PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN v. GARY PATRICK LEWIS
No. 154396
Michigan Supreme Court
July 31, 2017
501 Mich. 1
Stephen J. Markman, Chief Justice; Brian K. Zahra, Bridget M. McCormack, David F. Viviano, Richard H. Bernstein, Joan L. Larsen, Kurtis T. Wilder, Justices.
Reporter of Decisions: Kathryn L. Loomis. This syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.
Syllabus
PEOPLE v LEWIS
Docket No. 154396. Argued on application for leave to appeal April 13, 2017. Decided July 31, 2017.
Gary P. Lewis was convicted after a jury trial in the Wayne Circuit Court of four counts of third-degree arson,
In a unanimous opinion by Justice LARSEN, in lieu of granting leave to appeal, the Supreme Court held:
The deprivation of defense counsel at a preliminary examination is subject to harmless-error review.
1. Under the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution, a defendant has a right to counsel during critical stages of a criminal prosecution. In this case, the prosecutor conceded that the preliminary examination is a critical stage. With regard to the proper remedy when the right to counsel at a preliminary examination is denied, Coleman held that a remand was necessary to determine whether that denial was harmless error, while Cronic stated that a trial is unfair if the accused is denied counsel at a critical stage of the trial, requiring automatic reversal. However, that statement in Cronic, a case involving an allegation of ineffective assistance of counsel, was dictum, whereas the holding in Coleman that the deprivation of counsel at a preliminary examination is subject to harmless-error review was not. Accordingly, the holding in Coleman was binding.
2. In evaluating whether the deprivation of counsel at a preliminary examination was harmless, a court may not simply presume, without more, that the deprivation must have caused the defendant harm, nor may it presume that the error was harmless because of the subsequent conviction, even if no evidence from the preliminary examination was used at trial and the defendant waived no rights or defenses because of the absence of counsel. Given that the parties did not address either the substantive criteria or the procedural framework that should attend this review, the case was remanded to the Court of Appeals to consider those questions in the first instance.
Court of Appeals judgment reversed; Part II of the Court of Appeals opinion vacated; case remanded to the Court of Appeals for further proceedings.
Justice McCORMACK, joined by Justice BERNSTEIN, concurring, signed the majority opinion in full and agreed that Coleman was controlling and binding in this case, but wrote separately to question whether harmless-error review under Coleman for cases in which counsel was denied at a preliminary examination was sustainable given the speculative nature of the inquiry, the evolution of and reasoning behind the United States Supreme Court‘s structural-error doctrine, and the unresolved tension between Coleman and Cronic.
©2017 State of Michigan
PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v GARY PATRICK LEWIS, Defendant-Appellee.
No. 154396
STATE OF MICHIGAN SUPREME COURT
FILED July 31, 2017
LARSEN, J.
OPINION
LARSEN, J.
This case confronts us with two precedents of the Supreme Court of the United States that initially seem to conflict. In one, the Supreme Court remarked that denial of counsel at a critical stage of a criminal proceeding is a structural error requiring automatic reversal. See United States v Cronic, 466 US 648, 659; 104 S Ct 2039; 80 L Ed 2d 657 (1984). In the other, the Court remanded for harmless-error analysis in a case in which it held that a defendant was denied counsel at a critical stage—his preliminary examination. See Coleman v Alabama, 399 US 1, 11; 90 S Ct 1999; 26 L Ed 2d 387 (1970).1
The defendant in this case was deprived of the right to counsel at his preliminary examination. Believing itself bound by precedent, the Court of Appeals resolved the conflict by holding, in effect, that Cronic controlled and granting defendant an automatic new trial. But Cronic‘s discussion of the general remedy for complete denials of counsel was dictum; while Coleman held that the denial of counsel at a preliminary hearing—the very error at issue here—is subject to harmless-error review. When the Supreme Court‘s holdings and its dicta conflict, we are bound to follow its holdings. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals, vacate Part II of its opinion, and remand the case to the Court of Appeals for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
I. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
Before his preliminary examination, defendant, Gary Lewis, had been appointed two lawyers. He was not pleased with either; indeed, the examining court noted that he had filed grievances against each of his previous attorneys. Defendant‘s most recently appointed attorney was present in the courtroom when defendant appeared for his preliminary examination. At the start of the hearing, the judge asked defendant to state his name for the record. Defendant replied that he was “not talking“; that he didn‘t have an attorney; that he was being disrespected; that his rights were being violated; and that he was “through with it.” The trial judge stated that he understood defendant to have “elected that he would prefer not to have a lawyer represent him” at the preliminary examination. Defendant explicitly disagreed: “I never said that.” The court proceeded anyway, with defendant acting pro se, and appointed defendant‘s former attorney as standby counsel. Despite many warnings, defendant repeatedly disrupted the preliminary examination and was ultimately removed from the courtroom. At that point, the judge relieved standby counsel of his duties, and the prosecution continued with the preliminary examination unopposed. Defendant was bound over for trial.
Defendant was represented by counsel at trial and was convicted by jury of one count of second-degree arson and four counts of third-degree arson. He challenged his convictions in the Court of Appeals, arguing that the deprivation of counsel at his preliminary examination was a structural error requiring automatic reversal. Believing itself bound by precedent, the Court of Appeals agreed, overturned the convictions, and remanded for a new trial. People v Lewis, unpublished per curiam opinion of the Court of Appeals, issued July 21, 2016 (Docket No. 325782). The prosecution filed an application for leave to appeal in this Court, and we ordered oral argument on the application. People v Lewis, 500 Mich 897 (2016).
II. ANALYSIS
The prosecution concedes that defendant lacked counsel at his preliminary
Two cases compete for our attention. The prosecution directs us to Coleman. In that case, the defendant was denied counsel at his preliminary hearing. The Supreme Court held that the hearing was a critical stage because of the “inability of the indigent accused on his own to realize the[] advantages of a lawyer‘s assistance” at such a proceeding.3 Coleman, 399 US at 9-10 (opinion by Brennan, J.); id. at 12 (Black, J., concurring) (agreeing that “the preliminary hearing is a ‘critical stage’ “). A majority of the Court determined that the proper remedy was to remand the case to the Alabama courts to consider “whether the denial of counsel at the preliminary hearing was harmless error.” Id. at 11, citing Chapman v California, 386 US 18; 87 S Ct 824; 17 L Ed 2d 705 (1967).
Defendant points to United States v Cronic. There, the Court remarked that some “circumstances . . . are so likely to prejudice the accused that the cost of litigating their effect in a particular case is unjustified.” Cronic, 466 US at 658. The Court began with the “most obvious” of these circumstances—“complete denial of counsel“—and commented that “a trial is unfair if the accused is denied counsel at a critical stage of his trial.” Id. at 659.
Coleman‘s review for harmless error is obviously incompatible with the automatic reversal suggested by Cronic. Defendant asks us to hold, therefore, that Cronic silently abrogated Coleman and to automatically reverse his conviction. We decline to do so.
It is an elementary proposition that “state courts are bound by United States
Cronic was a case about the effective assistance of counsel guaranteed by the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution. The defendant was on trial in a mail-fraud case involving $9.4 million in transferred checks. Cronic, 466 US at 649. His retained counsel had withdrawn shortly before the scheduled trial and a young lawyer with a real-estate practice, and no criminal-trial experience, had been appointed to represent the defendant. Id. The Government‘s investigation had taken more than four years, but defense counsel was given only 25 days to prepare for trial. Id. The defendant challenged his conviction on the ground that, under the circumstances, he had been deprived of the effective assistance of counsel. The United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit agreed. United States v Cronic, 675 F2d 1126 (CA 10, 1982). Even though the defendant could not point to any specific errors in his counsel‘s performance, or prejudice flowing therefrom, the federal appellate court held that “no such showing is necessary ‘when circumstances hamper a given lawyer‘s preparation of a defendant‘s case.’ ” Cronic, 466 US at 651. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the defendant could “make out a claim of ineffective assistance only by pointing to specific errors made by trial counsel.” Id. at 666.
Along the way, the Court‘s opinion in Cronic contrasted claims of ineffective assistance with other errors “so likely to prejudice the accused that the cost of litigating their effect in a particular case is unjustified.” Id. at 658. It deemed “[m]ost obvious” among them “the complete denial of counsel . . . at a critical stage of his trial.” Id. at 659. But the question in Cronic was not whether the defendant had been denied counsel completely, much less whether he had been completely denied counsel at a preliminary hearing. It was, instead, whether his counsel had provided effective assistance at trial. And so the Court‘s statements about the complete denial of counsel were dicta.4
The Coleman decision, by contrast, is directly on point. Although it is short on explanation for its remedy, the Court plainly held that the deprivation of counsel at a preliminary examination is subject to harmless-error review under the federal Constitution. See Coleman, 399 US at 11. Accordingly, we apply that decision, rather than the dictum in Cronic.5
While we have easily concluded that harmless-error review applies, we admit to being uncertain about just how a court is to evaluate the effect of this error on a verdict. Coleman does not tell us; there, the Supreme Court simply remanded to the Supreme Court of Alabama to review the effect of the error under Chapman without further discussion. We do, however, have some guideposts. At each extreme, we know what is not permitted. At one end, a court may not simply presume, without more, that the deprivation of counsel at a preliminary examination must have caused the defendant harm. Although consistent with the presumption accorded to the complete denial of counsel at some other stages of a criminal proceeding, see, e.g, Gideon v Wainwright, 372 US 335; 83 S Ct 792; 9 L Ed 2d 799 (1963) (at trial); Penson v Ohio, 488 US 75; 109 S Ct 346; 102 L Ed 2d 300 (1988) (on first appeal as of right), such an approach would be treating the error as structural—a result foreclosed by Coleman. Neither, however, may we presume the opposite. Although it finds support by analogy in the Supreme Court‘s post-verdict evaluation of most grand-jury errors, see United States v Mechanik, 475 US 66, 73; 106 S Ct 938; 89 L Ed 2d 50 (1986), Coleman does not permit us to presume that a defendant, who was ultimately convicted at an otherwise fair trial, suffered no harm from the absence of counsel at his preliminary examination. And that is true even if no evidence from the preliminary examination was used at trial, and even if defendant waived no rights or defenses
And so, with the two perhaps most intuitive options for assessing harm off the table, courts are left to give meaning to the Supreme Court‘s command to determine whether defendant was “otherwise prejudiced by the absence of counsel at the preliminary hearing.” Coleman, 399 US at 11. The parties have not addressed in this litigation either the substantive criteria or the procedural framework that should attend such review. Accordingly, we remand to the Court of Appeals to consider those questions in the first instance.
III. CONCLUSION
In accordance with Coleman, we hold that the deprivation of counsel at a preliminary examination is subject to harmless-error review. We, therefore, reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals, vacate Part II of its opinion, and remand to that Court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. If the Court of Appeals concludes that the error was harmless, it must also address the sentencing issue raised in defendant‘s brief in that Court.10
Joan L. Larsen
Stephen J. Markman
Brian K. Zahra
Bridget M. McCormack
David F. Viviano
Richard H. Bernstein
Kurtis T. Wilder
PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v GARY PARTICK LEWIS, Defendant-Appellee.
No. 154396
STATE OF MICHIGAN SUPREME COURT
McCORMACK, J. (concurring).
McCORMACK, J.
I agree with the majority that we are bound to follow Coleman v Alabama, 399 US 1; 90 S Ct 1999; 26 L Ed 2d 387 (1970), because it is directly on point and has never been overruled. I write separately to call attention to the difficulties inherent in performing a harmless-error review in cases such as this and, relatedly, to the possibility that the United States Supreme Court should reexamine Coleman in light of United States v Cronic, 466 US 648; 104 S Ct 2039; 80 L Ed 2d 657 (1984).
It is difficult for me to imagine what a harmless-error review will look like when, as in this case, a defendant was denied counsel at the preliminary examination. As the majority recognizes, Coleman excluded the most intuitive bases for finding prejudicial harm because it made plain that the question of harmless error does not depend on whether evidence from the preliminary hearing was presented at trial, and Coleman remanded for a harmless-error determination even though the defendants waived no rights or defenses because of the absence of counsel. Coleman, 399 US at 8, 10-11. Further, Coleman remanded for harmless-error review with little guidance; the court was to determine whether the defendants were “otherwise prejudiced” by the deprivation of counsel at the preliminary hearing. Id. at 11.
There are, of course, many ways that the absence of counsel at a preliminary hearing might be harmful to a defendant apart from counsel‘s role in negating a showing of probable cause. Indeed, the Coleman Court identified many of these: counsel uses a preliminary hearing to expose weaknesses in the prosecution‘s case through cross-examination, lays the grounds for later impeachment at trial, effectively discovers the prosecution‘s case, and makes arguments related to bail or psychiatric examinations.1 Id. at 9. I can think of others, too: the preliminary examination is often a critical client-counseling moment when plea deals can be negotiated, and additional formal and informal communications between defense counsel, the prosecutor, and the court give the defendant important information about the evidence against him or her. But I find it extremely problematic for a court to conduct a harmless-error review with reference to these factors. It will require courts to speculate whether counsel would have discovered a significant weakness in the prosecution‘s case through cross-examination, or how effectively counsel might have been able to lay the grounds for later impeachment of a witness at trial, and what other information might have been revealed in the examination of witnesses or discussions among counsel. It will require courts to speculate about the
opportunities for negotiating a plea deal and counsel‘s advice about whether to accept a particular offer. And the speculation won‘t end there: next, courts will have to speculate about what result this hypothetical representation at the preliminary examination might have had at a subsequent trial.2 In short, I
All of this gives me reason to question whether Coleman‘s holding remains viable in light of the evolution of the Supreme Court‘s structural-error doctrine. I agree with the majority that Cronic‘s comment suggesting that courts should presume prejudice and automatically reverse upon complete denial of counsel at a critical stage was dictum. The issue addressed in Cronic was whether the defendant received effective assistance of counsel, not whether the defendant was denied counsel at a critical stage. But several subsequent cases have cited Cronic for the proposition that courts should presume prejudice if a defendant suffers complete denial of counsel at a critical stage. See, e.g., Roe v Flores-Ortega, 528 US 470, 483; 120 S Ct 1029; 145 L Ed 2d 985 (2000); Mickens v Taylor, 535 US 162, 166; 122 S Ct 1237; 152 L Ed 2d 291 (2002); Woods v Donald, 575 US 312, 317-319; 135 S Ct 1372, 1375-1376; 191 L Ed 2d 464 (2015). Indeed, in Woods, 575 US at 317-319; 135 S Ct 1375-1376, the Supreme Court reiterated the Cronic dictum as a holding that the complete denial of counsel at a critical stage allows a presumption of unconstitutional prejudice. And the preliminary examination is a critical stage in criminal proceedings. Coleman, 399 US at 9. Thus, it seems Cronic‘s reasoning would apply with equal force to a preliminary examination, but for Coleman‘s holding to the contrary.
Further, the reasoning that animates the Court‘s structural-error jurisprudence seems to apply with full force in the context of a preliminary examination. The common strand I see in the Court‘s rationale for declaring an error structural and presuming prejudice requiring reversal is that the particular error makes assessing its effect exceptionally difficult. United States v Marcus, 560 US 258, 263; 130 S Ct 2159; 176 L Ed 2d 1012 (2010). Structural errors are characterized by “consequences that are necessarily unquantifiable and indeterminate . . . .” Sullivan v Louisiana, 508 US 275, 282; 113 S Ct 2078, 124 L Ed 2d 182 (1993). As explained above, that rationale seems on the nose here. Harmless-error review is impractical because of the difficulty in determining what might have gone differently if the defendant had the benefit of counsel at the preliminary examination. It is impossible to know with certainty what questions counsel might have posed and what answers witnesses might have provided, what other benefits the defendant might have derived from having counsel available, and how all of those considerations would have affected the subsequent trial. In my view, harmless-error analysis in cases in which counsel was denied at the preliminary examination risks becoming a “speculative inquiry into what might have occurred in an alternate universe.” United States v Gonzalez-Lopez, 548 US 140, 150; 126 S Ct 2557; 165 L Ed 2d 409 (2006).
The development of the Supreme Court‘s structural-error doctrine, the reasoning that explains it, and the unresolved tension between Cronic and Coleman3
Bridget M. McCormack
Richard H. Bernstein