People v. Swafford, Docket No. 136751.
| Decision Date | 18 March 2009 |
| Docket Number | Docket No. 136751. |
| Citation | 762 N.W.2d 902,483 Mich. 1 |
| Parties | PEOPLE of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Kobeay Quran SWAFFORD, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | Michigan Supreme Court |
Michael A. Cox, Atty. Gen., B. Eric Restuccia, Sol. Gen., Kym L. Worthy, Prosecuting Atty., Timothy A. Baughman, Chief of Research, Training and Appeals, and Frank J. Bernacki, Asst. Prosecuting Atty., for the people.
Craig A. Daly, P.C. (by Craig A. Daly), Detroit, for defendant.
We granted leave to appeal in this case to consider whether the Interstate Agreement on Detainers (IAD), MCL 780.601, requires that a detainer be lodged at the institution where the defendant is incarcerated, and, if so, whether there was sufficient evidence in this case that the detainer was properly lodged. The trial court granted defendant's motion to dismiss the charges with prejudice as a result of the prosecutor's failure to bring defendant to trial within 180 days of receiving defendant's request for a final disposition, in violation of Article III(a) of the IAD. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the IAD is not applicable because the prosecutor lodged the detainer against the defendant with the United States Marshals rather than the federal prison in which defendant was incarcerated. However, there is no language in the IAD that indicates that it is only applicable when the detainer was originally lodged with the institution in which the defendant is incarcerated, and in this case it is undisputed that the institution in which defendant was incarcerated received the detainer. The clear language of the IAD states that if a "detainer has been lodged against the prisoner," and the prosecutor fails to bring a defendant to trial within 180 days of receiving the defendant's request for a final disposition made while the defendant is serving a term of imprisonment, the court "shall enter an order dismissing the [complaint] with prejudice," MCL 780.601 (emphasis added). That is precisely what happened in this case. Therefore, we have no choice but to reverse the Court of Appeals and reinstate the trial court's order dismissing the charges with prejudice. However harsh and inflexible a remedy for failure to comply with the IAD this may be adjudged, it is plainly what our Legislature requires.
Defendant was charged in Michigan with first-degree murder, assault with intent to commit murder, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. He was subsequently arrested on an unrelated federal bank robbery charge in Tennessee. On June 1, 2004, the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office (hereinafter referred to as "the prosecutor") sent a written detainer against defendant to the U.S Marshals in Tennessee. Defendant pleaded guilty to the federal charges and was sentenced to federal prison on November 19, 2004. On March 2, 2005, the federal prison authorities where defendant was imprisoned (hereinafter referred to as "the Bureau of Prisons") verified the detainer that was lodged against defendant with the prosecutor.1 The Bureau of Prisons provided the prosecutor and the court clerk with notice of defendant's request for disposition of the Michigan charges.2 This notice was received by the prosecutor and the court clerk on March 7, 2005.3 On June 15, 2005, the prosecutor signed an "Agreement on Detainers" that states, "I propose to bring this person to trial on the indictment, information or complaint named in the offer within the time specified in Article III(a) of the Agreement on Detainers."4 However, defendant was not arraigned in Michigan until October 6, 2005, which everybody agrees was more than 180 days after the prosecutor received defendant's request for a final disposition.
Defendant then filed a motion to dismiss the charges on the ground that the prosecutor had failed to bring him to trial within 180 days of receiving defendant's request for a final disposition in violation of Article III(a) of the IAD, MCL 780.601. The trial court granted this motion and dismissed the charges with prejudice. The prosecutor appealed, and the Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the IAD does not apply because defendant was not serving a term of imprisonment when the detainer was lodged against him. People v. Swafford, unpublished opinion per curiam of the Court of Appeals, issued March 27, 2007 (Docket No. 268499), 2007 WL 914531 (Swafford I).
Defendant filed a timely application for leave to appeal in this Court. We vacated the Court of Appeals judgment and remanded the case to that court for reconsideration in light of the documentation that defendant had attached to his application for leave to appeal in this Court. People v. Swafford, 480 Mich. 881, 738 N.W.2d 233 (2007).5
On remand, the Court of Appeals, in a split decision, again reversed the trial court's dismissal of the charges, holding that the IAD did not apply because the prosecutor had not delivered the detainer to the institution in which defendant was serving his sentence, i.e., the Bureau of Prisons. People v. Swafford (On Remand), unpublished opinion per curiam of the Court of Appeals, issued March 18, 2008 (Docket No. 268499), 2008 WL 723920 (Swafford II.) However, the dissenting judge concluded that
the correspondence sent by the prosecutor's office to the United States Marshall on June 1, 2004 ... became a valid detainer for purposes of the IAD no later than March 2, 2005, when it accompanied defendant to federal prison, was verified, and the prosecutor was notified that defendant was requesting disposition on the outstanding charges filed against him. [Id. at 1 (Zahra, J., dissenting).]
Defendant again filed an application for leave to appeal in this Court, and this time, we granted defendant's application for leave to appeal. People v. Swafford, 482 Mich. 1015, 756 N.W.2d 713 (2008).
This case involves the interpretation of the Interstate Agreement on Detainers Act, MCL 780.601. Questions of statutory interpretation are questions of law that this Court reviews de novo. People v. Osantowski, 481 Mich. 103, 107, 748 N.W.2d 799 (2008).
"Forty-eight States, [including Michigan,] the Federal Government, and the District of Columbia ... have entered into the Interstate Agreement on Detainers...." Alabama v. Bozeman, 533 U.S. 146, 148, 121 S.Ct. 2079, 150 L.Ed.2d 188 (2001). The IAD "creates uniform procedures for lodging and executing a detainer, i.e., a legal order that requires a State in which an individual is currently imprisoned to hold that individual when he has finished serving his sentence so that he may be tried by a different State for a different crime." Id.6 Article I of the IAD indicates that its purpose is to "encourage the expeditious and orderly disposition" of "charges outstanding against ... prisoner[s]." MCL 780.601. Article III(a) of the IAD provides, in pertinent part:
Whenever a person has entered upon a term of imprisonment in a penal or correctional institution of a party state, and whenever during the continuance of the term of imprisonment there is pending in any other party state any untried indictment, information or complaint on the basis of which a detainer has been lodged against the prisoner, he shall be brought to trial within one hundred eighty days after he shall have caused to be delivered to the prosecuting officer and the appropriate court of the prosecuting officers' jurisdiction written notice of the place of his imprisonment and his request for a final disposition to be made of the indictment, information or complaint.... [Id.]
Article V(c) of the IAD states, in relevant part:
[I]n the event that an action on the indictment, information or complaint on the basis of which the detainer has been lodged is not brought to trial within the period provided in Article III ..., the appropriate court of the jurisdiction where the indictment, information or complaint has been pending shall enter an order dismissing the same with prejudice, and any detainer based thereon shall cease to be of any force or effect. [Id.]
In this case, the Wayne County Prosecutor lodged a detainer against defendant, and while defendant was serving a term of imprisonment at a federal institution, defendant made a written request with the prosecutor for a final disposition of the pending Michigan charges. Thereafter, the prosecutor failed to bring defendant to trial within 180 days as is required by Article III(a) of the IAD. Article V(c) of the IAD, MCL 780.601, states that if a trial is not brought within the period provided in Article III(a), "the ... court ... shall enter an order dismissing the [complaint] with prejudice...." (Emphasis added.) Therefore, the trial court in this case properly dismissed the charges with prejudice.
In its first opinion, the Court of Appeals reversed the trial court on the basis that the IAD was not applicable because defendant was not serving a term of imprisonment when the prosecutor lodged the detainer against him. However, the IAD does not require that the detainer be lodged while the defendant is serving a term of imprisonment. Instead, Article III(a) requires that "during the continuance of the term of imprisonment," a charge must be "pending ... on the basis of which a detainer has been lodged." (Emphasis added.) The Legislature's use of the passive voice makes when the detainer was lodged irrelevant as long as it was lodged before the defendant requested a final disposition. Furthermore, "a detainer remains lodged against a prisoner without any action being taken on it." People v. McLemore, 411 Mich. 691, 692 n. 2, 311 N.W.2d 720 (1981) (citation and quotation marks omitted; emphasis added). See also United States v. Mauro, 436 U.S. 340, 360, 98 S.Ct. 1834, 56 L.Ed.2d 329 (1978). Therefore, the IAD applies as long as a "detainer has been lodged against the [defendant]," and the defendant, while serving a term of...
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