People v. Plamondon
People v. Plamondon
Opinion of the Court
The trial court, sitting without a jury, found defendants guilty of extortion by accusation. MCLA 750.213; MSA 28.410. On September 28, 1973, the trial court sentenced Plamondon to five years’ probation, and sentenced Blazier to two years’ probation.
This case arises out of an incident which occurred January 31, 1973, when defendants entered the home rented by Uwe Wagner, a self-confessed drug dealer in Honor, Michigan. Defendants came to collect $3,000 which Wagner apparently owed Blazier in exchange for 25 pounds of marijuana which Blazier had sold to Wagner in the first part of January, 1973. Defendants threatened Wagner, stating that his failure to pay the $3,000 would result in Wagner suffering broken arms and legs. Defendants further threatened Wagner that they would expose him as a "rip-off artist” and would inform various governmental agencies that Wagner was an opium pusher. Plamondon apparently told Wagner to come up with the money by Valentine’s Day, and directed Wagner’s attention to the infamous St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Various personal articles of Wagner’s, including his stereo speakers, his social security card, alien registration card and draft registration card, as well as a water pipe, some clothing and some other pipes utilized in the consumption of various controlled substances, were taken by defendants as "collateral” for the money which Wagner allegedly owed Blazier.
The day after defendants departed from Wagner’s home, Wagner contacted an attorney who arranged protective custody for Wagner in the Antrim county jail. Subsequent thereto, he dis
Both of the above phone calls were tape recorded, and the tapes were played at trial and admitted into evidence over defense counsel’s objection. Sgt. Ward placed an induction coil onto the earpiece of the telephone, and the recording was fed into a tape recorder. While the officer, who was present in the motel room, could hear Wagner speak, he had to replay the tape to hear what Plamondon was saying, and did so immediately after the call was completed. Ward testified that after meeting Wagner during the afternoon of February 26, he suggested that the taped telephone calls be made to Plamondon. Ward had been assigned to the case on February 23, and after speaking with Wagner, decided that the proper thing to do would be to call Plamondon who, based upon Wagner’s recital of the event, seemed to be the person in charge.
The above facts have framed defendants’ initial claim on appeal, namely, whether defendants’ right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, US Const, Am IV and Const 1963, art 1, § 11, was violated when tapes of those two tele
Relying upon Katz v United States, 389 US 347; 88 S Ct 507; 19 L Ed 2d 576 (1967), defendants argue that the trial court erred in admitting into evidence the tapes and transcripts thereof of two telephone conversations had between Wagner and defendant where, without prior judicial authorization, the State Police monitored a phone call (at Wagner’s end of the line) and recorded the same. The prosecutor responds, and relies upon United States v White, 401 US 745; 91 S Ct 1122; 28 L Ed 2d 453 (1971), for the proposition that the constitutional protection against unreasonable searches and seizures is inapplicable to such a situation. Research has disclosed that our Court has previously declined to apply Katz to the warrantless eavesdropping and recording of a telephone call made with the cooperation of a police informant or the complaining witness. People v Drielick, 56 Mich App 664, 667; 224 NW2d 712 (1974), People v Rappuhn, 55 Mich App 52, 59-60; 222 NW2d 30 (1974), lv den, 393 Mich 808 (1975), and People v
At the outset , of our discussion, we note that Rathbun, supra, was not a constitutional case, but rather was based upon a specific Federal statute which was concerned with the interception and divulging of communications. A subsequent decision dealing with the same statutory provision, 47 USC 605, found error in light of the facts therein, but specifically noted that the Fourth Amendment claim was not decided and that the opinion was limited to the statutory grounds. Lee v Florida, 392 US 378, 379; 88 S Ct 2096, 2097; 20 L Ed 2d 1166 (1968). Thus, the Lee-Rathbun line of cases cited in Bruno, supra, would be inapplicable to a constitutional claim.
In Katz, supra, the public telephone booth from which defendant had made a telephone call was "bugged” and law enforcement officials were able
United States v White, 401 US 745, 746-747; 91 S Ct 1122, 1123; 28 L Ed 2d 453, 456 (1971), upon which the prosecutor relies, involved the use, by a government informant, of a radio transmitter concealed on his person which transmitted conversa
Because White, supra, was decided some four years after Katz, supra, it would appear at first blush that the monitoring in the case before us was not a violation of Fourth Amendment protection. For reasons which we now spell out in detail,
Mr. Justice Harlan’s views as to the purpose of
"was to make sacred the privacy of the citizen’s dwelling and person against everything but process issued upon a showing of legal cause for invading it”. 30 Mich at 208.
In light of the well-established purpose of Michigan’s constitutional protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, and former Justice Harlan’s discussion of the Federal protection against the same, we are prepared to state that our Court should adhere to Harlan’s rather than White’s views on this question. Michigan is not bound by plurality opinions of the United States Supreme Court, it having been stated that where there is no agreement by a majority of the United States Supreme Court on the ground of a decision, that decision is not binding precedent for subsequent cases. People v Anderson, 389 Mich 155, 170; 205 NW2d 461 (1973). As noted earlier, Mr. Justice White and three other justices specifically agreed with his Fourth Amendment analysis, whereas Justice Black concurred in the judgment of the case.
As to the merits in the present case, we make the following observations. Unlike the "face-to-face” situations found in the previously distinguished cases relied upon by Mr. Justice White, defendant herein did not know that Police Officer Ward, seated in the officer’s motel room with Wagner, was monitoring and recording defendant’s telephone call with Wagner. While Wagner, an admitted drug dealer, of course cooperated with
Our decision not to adhere to the approach of Mr. Justice White’s opinion, but rather to follow the principle of Katz, supra, does not in any way preclude the use by police of this 'important law enforcement tool. Rather, our opinion merely requires that a warrant be issued by a judicial officer after a showing of probable cause has been made. While perhaps the facts herein could support such
The second claim of error contains two assertions: first, that the decision to prosecute defendants, and the mariner in which the prosecution was handled, was done so with an "evil eye” and an "unequal hand”, contrary to the principles of Yick Wo v Hopkins, 118 US 356; 6 S Ct 1064; 30 L Ed 220 (1886), and second, that defendants’ rights of free speech and association, US Const, Am I and Const 1963, art 1, §§ 3 and 5, were also violated because their prosecution was politically motivated and that it had a chilling effect not only upon defendants themselves but upon their political organization as well.
Defendants’ first contention is without merit. It is, of course, well established that constitutional provisions forbid discriminatory enforcement of laws and the prosecution for the alleged violations thereof. However, a violation of equal protection will not be found unless the decision to prosecute
Defendants have referred the Court to a number of Federal decisions in which courts have found discriminatory prosecutions in violation of First Amendment freedoms, and have urged that we apply the principles of those cases to the instant problem. In United States v Crowthers, 456 F2d 1074, 1076 (CA 4, 1972), defendants, participants in an Episcopal "Mass for peace” on the Pentagon concourse, were arrested for violating GSA regulations regarding disorderly conduct and the distribution of handbills. It was established that other religious services had been held on the concourse, and that the participants therein had not faced arrest where those services were in support of the armed forces or the health of the president. Further, there had been band recitals, a vice presiden
Likewise, United States v McLeod, 385 F2d 734, 739-740 (CA 5, 1967), which incidentally was premised upon 42 USC 1971 rather than the Constitution, held that the above statute was violated when voting registration volunteers in Selma, Alabama were subject to harrassment by local officials and were arrested while they were engaged in various voter registration activities. The Court found that there had been a well-established pattern of "baseless arrest”, 385 F2d at 741 and, as in Crowthers, supra, the defendants in McLeod were engaged in protected First Amendment activities when they were subjected to the baseless law enforcement. Such was not the case before us.
In United States v Steele, 461 F2d 1148, 1150 (CA 9, 1972), four vocal and active critics of the United States government’s census were arrested and prosecuted for their refusal to answer questions asked by the census taker. These persons, active in the census resistance movement in Ha
In United States v Falk, 479 F2d 616, 619 (CA 7, 1973), a leader in the Chicago area draft resistance was subject to prosecution for failure to carry his draft card, a violation of 50 USC App 462, and his refusal to submit for induction. Falk noted the general rule that discriminatory prosecution based upon defendant’s exercise of First Amendment freedoms is forbidden, 479 F2d at 620, and referred to the fact that defendant, contrary to established selective service policy not to prosecute those who failed to carry a draft card, was singled out for prosecution. 479 F2d at 621.
While in the instant case the Attorney General’s Department was involved in the prosecution of defendants, rather than the local prosecutor, that action was justified on the grounds that there was no elected local prosecutor at the time involved in this case. Further, none of the factors discussed in Falk were involved in our case, and once again we must refer to the fact that defendants’ acts of extortion were unrelated to any protected First Amendment activity.
In United States v Berrigan, 482 F2d 171, 176-
Examination of the trial court’s opinion discloses that the trial judge acquitted defendants on a number of charges, found them guilty only of extortion by accusation, pointed out that the At
Reversed and remanded for new trial pursuant to our resolution of the first issue.
See Mr. Justice Black’s concurrence, premised upon his dissent in Katz, supra, in which he felt that the Fourth Amendment was inapplicable to "eavesdropping” and that one’s words could not be
See People v Chism, 390 Mich 104, 134-138; 211 NW2d 193 (1973), and cases cited therein, for a discussion of the problem of third-party consent to a search of jointly owned and/or jointly occupied premises. In the course of its discussion of the issue, Chism noted that Hoffa, supra, Lopez, supra, involving face-to-face encounters and the application of the "misplaced confidence” doctrine, were somewhat analogous to a joint owner/occupier consenting to a search and seizure, on the grounds that both situations included an "assumption of the risk” that the third party "would divulge the secret or property to someone else”. 390 Mich at 136, fn 24.
Unlike Lopez, supra and Hoffa, supra, the instant case involves the presence of a "surreptitious third ear”, 401 US at 784; 91 S Ct at 1142; 28 L Ed 2d at 477 (Harlan, J.), which had gained access to words spoken by Plamondon in his home by attaching an electronic device to a telephone receiver used by Wagner in a motel room. The instant situation, in particular the use of electronic monitoring, the lack of face-to-face encounter, and the absence of a joint owner/ occupier relationship, precludes a finding that Wagner’s consent to the monitoring and recording obviated the necessity of prior judicial authorization for this police procedure.
Our holding conflicts with that of our Court’s previous cases on this issue, supra. However, splits of authority do arise in our Court, and one panel is not necessarily bound by the holdings of other panels. See Miller v Midwest Foundry Corp, 57 Mich App 761, 769; 226 NW2d 721 (1975) — proper interest amount on workmen’s compensation award, People v Pence, 42 Mich App 215, 216-217; 201 NW2d 275 (1972) — use of juvenile record by sentencing judge.
Dissenting Opinion
.(dissenting). This writer is constrained to dissent with the majority as to the first issue only. There is no question on the law applicable to cases arising after the decision of the Supreme Court in People v Beavers, 393 Mich 554; 227 NW2d 511 (1975). This ruling was given prospective application only. The instant case is prior to Beavers, supra.
In the case of People v Patrick, 46 Mich App 678, 682-683; 208 NW2d 604, 606-607 (1973), this writer stated:
"Defendants first assert that the electronic tape of the conversation between defendants and Pat Bradley was an illegal search of the property of the defendants under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. They cite the case of Katz v United States, 389 US 347; 88 S Ct 507; 19 L Ed 2d 576 (1967), in support of their position. Generally speaking, it is impermissible for police officers to conduct an electronic surveillance, wiretape, or record a conversation of private persons without an order to do so issued from an*432 independent magistrate. 18 USC 2511(1); Katz v United States, supra. The requirement of a judicial order is not necessary where one party to the conversation consents to the interception of the conversation by police authorities, their agents, or the use of electronic equipment. United States v White, 401 US 745, 749; 91 S Ct 1112, 1125; 28 L Ed 2d 453, 457 (1971); 18 USC 2511(2)(c).”
This writer, being convinced that the instant case is governed by the law as stated in Patrick, therefore respectfully dissents, and votes for affirmance.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- People v. Plamondon; People v. Blazier
- Cited By
- 11 cases
- Status
- Published