People v. Allen

Mich.

Court: Michigan Supreme Court

Citations: 390 Mich. 383, 212 N.W.2d 21, 1973 Mich. LEXIS 150

Decision Date: 11/21/1973

Docket Number: No. 3; Docket No. 54,341

Jurisdiction: MI

Bluebook Citation: People v. Allen, 390 Mich. 383, 212 N.W.2d 21, 1973 Mich. LEXIS 150 (Mich. 1973)

More Cases: Mich. decisions from 1973

PEOPLE v ALLEN

Judges

T. M. Kavanagh, C. J., and T. E. Brennan, T. G. Kavanagh, Swainson, Williams, and M. S. Coleman, JJ., concurred.
Levin, J., did not sit in this case.

Attorneys

Frank J. Kelley, Attorney General, Robert A. Derengoski, Solicitor General, William L. Cahalan, Prosecuting Attorney, Dominick R. Carnovale, Chief, Appellate Department, and Thomas M. Khalil, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for the people.
State Appellate Defender Oíñce (by Dennis H. Benson and Marshall Redman), for defendant on appeal.

majority Per Curiam.

The question presented by this appeal is whether the corpus delicti of felony murder MCLA 750.316; MSA 28.548 may be established without evidence independent of the accused person’s confession of the essential element that distinguishes the offense of first-degree murder from second-degree murder.

For the reasons set forth in the dissenting opinion of Judge (now Justice) Levin in the Court of Appeals, 39 Mich App 483, 494; 197 NW2d 874 (1972), we hold it may not.

We adopt the opinion of Justice Levin as the opinion of this Court.

Reversed, the judgment of conviction is modified to reduce the offense of which the defendant stands convicted to murder in the second degree and the defendant is remanded for resentencing on second-degree murder.

T. M. Kavanagh, C. J., and T. E. Brennan, T. G. Kavanagh, Swainson, Williams, and M. S. Coleman, JJ., concurred.

Levin, J., did not sit in this case.

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