiary threshold for determining that an error is harmless. In other words, each standard determines the least amount of evidence necessary to convince an appellate court that an error does not require reversal. Logically, every error deemed harmless beyond a reasonable doubt will also satisfy the lower "more probable than not" standard. Of course, this rule does not work in reverse; not every error that is deemed unlikely to be outcome determinative will be harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. However, critically, neither harmless error standard establishes an evidentiary ceiling; that is, the maximum evidence necessary to convince the reviewing court that the error was harmless. Thus, in some cases, the evidence necessary to surpass the "more probable than not" standard for preserved nonconstitutional issues articulated in Lukity may be so very clear and so very convincing that it goes far beyond the relevant minimum evidentiary threshold and also satisfies the "beyond a reasonable" doubt standard for preserved constitutional issues defined in Anderson.

This case provides an apt example of the evidence surpassing the Lukity harmless error standard the preserved nonconstitutional issues to the extent that it also satisfied the harmless error standard for preserved constitutional issues in Anderson. As the...