Summary
In People v. Williams, 683 N.W.2d 597, 602 (Mich. 2004), a case relied upon by the Michigan Court of Appeals in deciding Petitioner's appeal, the Michigan Supreme Court distinguished the implicit right to self-representation guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment and the explicit right to self-representation as guaranteed by the Michigan constitution.
Summary of this case from Savickas v. RewertsOpinion
No. 122021.
July 15, 2004.
SC: 122021, COA: 230897, Wayne CC: 99-009754.
On order of the Court, leave to appeal having been granted, and the Court having heard oral argument on May 13, 2004, we AFFIRM the May 28, 2002 judgment of the Court of Appeals and the defendant's conviction of assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder. MCL 750.84. Our decision in People v. Cornell, 466 Mich. 335, 367 (2002), applies only to cases pending on appeal in which the issue has been raised and preserved, and to cases arising after Cornell. In this case, the defendant did not preserve the issue because he did not object to the prosecutor's request that the trial judge consider convicting defendant of the assault offense. Under pre- Cornell law, it would have been proper to instruct a jury on, or for the judge in a bench trial to consider, assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder as a cognate offense of the charge of first-degree criminal sexual conduct. Here, the evidence supported conviction of the cognate offense. See People v. Jones, 395 Mich. 379, 390 (1975).
I concur in the result only because I believe that the amendment to the information after the close of proofs was an unpreserved constitutional error subject to harmless error analysis. See People v. Chamblis, 395 Mich. 408, 418 (1975); People v. Carines, 460 Mich. 750, 763-766 (1999). However, I would hold that the error was harmless in this case.