PEOPLE v. HARRIS
PEOPLE v. LITTLE
PEOPLE v. HUGHES
Docket Nos. 149872, 149873, and 150042
Argued November 4, 2015
Decided June 22, 2016
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PEOPLE v HARRIS
PEOPLE v LITTLE
PEOPLE v HUGHES
Docket Nos. 149872, 149873, and 150042. Argued November 4, 2015 (Calendar No. 2). Decided June 22, 2016.
Nevin Hughes, a Detroit police officer, assaulted a person while on duty. The victim filed a complaint, resulting in an internal investigation by the Detroit Police Department’s Office of the Chief Investigator (OCI). Hughes made statements during the investigation, under the threat of dismissal from his job, in which he denied the allegations. After a video recording of the incident came to light, Hughes was charged in the 36th District Court with felony misconduct in office, misdemeanor assault and battery, and obstruction of justice. Two other Detroit police officers, Sean Harris and William Little, who had been standing nearby during the incident and had made statements denying the allegations against Hughes during the OCI investigation under the threat of dismissal from their jobs, were also charged in the 36th District Court with obstruction of justice. The court, Katherine L. Hansen, J., relying on the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution and the disclosures by law enforcement officers act (DLEOA),
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DLEOA barred the use of defendants’ false statements in the criminal proceedings. People v Hughes, 306 Mich App 116 (2014). The Supreme Court granted defendants’ applications for leave to appeal. People v Harris, 497 Mich 958 (2015).
In an opinion by Justice Zahra, joined by Chief Justice Young and Justices McCormack, Bernstein, and Larsen, the Supreme Court held:
Under the DLEOA, any information provided by a law enforcement officer, if compelled under threat of any employment sanction by the officer’s employer, cannot be used against the officer in subsequent criminal proceedings. The act does not distinguish between true and false statements. Therefore, even if false, the officer’s statements cannot be used against the officer in a subsequent prosecution.
1. In People v Allen, 15 Mich App 387 (1968), the Court of Appeals held that the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments’ benefits of freedom from a coerced waiver of the right to remain silent had to be respected even in a subsequent perjury prosecution. But as the Court of Appeals correctly observed, after Allen was decided, Michigan caselaw failed to keep pace with federal developments in this area of the law, including United States Supreme Court decisions clarifying that the Fifth Amendment only applies to truthful statements. Accordingly, the Court of Appeals repudiated its prior decision in Allen and held that the Fifth Amendment did not bar the use of defendants’ false statements. The parties did not challenge the repudiation of Allen on appeal in the Michigan Supreme Court and, given the developments in the law in the time since Allen was decided, there was no reason to disturb that repudiation.
2.
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Appeals erred when it concluded that the Legislature, by merely using the word “information,” intended to impose an inherent requirement of veracity for involuntary statements to be covered under the DLEOA. Examination of the Legislature’s use of “information” in other statutes leaves no doubt that in the DLEOA the unmodified term is properly construed to apply to all “information,” whether true or false. Several statutes related to immunity and compulsory statements refer to “truthful information.” The presence of the word “truthful” in these statutes is linked to this Court’s ruling in People v McIntire, 461 Mich 147 (1999). At issue in McIntire was the proper interpretation of transactional immunity for witnesses compelled to answer potentially incriminating questions under
3. Applying this interpretation of the DLEOA’s plain language, the obstruction-of-justice charges brought against defendants had to be dismissed. Defendants provided statements regarding their encounter with the victim under threat of termination; these statements, though false, were protected by the DLEOA and, therefore, could not be used against defendants in a criminal proceeding. There was no dispute that defendants’ statements provided the only basis for charging them with obstruction of justice and that the charges had to be dismissed if the officers’ statements were inadmissible. While the result might be unpalatable, the Court could not substitute its own policy judgment in the face of the text of the statute.
Court of Appeals judgment reversed to the extent it held that under the DLEOA a law enforcement officer’s involuntary statement could be used against the officer in a criminal proceeding if
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the statement was false. District court orders dismissing the obstruction-of-justice charges brought against defendants reinstated.
Justice Markman, joined by Justice Viviano, concurring in part and dissenting in part, agreed with the majority opinion to the extent it held that the Fifth Amendment does not preclude the use of false statements by a law enforcement officer in a prosecution for obstruction of justice, but disagreed with it to the extent it held that the DLEOA precludes the use of false statements by a law enforcement officer in a prosecution for obstruction of justice. That is, contrary to the majority, Justice Markman agreed with the Court of Appeals that false statements do not constitute “information” and therefore are not protected by the DLEOA. Lies do not constitute “information” as that term is commonly defined and understood. “Information” is commonly defined as knowledge. Lies do not impart knowledge. Indeed, one becomes increasingly less informed as a result of lies. A number of Michigan statutes refer to “inaccurate” or “misleading” information, supporting the Court of Appeals majority’s conclusion that “information” signifies truthful information because in those unusual circumstances in which the Legislature is intending to refer to untruthful information, the Legislature recognizes that it needs to supply a modifier to precede “information” because, when unmodified, “information” signifies truthful information. Although the Legislature added “truthful” before “information” in a handful of statutes in the wake of McIntire, the Legislature likely did not believe it needed to add “truthful” before “information” when it enacted the DLEOA seven years later because (a) the DLEOA was viewed as a codification of United States Supreme Court decisions, which held that the Fifth Amendment did not protect false statements, and (b) the Legislature almost certainly perceived the word “information” as only connoting truthful information and simply did not feel obligated in perpetuity to add “truthful” every time it used the word “information.” Nothing within McIntire can be read to suggest that false statements constitute “information.” Rather, what most obviously can be drawn from the Legislature’s response to McIntire is that McIntire’s equivalent treatment of truthful and false statements was squarely repudiated, an equivalency that is exactly repeated in the majority’s interpretation in the instant case. Additionally,
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not compel defendants to lie; it sought only to “compel” defendants to tell the truth. That defendants chose to provide exculpatory falsehoods, rather than inculpatory truths, resulted in their loss of protection under the Fifth Amendment and the DLEOA. Moreover, the DLEOA is based on an obvious theory of quid pro quo: police officers provide information to the government about police misconduct, and in exchange the government agrees not to use the information against the officers. However, when the officers proceed to lie to the government, the government is deprived of that to which it was entitled in exchange for the grant of immunity—information. No Legislature, and no legislator, could conceivably have intended such a result. Construing the DLEOA in light of its purpose—assisting in the discovery of police misconduct—strongly supports the conclusion that “information” presupposes “truthful information.” Simply put, there is no reason to enact an immunity statute if it cannot produce “information” that is helpful in uncovering police misconduct. Justice Markman would have affirmed the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
Criminal Law — Evidence — Police Officers’ Involuntary Statements.
Under the disclosures by law enforcement officers act, an involuntary statement made by a law enforcement officer, and any information derived from that involuntary statement, shall not be used against the law enforcement officer in a criminal proceeding; the act, in
Steven Fishman and Pamella Szydlak for Sean Harris and William Little.
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OPINION OF THE COURT
Goldpaugh & Associates, PC (by John J. Goldpaugh), for Nevin Hughes.
Amici Curiae:
Douglas M. Gutscher and Frank A. Guido for the Police Officers Association of Michigan.
Thomas R. Zulch, Brendan J. Canfield, and Megan Boelstler for the Police Officers Labor Council.
ZAHRA, J. In these three consolidated cases, we address the difficult question of whether defendants’ false statements made while serving as law enforcement officers during an internal affairs investigation can be used against them in criminal proceedings. We conclude that under the disclosures by law enforcement officers act (DLEOA),
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United States Constitution
I. BASIC FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS
This case arises out of a disturbing encounter between Dajuan Hodges-Lamar and defendants, who at the time were police officers for the city of Detroit. While on duty in November 2009, defendant Hughes approached Hodges-Lamar while he was seated in a car at a gas station. Hughes initially appeared to question Hodges-Lamar, but quickly proceeded to assault him while defendants Harris and Little, who were also on duty, stood by and did nothing to stop the
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assault. Hodges-Lamar filed a complaint with the Detroit Police Department, which spurred an internal investigation by the Detroit Police Department’s Office of the Chief Investigator (OCI). All three defendants were called to testify at a Garrity hearing.
The OCI presented defendants with an advice-of-rights form drafted by the Detroit Police Department. In relevant part, the form broadly stated:
4. If I refuse . . . to answer questions . . . I will be subject to departmental charges which could result in my dismissal from the police department.
5. If I do answer . . . neither my statements or any information or evidence which is gained by reason of such statements can be used against my [sic] in any subsequent criminal proceeding.
The language of this form, like the language of DLEOA, did not expressly require truthful answers or truthful statements.3 Defendants also received a reservation-of-rights form drafted by the Detroit Police Department, which provided, in relevant part, as follows:
It is my belief . . . that this Statement and the Preliminary Complaint Report
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All three defendants made false statements at the Garrity hearing. Defendants Harris and Little denied that Hughes had any physical contact with Hodges-Lamar. Hughes admitted that he removed Hodges-Lamar from Hodges-Lamar’s car during questioning, but Hughes maintained that he did not use any unnecessary force against Hodges-Lamar. A video recording of the incident surfaced after defendants had made their statements. The video recording was provided to the OCI.4
The video recording is wholly at odds with the statements provided by defendants. The prosecutor charged Hughes with common-law felony misconduct in office,
Defendants brought motions in district court to dismiss the obstruction-of-justice charges.5 The district
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court concluded that defendants’ statements were protected by the DLEOA, even if the information provided was false or misleading. The court determined that without defendants’ statements the obstruction-of-justice charges could not be sustained and dismissed those charges. The prosecution appealed in the circuit court, which concluded that the district court had not abused its discretion by dismissing the obstruction-of-justice charges.
The prosecution filed applications for leave to appeal in the Court of Appeals with regard to all three defendants. In a published opinion, a divided panel reversed the lower courts and reinstated the obstruction-of-justice charges.6 The majority recognized that its holding conflicted with People v Allen,7 which held that “the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments’ benefits of freedom from [a] coerced waiver of the right to remain silent . . . must be respected,” even in a subsequent perjury prosecution. After noting that Allen was not binding precedent under MCR 7.215(J)(1), the majority concluded that “in light of the post-Garrity caselaw permitting
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include true statements only, and that false statements and lies therefore fall outside the scope of the statute’s protection.”10
Judge WILDER dissented from the majority’s determination that false statements fall outside the DLEOA’s scope of protection. Relying on the plain meaning of the words of the act, Judge WILDER reasoned that the protection granted law enforcement officers under the DLEOA applies to all information garnered from an officer during a compulsory internal police investigation.
Defendants filed separate applications for leave to appeal in this Court, each arguing that the Court of Appeals majority erred by concluding that the DLEOA’s scope of protection did not encompass defendants’ false statements. On February 4, 2015, we granted the applications, directing the parties to brief “whether the Disclosures by Law Enforcement Officers Act,
II. STANDARD OF REVIEW
We review de novo constitutional issues and matters of statutory interpretation.12
III. ANALYSIS
We must determine whether Michigan law provides these defendants with more protections than those provided under the Fifth Amendment of the United
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States Constitution. While we touch on the constitutional right against self-incrimination found in the Fifth Amendment and the corresponding provision of the Michigan Constitution, this case does not turn on those constitutional provisions. Defendants do not maintain the protection they seek comes from Garrity or its progeny under federal or Michigan caselaw.
An involuntary statement made by a law enforcement officer, and any information derived from that involuntary statement, shall not be used against the law enforcement officer in a criminal proceeding.
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The DLEOA defines the term “involuntary statement” as follows:
“Involuntary statement” means information provided by a law enforcement officer, if compelled under threat of dismissal from employment or any other employment sanction, by the law enforcement agency that employs the law enforcement officer.[15]
The prosecution argues this language does not preclude the use in later criminal proceedings of false or misleading information obtained through a Garrity hearing. The prosecution characterizes the language as nothing more than a codification of the Garrity rule as it has been developed through federal caselaw. Thus, the prosecution argues that the DLEOA only provides the protection afforded under the Fifth Amendment. Because the Supreme Court of the United States has made it clear that the Fifth Amendment grants a privilege to remain silent without consequence, but “does not endow the person who testifies with a license to commit perjury,”16 the prosecution maintains that the DLEOA does not protect from subsequent criminal prosecution a law enforcement officer who provides false or misleading statements in a Garrity hearing.
The plain language of the DLEOA controls our resolution of this dispute and compels us to agree with defendants. Applying traditional principles of statutory construction to the language of the DLEOA, we must conclude that the act sweeps within its scope the false statements offered by defendants. While we may question the Legislature’s decision to offer such unqualified protections, we are obligated to respect that
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decision and interpret the statute in accordance with its plain language.
A. THE DLEOA’S PROTECTIONS REACH BOTH TRUE AND FALSE STATEMENTS
Our primary focus in this case—and all cases in which we are called upon to interpret a statute—is the language of the statute under review. The words of the statute provide the best evidence of legislative intent and the policy choices made by the Legislature.17 Our role as members of the judiciary is not to second-guess those policy decisions or to change the words of a statute in order to reach a different result. In fact, a “clear and unambiguous statute leaves no room for judicial construction or interpretation.”18 Therefore, we start by examining the words of the statute, which “should be interpreted on the basis of their ordinary
The Legislature chose to use broad language in the DLEOA. The act prohibits any information derived from an involuntary statement from being used against the officer in a criminal proceeding20 and also prohibits public access to and disclosure of an involuntary statement, except under certain statutorily enumerated circumstances.21 The act does not expressly limit the statute’s protections to true statements, nor does it contain any express exception for perjury, lying, providing misinformation, or similar dishonesty. In contrast, numerous statutes concerning the use of
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compelled testimony contain express exceptions to allow the use of such dishonest testimony for impeachment purposes and in prosecutions for perjury.22 The Court of Appeals inferred the existence of such a limitation in the DLEOA from the Legislature’s use of the term “information.” While we agree that “information” comprises statements that are true, the word does not exclude statements that are false.
The word “information” is not defined in the statute, but dictionaries define the word broadly as “knowledge communicated or received concerning a particular fact or circumstance”;23 “[k]nowledge or facts communicated about a particular subject, event, etc.; intelligence, news”;24 and “the communication or reception of knowledge or intelligence [.]”25 The dissent focuses its attention on “knowledge,” but “intelligence” and “news,” both of which are used in dictionaries to describe “information,” can be false.26 Even “knowledge” can be defined to include “the sum of what is known,”27 which does not foreclose the possibility of including something that is false.
We may even conclude that “knowledge” in its primary sense encompasses something that is true. But the statute nowhere uses the term “knowledge.” Instead, it protects “statements,” which no one disputes may be false and are statutorily defined as “information.” The critical inquiry is not whether “knowledge”
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equals “truth,” but whether “information” connotes only truth. Dictionaries, which define “information” as “knowledge,” “intelligence,” or “news,” do not yield a dispositive answer.
Keeping in mind that we must interpret the word “information” as used in the DLEOA “according to the common and approved usage of the language,”28 we apply a tool that can aid in the discovery of “how particular words or phrases are actually used in written or spoken English.”29
The dissent claims that, in ordinary usage, “we should not think of someone who provided inaccurate statements as having imparted ‘knowledge’ or ‘information’ . . . .”32 Empirical data from the COCA, however, demonstrates the opposite. In common usage, “information” is regularly used in conjunction with adjectives suggesting it may be both true and false.33 This strongly suggests that the unmodified word “information” can describe either true or false statements.
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Moreover, by reading each identified use of the word “information” in its surrounding context,34 it is clear that “information” is often used to describe false statements.35 Quite simply, “information” in common parlance describes perceptions conveyed about the world around us, which may be true or false.36
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The Court of Appeals failed to account for the breadth and scope of the word “information.” We therefore cannot agree that the lay definitions of “information”
To the contrary, examination of the Legislature’s use of “information” in other statutes that existed at the time the DLEOA was enacted leaves no doubt that the unmodified term is properly construed to apply to all “information,” whether true or false. In the years leading up to enactment of the DLEOA, the Legislature frequently modified the word “information” with the word “truthful” when it intended to reach only truthful information. Such an express limitation, found in a number of other statutes, including in statutes involving immunity or compelled statements,38
CBS News, The Spread of Measles—And of Lies on the Internet <http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-spread-of-measles-and-of-lies-on-the-internet/> (posted February 8, 2015) (accessed June 6, 2016) [https://perma.cc/F4XK-9PAE].
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is not present here.39 Of particular relevance
(expressly protecting only “truthful testimony” and “truthful information” from being used against a witness);
Notes
defined as “acquaintance with facts, truths, or principles[.]” Id. (emphasis added).11 As the Court of Appeals explained:
The phrase “involuntary statement” is defined as “information provided by a law enforcement officer, if compelled under threat of dismissal from employment or any other employment sanction, by the law enforcement agency that employs the law enforcement officer.”
MCL 15.391(a) (emphasis added). But when an officer is compelled to make a statement during an internal investigation, and provides only misinformation and lies, he or she has not provided any “information” at all within the commonly understood meaning of that word. Among other things, “information” is defined as “knowledge communicated or received concerning a particular fact or circumstance.” Random House Webster’s College Dictionary (1997). The word “knowledge,” in turn, is defined as “the body of truths or facts accumulated in the course of time.” Id. Because an officer’s lies do not impart any truths or facts, they necessarily do not constitute “information.” SeeMCL 15.391(a) .12
In other words, an officer’s lies and as the result of lies. Consider, for example, the concept of “informed consent,” which is defined as “a patient’s consent to a medical or surgical procedure or to participation in a clinical study after being properly advised of the relevant medical facts and the risks involved.” Id. (emphasis added). We would never state that a patient who consented to a medical procedure after being lied to about the relevant medical factors or risks in that medical procedure provided genuinely “informed consent.” Likewise, we should not here conclude that officers who lied about misconduct nevertheless provided “information.”
false statements do not qualify as “involuntary statement[s]” under
Judge WILDER concurred with the Court of Appeals majority regarding the Fifth Amendment issue, but dissented on the statutory issue on the basis that lies constitute “information.” As already explained, I agree with the Court of Appeals majority that lies do not constitute “information” as that term is commonly understood.13 In other words, I do not believe most people would reasonably conclude that a person has provided them with “information” if all that the other person has done is tell them lies.14
The majority relies on the following definitions of “information”: “knowledge communicated or received concerning a particular fact or circumstance”; “[k]nowledge or facts communicated about a particular subject, event, etc.; intelligence, news”; and “the communication or reception of knowledge or intelligence[.]” (Citations and quotation marks omitted). In addition, the majority relies on the following definition of “knowledge”: “the sum of what is known[.]” (Citation and quotation marks omitted). Each of these definitions strongly suggest that “information” and “knowledge” are things that are known, or at least believed, to be true at the time that they are communicated. However, when the officers here provided the statements at issue, they knew that their statements were false. That is, the officers “knew” that defendant Hughes assaulted Hodges-Lamar, and yet they stated just the opposite. Thus, the officers’ statements were very much at odds with their “information” or “knowledge” on the subject of what had occurred concerning Hodges-Lamar.
ordinary English language usage compiled by linguistic scholars at Brigham Young University, in particular Professor Mark Davies. The COCA, available at <http://corpus.byu.edu/coca/> (accessed June 7, 2016), is an online “resource [that can be used by courts] for assessing the ordinary meaning of a statutory term.” State v Rasabout, 2015 Utah 72, ¶ 72; 356 P3d 1258 (2015) (Lee, A.C.J., concurring in part) (assessing with an impressive thoroughness, in ¶¶ 40-134, the strengths and limitations of using a corpus to facilitate the interpretive processes of the judiciary). By using the COCA, “we can access large bodies of real-world language to see how particular words or phrases are actually used in written or spoken English.” Id. at ¶ 57. However, notwithstanding the majority’s invocation of the COCA, I believe that the COCA actually supports the proposition set forth in this dissent that the common and most reasonable understanding of the term “information” excludes false statements. The term “information” is found within the COCA 168,187 times, and yet it is only modified by the term “truthful” 28 times, “true” 18 times, “accurate” 508 times, “inaccurate” 112 times, and “false” 271 times. In other words, the term “information” is modified by one of these adjectives 937 times. The other 167,250 times that the word “information” is used it is unmodified by one of these adjectives. That is, 99.44% of the time “information” in the COCA is unmodified by any of these adjectives related to veracity. Therefore, I disagree with the majority’s contention that the COCA affords support for the proposition that the term “information” is “regularly” or “commonly” modified by one of these adjectives. I find to the contrary. And where “information” is unmodified by one of these adjectives, I believe it is overwhelmingly used to refer to truthful information. See, e.g., the utterly ordinary, commonplace, and pedestrian usages of “information” set forth in the COCA (among 167,248 others) at Morgenson, Outside Advice on Boss’s Pay May Not Be So Independent, New York Times (April 10, 2006) (“The company operates Verizon’s employee benefits Web sites, where its workers get information about their pay, health and retirement benefits, college savings plans and the like.”); Anderson, As Lenders, Hedge Funds Draw Insider Scrutiny, New York Times (October 16, 2006) (“When a public company takes out a loan, it generally agrees to provide the lender with certain information, sometimes including monthly financial updates.”). I do not believe that a judicial interpretation of “information” drawn from use of the term in 1/2 of 1% of all of its appearances in a corpus constitutes an ordinary, common, or reasonable interpretation of the term. There is no word that cannot be abused, misused, or employed in an exotic or puzzling way in everyday discourse, and a corpus will reflect this reality; it is not, however, the purpose of a corpus to transform every such use of a word into a
reasonable construction of the words of the law. As Lincoln once remarked, “calling the tail [of a calf] a leg, [does] not make it a leg . . . .” 2 Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), p 468 (citation and quotation marks omitted). Furthermore, the reader may wish to peruse at random any number of the 167,250 uses of “information” in the COCA and assess whether the term was reasonably used and understood as indistinguishably referring to true and false information. When, for example, the doctor is offered “information” from a patient concerning the latter’s condition, would either party suppose that the latter was not intending in a reasonably accurate manner to describe his symptoms as he then believed them to be? Or, by further example, when a “contract” or “trade-off” of some kind is delineated by the elected representatives of the people in the Legislature, with an explicit quid pro quo defined in terms of the production of “information,” and presumably with some measure of public benefit to be derived by the production of that “information,” could that Legislature genuinely have been disinterested in whether such information was true or false?
paring itself to “information;” it is not referring to a subset, a type, or a class, of “information.”
Judge WILDER and the majority in this Court also rely on the fact that a number of Michigan statutes refer to “inaccurate” or “misleading” information. See, e.g.,
term, and not to extend it to inaccurate or misleading information. See Farrington v. Total Petroleum, Inc, 442 Mich 201, 210; 501 NW2d 76 (1993) (“Courts cannot assume that the Legislature inadvertently omitted from one statute the language that it placed in another statute, and then, on the basis of that assumption, apply what is not there.”); Paselli v. Utley, 286 Mich 638, 643; 282 NW 849 (1938) (“This court cannot write into the statutes [protections] that the legislature has not seen fit to enact.”).
The majority in this Court concludes that because the Legislature has modified the term “information” with the adjective “truthful” in other statutes, but not the instant one, it must have intended the term “information” in the instant statute to include both truthful and false information. That is, the Legislature obviously knew how to limit “information” to only “truthful information,” and it chose not to limit “information” in that manner in the instant statute. Again, I respectfully disagree. The majority cites nine statutes that contain the phrase “truthful information.”18
six of those statutes were amended in the immediate aftermath of this Court’s decision in People v. McIntire, 461 Mich. 147, 599 NW2d 102 (1999), which held that a witness did not have to answer questions truthfully in order to receive immunity under
Code and sets forth legislative findings, rather than substantive law. It explains that the related substantive laws were designed to provide “objective, truthful information” so that women can make informed decisions about abortions.
The other two statutes that the majority relies on were enacted before McIntire was decided, but are quite distinguishable. To begin with,
The final statute the majority relies on,
the word “information” in a manner that makes it clear the Legislature is referring to “truthful information,” the Legislature only modified the term “information” with “truthful” on a single occasion in that statute.
The majority thus has identified nine statutes that use the phrase “truthful information,” and from this the majority concludes that “information” unmodified by “truthful” must include both truthful and false information. However, the majority does not take into account that the Legislature has used the word “information” in 4,849 statutes, and only nine of these statutes modify “information” with “truthful.” Does the majority truly believe that in the other 4,840 statutes in which the Legislature used “information” it was referring to both true and false information?22 I simply cannot believe it possible that in the nearly 5,000 laws enacted by our Legislature in which “information” was required to be provided, considered, acted on, shared, or evaluated, those laws were unconcerned with, or disinterested in, whether such information was true or false.
Although the Legislature added “truthful” before “information” in a handful of statutes following McIntire, the Legislature likely did not believe it needed to add “truthful” before “information” when it enacted the DLEOA in 2006 (seven years after McIntire was decided) because: (a) the DLEOA was viewed as a codification of Garrity and its progeny, and it is clear that false statements are not protected under those decisions; and (b) the Legislature almost certainly perceived the word “information” as only connoting truth-
ful information and simply did not feel obligated in perpetuity to add “truthful” every time it used the word “information” just as it might not feel obligated in perpetuity to say “dogs but not cats” in place of “dogs” if, for example, this Court had issued an opinion stating that “dogs” means both “dogs and cats.”23
The majority’s reliance on McIntire for anything other than explaining why the Legislature amended
1951 PA 276. Although the majority claims that the statute at issue in McIntire and the statute at issue here are “similar,” and perhaps in some ways they are, there is a critical and relevant difference—only the latter pertains to “information.” It is one thing to say that a person can answer questions falsely; it is another thing to say that a person provides “information” when he or she provides false statements. McIntire reached the former holding, but not the latter. That is, nothing within McIntire can be read to suggest that false statements constitute “information.” The only thing that McIntire held was that under
I agree with the majority that McIntire’s actual holding has not been overruled by this Court and presumably never will be because, as already discussed, the statute at issue has since been amended in such a way that the issue addressed in McIntire will not arise again. The majority seems to believe that this means that we are forevermore encumbered with McIntire’s holding that a person’s statements do not have to be truthful in order for that person to be entitled to immunity. Apparently, the majority believes that to be the case even though McIntire has been superseded by statute and the Legislature has employed statutory language that is entirely different from the language that was at issue in McIntire. Importantly, the statute at issue in McIntire did not use the word “information,” and McIntire thus did not address its meaning, but the majority uses McIntire to support its conclusion that “information” refers to both true and false statements. However, because the
statute at issue here, unlike that at issue in McIntire, only protects “information,” McIntire does not require us to hold that false statements are protected by the statute at issue here. And simply because the Legislature directly reacted to McIntire by inserting the word “truthful” before the word “information” in a handful of statutes does not mean that we must forevermore hold that whenever the Legislature does not add the word “truthful” before “information,” it must be referring to both truthful and false statements. Rather, what most obviously can be drawn from the Legislature’s response to McIntire is that McIntire’s equivalent treatment of truthful and false statements was squarely repudiated, an equivalency that is exactly repeated in the majority’s interpretation in the instant case.
The majority asserts that “the existence of McIntire at the time the DLEOA was enacted provides us great insight into the intent of the Legislature” and “we see no reason to abandon McIntire now.” However, given that McIntire did not interpret the term “information” as we are called upon to do now, and given that McIntire has already been emphatically superseded by legislative enactments, see note 19 of this opinion, I am baffled as to what “great insight into the intent of the Legislature” the majority has derived from McIntire that I am supposedly urging it to “abandon.” If this “great insight” is this Court’s obligation to adhere to the plain language of a statute, I am hardly urging the majority to abandon this. Indeed, it is precisely the plain language of the DLEOA that causes me to conclude that the act does not protect false statements. That is, because the DLEOA only protects “information,” and because the plain meaning of the term “information” does not encompass
false statements, the DLEOA does not protect false statements.
2. “COMPELLED”
Additionally,
As previously noted, the Fifth Amendment provides that no person “shall be compelled . . . to be a witness against himself. . . .”
Therefore, the applicability of Fifth Amendment protection often turns on whether a person’s testimony or statements were compelled.25
Pertinent to the instant case, the United States Supreme Court has long recognized that the Fifth Amendment does not endow a person with a license to commit perjury. See Glickstein v. United States, 222 U.S. 139, 142, 32 S. Ct. 71, 56 L. Ed. 128 (1911) (“[T]he immunity afforded by the constitutional guaranty relates to the past and does not endow the person who testifies with a license to commit perjury.”). In Glickstein, the Court construed a similar immunity statute that did not contain an exception for perjury.26 In addressing whether the statute immunized false statements, the Court stated:
[T]he statute expressly commands the giving of testimony, and its manifest purpose is to secure truthful testimony, while the limited and exclusive meaning which the contention attributes to the immunity clause would cause the section to be a mere license to commit perjury, and hence not to command the giving of testimony in the true sense of the word.
The argument that because the section does not contain an expression of the reservation of a right to prosecute for
perjury in harmony with the reservations in Rev. Stat., § 860, and the act of 1893, therefore it is to be presumed that it was intended that no such right should exist, we think, simply begs the question for decision, since it is impossible in reason to conceive that Congress commanded the giving of testimony, and at the same time intended that false testimony might be given with impunity in the absence of the most express and specific command to that effect.
Bearing in mind the subject dealt with we think the reservation of the right to prosecute for perjury made in the statutes to which we have referred was but the manifestation of abundant caution, and hence the absence of such reservation in the statute under consideration may not be taken as indicative of an intention on the part of Congress that perjury might be committed at pleasure. [Id. at 143-144.27]
The Court concluded that the statute, in compelling the giving of testimony, did not confer immunity wider than that guaranteed by the Constitution. Id. at 142-144.
I believe Glickstein is instructive in assessing the majority’s argument that the DLEOA includes false statements because the Legislature did not use the term “truthful information.” Glickstein rejected the defendant’s analogous argument that, because the statute in that case did not include a perjury exemption that had been included in other statutes, such an exemption did not exist. Similarly, the Michigan Legislature’s use of “truthful” in other statutes appears at most to only reflect a “manifestation of abundant
caution” rather than suggesting that the DLEOA does not extend to false statements. Id. at 144.
Further, although Glickstein did not clearly explain why the Fifth Amendment does not endow a person with a license to commit perjury, it recognized the critical relationship between compelled statements and the truth. The United States Supreme Court expounded on this relationship in United States v. Knox, 396 U.S. 77, 90 S. Ct. 363, 24 L. Ed. 2d 275 (1969), holding that the Fifth Amendment does not protect perjury because those false statements are not compelled. In Knox, the defendant was indicted for including false, material information in his tax filings. He sought Fifth Amendment protection, arguing that his tax filings were compelled by statute and that, had he not filed truthful and complete forms as required, he would have incriminated himself. Similarly, filing no forms at all would have also subjected him to prosecution. The Court rejected the defendant’s argument, noting that he had “taken a course other than the one that the statute was designed to compel, a course that the Fifth Amendment gave him no privilege to take.” Id. at 82. The Court stated that “when [defendant] responded to the pressure under which he found himself by communicating false information, this was simply not testimonial compulsion.” Id. Similarly, in Wong, 431 U.S. at 178, the Court confirmed that the Fifth Amendment does not condone perjury, emphasizing that “the predicament of being forced to choose between incriminatory truth and falsehood, as opposed to refusing to answer, does not justify perjury.”28
Garrity statements are protected by the Fifth Amendment because, by requiring an individual to choose between self-incrimination and job forfeiture, the resulting statements are compelled. Garrity v. New Jersey, 385 U.S. 493, 497-498, 87 S. Ct. 616, 17 L. Ed. 2d 562 (1967). These statements are “infected by the coercion inherent in [the] scheme of questioning and cannot be sustained as voluntary . . . .” Id. But, Garrity does not provide a license to lie or commit perjury. United States v. Veal, 153 F.3d 1233, 1243 (11th Cir. 1998).29 The Fifth Amendment does not protect false Garrity statements because those “deliberate, false statements” result from “independent, voluntary choices.” Id. at 1244.30 The statements therefore provide an avenue for the prosecution of obstruction of justice.
The issue here is whether defendants’ statements were protected by the DLEOA, not the Fifth Amendment. But in the DLEOA, the Legislature used the term “compelled” when providing statutory protection
to Garrity statements. As already explained in this opinion, when considering whether the privilege against self-incrimination is implicated, Fifth Amendment jurisprudence focuses extensively on whether the testimony or statements were “compelled.” In this context, “compelled” has acquired a particular meaning, requiring courts to consider whether specific circumstances giving rise to compulsion are present such that Fifth Amendment protection applies.31 Because of this, “compelled” should be construed and understood in accordance with that meaning.
The government here did not “compel” defendants to lie. Rather, it sought only to “compel” defendants to tell the truth. That defendants chose to provide exculpatory falsehoods, rather than inculpatory truths, resulted in their loss of protection under the Fifth Amendment and
Constitution and laws protect compelled “information”—incriminating truths, not exculpatory falsehoods.33
3. CONTEXT
It must finally be noted that “[a] court does not construe the meaning of statutory terms in a vacuum.” Manuel v. Gill, 481 Mich. 637, 650, 753 NW2d 48 (2008) (quotation marks and citation omitted). “Rather, we interpret the words in their context and with a view to their place in the overall statutory scheme.” Id. (quotation marks and citations omitted). See also Michigan ex rel. Gurganus v. CVS Caremark Corp., 496 Mich. 45, 59, 852 NW2d 103 (2014) (“Individual words and
The U.S. Supreme Court has already established that involuntary statements made by law enforcement officers during internal investigations cannot be used against the officers in a criminal prosecution. Concerning this matter, the bill would simply codify the federal court ruling. [Emphasis added.]
It is likewise consistent with Senate Legislative Analysis, SB 647, February 20, 2007, which states:
By providing that an involuntary statement made by a law enforcement officer, and any information derived from it, may not be used against the officer in a criminal proceeding, the bill effectively codifies Garrity protections in Michigan statutory law. [Emphasis added.]
Contrary to the majority’s suggestion, by the time that the DLEOA was enacted in 2006, the “Garrity protections” were well understood as excluding protection of false statements. While I recognize the limitations inherent in reliance on legislative analyses as an aid in the construction of a statute, see In re Certified Question, 468 Mich. at 115 n 5, it is nonetheless notable when the construction of a statute, reached without reliance on a legislative analysis, conforms fully with such a legislative analysis.
phrases are not read in a vacuum; we examine the statute as a whole, reading individual words and phrases in the context of the entire legislative scheme.”) (quotation marks and citation omitted). The statute at issue here is based upon an obvious theory of quid pro quo: police officers provide information to the government about police misconduct, and in exchange the government agrees not to use the information against the officers. Both the government and the officers thereby receive a benefit—the government receives information that may be helpful in identifying criminal misconduct, and the officers effectively receive immunity.34 However, where the officers proceed to lie to the government, the government is deprived of that to which it was entitled in exchange for the grant of immunity—information.35 There is simply no longer any consideration given by the officers, i.e., there is no quid pro quo. In such a situation, the officers should likewise be deprived of that for which they bargained—immunity. Otherwise, they would receive what they bargained for—immunity—without having to fulfill their part of the bargain—providing information—and the manifest truth-seeking function of the statute would thus be nullified. No Legislature, and no legislator, could conceivably have intended such a result. As the Court of Appeals explained:
We conclude that the Legislature’s manifest intent was to create a mechanism for facilitating internal police investigations and to provide an incentive for officers who cooperate by providing needed facts. The Legislature certainly did not intend to immunize police officers by precluding the use of their lies and false statements in criminal proceedings. Indeed, such a strained construction of
Reference to “information provided by a law enforcement officer,”
The state has a strong preference against allowing persons to lie with impunity, for lying prejudices the state in ways that neither silence nor truth-telling does. Silence with impunity may disable the state from acquiring information from a witness, but it has the virtue of leaving the state no worse off than if the witness had never existed. Truth-telling with impunity may
In this case, after defendants stated that defendant Hughes did not have any improper physical contact with the complainant, the investigation was terminated and it was not revived until a year later and that was only because the person who had been assaulted by defendant Hughes hired a private investigator who later discovered the video recording of the assault. Allowing an officer to provide false statements and yet receive full immunity utterly defeats the obvious purpose of the statute and serves no comprehensible alternative purpose.37 As a result, I believe that construing
disable the state from using a witness’s statements against him criminally, but it enlightens the state and enables the state to use the information for all other purposes. In contrast, lying with impunity leaves the state worse off than it was before. Lying with impunity not only disables the state from using the lies as criminal evidence against the person, but it affirmatively misleads and confuses the state regarding the truth. Not surprisingly, the Court finds no place for lying:
In [the] constitutional process of securing a witness’[s] testimony, perjury simply has no place whatever. Perjured testimony is an obvious and flagrant affront to the basic concepts of judicial proceedings . . . . Congress has made the giving of false answers a criminal act punishable by severe penalties; [for] in no other way can criminal conduct be flushed into the open where the law can deal with it. [Westen, Answer Self-Incriminating Questions or Be Fired, 37 Am. J. Crim. L. 97, 123-124 (2010), quoting United States v. Mandujano, 425 U.S. 564, 576, 96 S. Ct. 1768, 48 L. Ed. 2d 212 (1976) (alterations in original).]
the DLEOA in light of its obvious purpose—assisting in the discovery of police misconduct—strongly supports the conclusion that “information” presupposes “truthful information.” Simply put, there is no reason to enact an immunity statute if it cannot produce “information” that is helpful in uncovering police misconduct. As the United States Supreme Court explained, “it is impossible in reason to conceive that Congress commanded the giving of testimony, and at the same time intended that false testimony might be given with impunity in the absence of the most express and specific command to that effect.” Glickstein, 222 U.S. at 143. Similarly, I am not persuaded that the DLEOA protects false statements absent any “express and specific command to that effect,” which the DLEOA does not contain. Id.
III. CONCLUSION
Because I agree with the Court of Appeals that neither the Fifth Amendment nor the DLEOA forbid the use of a law enforcement officer’s false statements in a subsequent prosecution for obstruction of justice, I respectfully dissent and would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
VIVIANO, J., concurred with MARKMAN, J.
based on veracity would unduly complicate the implementation of those protections or undermine the certainty and effectiveness of the protections offered.” It is one thing to conclude that the Legislature intended to protect statements that were made by a person who at the time believed the statements to be true, even if it is subsequently determined that the statements were incorrect, but it is quite another thing to suppose that the Legislature intended to protect statements that were made by a person who at the time knew that his or her statements were false, which is what happened in the instant case. Given that the Legislature only extended protection to “compelled information,” I simply cannot believe it intended to protect deliberate falsehoods. Deliberate falsehoods clearly do not constitute “compelled information.”
As the Court of Appeals correctly observed, however, Michigan caselaw has not expressly kept pace with this federal development of the Garrity rule. The last published authority on the topic came from Allen, 15 Mich App 387, which concluded that Garrity applies to false statements; Allen was not directly repudiated by a Michigan court until the Court of Appeals’ opinion in this case. The parties do not challenge this repudiation, and, given the developments in Garrity jurisprudence in the time since Allen was issued, we see no reason to disturb it.
The majority relies on the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), a truly remarkable and comprehensive source ofOther statutes do not modify the word “information” with “truthful,” but still suggest that “information” has no inherent connotation of veracity. See, e.g.,
Correspondingly, as Judge WILDER observed in dissent, the Legislature has frequently modified “information” with the adjectives “misleading” or “inaccurate” when the Legislature only intended to reach false information. See, e.g.,
2016] PEOPLE v HARRIS 351
OPINION OF THE COURT
immunity to witnesses. The statute expressly limits immunity to “[t]ruthful testimony or other truthful information compelled under the order granting immunity . . . .”40 Although the statute was first enacted into law in 1968, its limitation of immunity to only truthful information was not present in the statute until 1999—seven years before the Legislature enacted the DLEOA.41 Similarly,
The presence of the word “truthful” in these statutes is linked to this Court’s ruling in People v McIntire43—a 1999 opinion we find instructive and supportive of our analysis here. At issue in McIntire was the proper interpretation of transactional immunity for witnesses compelled to answer potentially incriminating questions under
statements. But the Legislature’s use of these modifiers elsewhere supports our understanding that the word “information” itself connotes nothing with respect to veracity.
condition . . . immunity on truthful testimony.”45 In so holding, this Court stressed that it was bound—as we are here—by “traditional principles of statutory construction,” which require courts to “respect the constitutional role of the Legislature as the policy-making branch of government and constrain the judiciary from encroaching on this dedicated sphere of constitutional responsibility.”46 The Legislature received this message and subsequently amended
The Legislature clearly knows how to limit information based on its veracity when such a limitation is important to conveying its intent. It did so in a number of other statutes it enacted or amended after McIntire, but it chose not to do so in the DLEOA, even though the Legislature had the benefit of McIntire when it enacted the DLEOA in 2006. We cannot overlook this choice or refuse to give it effect.47 Accordingly, we conclude that
In his dissent, Justice MARKMAN questions our reliance on McIntire by suggesting that McIntire has since been rendered moot. We find no support for that suggestion. To the contrary, McIntire guides our decision by interpreting a similar statute. The McIntire Court recognized—as we do here—that a court is not free to rewrite a statute because the end result may be subjectively unpalatable and that “the object of judicial statutory construction is not to determine whether there are valid alternative policy choices that the Legislature may or the Legislature intended the word “information,” as used in
should have chosen, but to determine from the text of the statute the policy choice the Legislature actually made.” McIntire, 461 Mich at 157 (citation and quotation marks omitted). The McIntire Court concluded that the statutory language at issue in that case unambiguously stated the Legislature’s actual policy choice and that there was no basis to disregard that choice “to further policy concerns that [a court], but apparently not the Legislature, prefers.” Id. at 160 (citation and quotation marks omitted). We are still obligated to give weight to the Legislature’s decision not to modify “information” in the DLEOA with “truthful” or to impose any other veracity-based limitation on the scope of the statute’s protections.
This Court’s decision in McIntire coupled with the unique history of immunity statutes in Michigan leads us to the conclusion that the DLEOA protects both true and false statements. The dissent would have us abandon McIntire in favor of the federal rule articulated in Glickstein v. United States, 222 US 139, 142; 32 S Ct 71; 56 L Ed 128 (1911). Whatever the merits of that rule, the existence of McIntire at the time the DLEOA was enacted provides us great insight into the intent of the Legislature. Accordingly, we see no reason to abandon McIntire now. See Robinson v. Detroit, 462 Mich 439; 613 NW2d 307 (2000). We nonetheless recognize that McIntire guides us in the limited and unique area of immunity-related statutes, and we express no opinion whether other statutes that incorporate the word “information” in an entirely different context outside that of immunity and compulsory statements might be interpreted differently.
analysis, which is a staff-prepared summary of the law, is entitled to little judicial consideration in the construction of statutes); Frank W Lynch & Co v Flex Technologies, Inc, 463 Mich 578, 587; 624 NW2d 180 (2001) (“[A] legislative analysis is a feeble indicator of legislative intent. . ..”); In re Certified Question from the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, 468 Mich 109, 115 n 5; 659 NW2d 597 (2003) (“In no way can a ‘legislative analysis’ be said to officially summarize the intentions of those who have been designated by the Constitution to be participants in this legislative process, the members of the House and Senate and the Governor. For that reason, legislative analyses should be accorded very little significance by courts when construing a statute.”). And third, these analyses offer no direct insight into the precise scope of the intended codification of Garrity, or whether
Although the parties did not address the question, Justice MARKMAN also offers another interpretive avenue for constraining the scope of the DLEOA’s protections to those constitutionally provided under Garrity and its federal progeny: he suggests that “truthful” need not be included with “information” in the DLEOA because, as federal Fifth Amendment jurisprudence has held, an individual cannot be compelled to lie; accordingly, even if a lie can be deemed “information,” lies cannot be considered an “involuntary statement” or “compelled” within the meaning of the DLEOA. While we recognize the intuitive appeal of this reasoning, we find ourselves unable to square it with McIntire and the numerous instances, previously cited in this opinion, in which the Legislature has described “information” as both “truthful” and “compelled.” See
B. THE PLAIN LANGUAGE OF THE DLEOA REQUIRES DISMISSAL OF THE OBSTRUCTION-OF-JUSTICE CHARGES
Applying this interpretation of the DLEOA’s plain language, the obstruction-of-justice charges brought against defendants must be dismissed. Defendants provided statements regarding their encounter with Mr. Hodges-Lamar under threat of termination; these statements, though false, are protected by the DLEOA and, therefore, cannot be used against defendants in a criminal proceeding. There is no dispute that defendants’ statements provided the only basis for charging them with obstruction of justice and that if this evidence is inadmissible, the charges must be dismissed. According to the Court of Appeals majority, however, this outcome must be rejected because it is “wholly contrary to the Legislature’s purpose in enacting the [DLEOA],” which “was to create a mechanism for facilitating internal police investigations and to provide an incentive for officers who cooperate by providing needed facts.”49 Justice MARKMAN now echoes this sentiment in dissent, concluding that “[n]o Legislature, and no legislator, could conceivably have intended such a result.”50
voluntary. Indeed, in Allen, the Court of Appeals rejected the contention that a false statement cannot be voluntary by observing that “what one reveals as a result of a waiver is of no import in determining whether the waiver was voluntary or coerced.” Allen, 15 Mich App at 393. In this case, there is no question that, but for the threat of termination, defendants in this case would have remained silent. Again, the advice of rights form presented to defendants by the Detroit Police Department stated, “If I refuse ... to answer questions . . . , I will be subject to departmental charges which could result in my dismissal from the police department,” and “[i]f I do answer . . . , neither my statements or any information or evidence which is gained by reason of such statements can be used against my [sic] in any subsequent criminal proceeding.”
We understand how this result may be viewed as unpalatable. But as this Court has long made clear, our statutory analysis is controlled by principles of interpretation, not palatability of outcomes. It is not our role to rewrite the law or substitute our own policy judgment in the face of the text of the statute, or “to create an ambiguity where none exists in order to reach a desired result, albeit one with which [we] might wholeheartedly agree [if we were legislators] authorized to enact policy.”51
For the reasons discussed in this opinion, we discern from the plain language of the DLEOA a legislative intent to protect all Garrity statements, regardless of their veracity. And while there may be ample room to question the wisdom of such unqualified statutory protections, we see no principled basis for this Court to ignore or reject the Legislature’s enactment of them.
We do not view recognition of these unqualified protections as absurd or flatly at odds with the purpose of the DLEOA. There is seemingly no dispute that the protections offered by the DLEOA are intended to encourage and facilitate officers’ participation in internal investigations, with the goal of rendering those investigations more fruitful and effective. As the plain language of the DLEOA makes clear, the Legislature deemed this purpose best served by not limiting the statute’s protections only to statements that are true. Regardless of whether we agree with this policy determination, we can conceive of reasons for it. The Legislature may very well have viewed the benefit of such a limitation—namely, the ability to criminally prosecute officers for lies told during an internal investigation—as outweighed by
its costs. Not all statements, after all, are clearly true or entirely false, and the Legislature may have concluded that qualifying the DLEOA’s statutory protections based on veracity would unduly complicate the implementation of those protections52 or undermine the certainty and effectiveness of the protections offered. Indeed, the Allen Court observed that the exception to protection for perjured statements is “more precisely stated” as an exception to protection “where the prosecuting authority charges perjury,”53 a broader scope encompassing prosecutorial discretion and requiring the jury to ultimately decide the falsity of a statement. The Legislature may have reasoned—for better or worse—that it was more beneficial to punish the lies uncovered during the course of internal investigations with internal discipline.54 We fail to see the absurdity in such reasoning, particularly given that the Legislature knows how to, and does, modify the term “information” with “truthful” when it intends to bring only truthful information within the scope of its legislation. And, as this Court stressed in McIntire,55 we need not be sure of the precise reasons for a statutory judgment or be convinced of the wisdom of the legislation.
[I]n our democracy, a legislature is free to make inefficacious or even unwise policy choices. The correction of these policy choices is not a judicial function as long as the legislative choices do not offend the constitution. Instead, the correction must be left to the people and the tools of democracy: the ballot box, initiative, referendum, or constitutional amendment.56
This statement applies with equal force in the present case. The plain language of the DLEOA protects all statements given by officers under compulsion. This choice may seem odd, or reflective of questionable or even bad public policy, but it was the Legislature’s choice to make. We are not empowered to displace what the law actually provides with a judicial preference for what we believe it should provide.
IV. CONCLUSION
In sum, the Legislature chose not to protect only truthful information when it enacted the DLEOA. This is demonstrated by the plain language of the statute when contrasted with the Legislature’s known capacity to expressly limit the word “information” based on veracity in other statutes when such a limitation is critical to the Legislature’s intent. Accordingly, we must conclude that the DLEOA prohibits the use of an officer’s Garrity statement, even if false, in a criminal proceeding, including one for perjury or obstruction of justice. The Court of Appeals erred by concluding otherwise. We reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals to the extent it held that, under the DLEOA, a law enforcement officer’s involuntary statement could be used against him or her in a criminal proceeding if the statement was false. We reinstate the orders en-
tered in the district court that dismissed the obstruction-of-justice charges brought against defendants.
YOUNG, C.J., and MCCORMACK, BERNSTEIN, and LARSEN, JJ., concurred with ZAHRA, J.
People v. Harris
Mich.
2016-06-22
499 Mich 332
Markman, J.
MARKMAN, J. (concurring in part and dissenting in part). I agree with the majority opinion to the extent that it holds that the Fifth Amendment does not preclude the use of false statements by a law enforcement officer in a prosecution for obstruction of justice. However, I respectfully disagree with it to the extent that it holds that the disclosures by law enforcement officers act (DLEOA),
I. FACTS AND HISTORY
The defendant police officers, Sean Harris, William Little, and Nevin Hughes, were charged with obstruction of justice for lying during an internal investigation of Hughes, who had assaulted Dajuan Hodges-Lamar. The assault was video recorded by a security camera at a gas station.1 Defendants argued that the Fifth Amendment and the DLEOA prohibit the prosecutor
from using the statements they made during the investigation. Before defendants provided their statements, the investigating officer provided each with a standard departmental notification-of-constitutional-rights form. This form stated, in relevant part, “If I refuse ... to answer questions . . . , I will be subject to departmental charges which could result in my dismissal from the police department,” and “[i]f I do answer . . . , neither my statements or any information or evidence which is gained by reason of such statements can be used against my [sic] in any subsequent criminal proceeding.”2 Each defendant signed the form and then proceeded to lie, stating that defendant Hughes did not have any physical contact with Hodges-Lamar apart from a pat-down search. The video recording showed otherwise.
The district court dismissed the obstruction-of-justice charges on the basis that defendants’ statements to the investigating officer could not be used against them under the DLEOA and the Fifth Amendment,3 and the circuit court affirmed. In a published and split decision, the Court of Appeals reversed and reinstated the obstruction-of-justice charges against
all three defendants, holding that neither the Fifth Amendment nor the DLEOA prohibits the prosecutor from using the statements made by defendants during the investigation. People v Hughes, 306 Mich App 116; 855 NW2d 209 (2014). Judge WILDER concurred in part and dissented in part. He agreed with the majority that the Fifth Amendment does not prohibit the prosecutor from using defendants’ statements, but concluded that the DLEOA does prohibit the prosecutor from using defendants’ statements. This Court then granted defendants’ applications for leave to appeal. People v Harris, 497 Mich 958 (2015).
II. ANALYSIS
A. THE FIFTH AMENDMENT
The Fifth Amendment provides that no person “shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself. . . .” U.S. Const, Am V (emphasis added); see also Const 1963, art 1, § 17.4 In Garrity v New Jersey, 385 US 493; 87 S Ct 616; 17 L Ed 2d 562 (1967), several police officers were investigated by the New Jersey Attorney General for fixing traffic tickets.
After having been warned that if they refused to answer questions they would be subject to removal from office, the officers answered the questions asked of them during the investigation. Id. at 494-495. The Court held that their answers were “compelled” within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment and therefore that the statements could not be used against them in subsequent prosecutions for conspiracy to obstruct the administration of the traffic laws. Id. at 497-500. The Court explained that “protection of the individual under the Fourteenth Amendment against coerced statements prohibits use in subsequent criminal proceedings of statements obtained under threat of removal from office, and that it extends to all, whether they are policemen or other members of our body politic.” Id. at 500.5
However, in United States v Wong, 431 US 174, 179; 97 S Ct 1823; 52 L Ed 2d 231 (1977), the United States Supreme Court held that “the Fifth Amendment privilege does not protect perjury . . . .” Instead, “[i]t grants a privilege to remain silent without risking contempt, but it ‘does not endow the person who testifies with a license to commit perjury.’ ” Id. at 178 (citation omitted). Therefore, the Court held that the defendant’s false testimony was admissible in a subsequent perjury trial even though the defendant had provided the false testimony without being informed of her Fifth Amendment right to remain silent.6 “[E]ven the pre-
dicament of being forced to choose between incriminatory truth and falsehood, as opposed to refusing to answer, does not justify perjury.” Id. at 178. “[B]y answering falsely the [defendant] took ‘a course that the Fifth Amendment gave [defendant] no privilege to take.’ ” Id. at 178-179 (citation omitted). “Indeed, even if the Government could, on pain of criminal sanctions, compel an answer to its incriminating questions, a citizen is not at liberty to answer falsely.” Id. at 180. “If the citizen answers the question, the answer must be truthful.” Id.
Similarly, in United States v Apfelbaum, 445 US 115, 117, 131; 100 S Ct 948; 63 L Ed 2d 250 (1980), the United States Supreme Court held that the “proper invocation of the Fifth Amendment privilege against compulsory self-incrimination allows a witness to remain silent, but not to swear falsely,” and thus “neither the [federal use-immunity] statute7 nor the Fifth Amendment precludes the use of respondent’s immunized testimony at a subsequent prosecution for making false statements . . . .” That is, “perjury prosecutions are permissible for false answers to questions following the grant of immunity” because “the Fifth Amendment privilege against compulsory self-incrimination provides no protection for the commission of perjury . . . .” Id. at 126-127. See also McKinley v City of Mansfield, 404 F3d 418, 427 (CA 6, 2005) (“As a matter of Fifth Amendment right, Garrity precludes
use of public employees’ compelled incriminating statements in a later prosecution for the conduct under investigation. However, Garrity does not preclude use of such statements in prosecutions for the independent crimes of obstructing the public employer’s investigation or making false statements during it.”) (citation omitted); id. (“[T]he Fifth Amendment permits the government to use compelled statements obtained during an investigation if the use is limited to a prosecution for collateral crimes such as perjury or obstruction of justice.”).
In light of this caselaw, it is clear that the Fifth Amendment does not protect a defendant from a subsequent prosecution for perjury or obstruction of justice predicated on false statements that the defendant made after having been granted immunity from prosecution.8 Therefore, defendants’ false statements are not inadmissible under the Fifth Amendment. As a result, I agree with the Court of Appeals that
[t]he Fifth Amendment did not bar the admission of defendants’ false statements in the instant prosecutions for obstruction of justice. The district court abused its discretion by relying on the Fifth Amendment to exclude defendants’ false statements from evidence. [Hughes, 306 Mich App at 128.]
B. DLEOA
The Court of Appeals also held that the DLEOA does not bar admission of defendant’s false statements, and again I agree.
An involuntary statement made by a law enforcement officer, and any information derived from that involuntary statement, shall not be used against the law enforcement officer in a criminal proceeding.9
1. “INFORMATION”