Order Michigan Supreme Court
Lansing, Michigan
October 11, 2019 Bridget M. McCormack,
Chief Justice
158098 David F. Viviano,
Chief Justice Pro Tem
Stephen J. Markman
PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, Brian K. Zahra
Plaintiff-Appellee, Richard H. Bernstein
Elizabeth T. Clement
v SC: 158098 Megan K. Cavanagh,
Justices
COA: 343551
Wayne CC: 86-006219-FC;
86-006250-FH
ERIC MIGUEL DOWDY,
Defendant-Appellant.
_________________________________________/
By order of February 4, 2019, the prosecuting attorney was directed to answer the
application for leave to appeal the May 24, 2018 order of the Court of Appeals. On order
of the Court, the answer having been received, the application for leave to appeal is again
considered, and it is DENIED, because the defendant has failed to meet the burden of
establishing entitlement to relief under MCR 6.508(D).
CAVANAGH, J. (concurring).
I concur in the denial of leave to appeal in this case, but write separately to
highlight particular circumstances I believe should be considered in future Parole Board
decisions.
In 1987 defendant was sentenced for two second-degree murder convictions to
terms of 30 to 45 years’ imprisonment, to be served concurrently to each other and
consecutively to 2-year sentences for two felony-firearm convictions. At that time,
conventional thinking was that parole would be achieved earlier from a parolable life
sentence than from the effective 32-year minimum term defendant had received.
Defendant’s attorney filed a motion for resentencing seeking a parolable life sentence.
Indeed, defendant had a sentencing agreement to that effect in one of his cases. The trial
court granted the motion, converting defendant’s sentence to parolable life.
However, the Parole Board’s practices changed before it considered defendant’s
case. See Yantus, Sentence Creep: Increasing Penalties in Michigan and the Need for
2
Sentencing Reform, 47 U Mich J L Reform 645, 690 (Spring 2014) (noting that,
“[a]lthough many sentencing judges imposed a life sentence before 1992 with the
assumption that the inmate would be eligible for parole, and presumptively released on
parole after twelve to twenty years, [after 1992] this was no longer the state’s practice”).
Thirty-two years later, after his original 32-year minimum sentence would have ended,
defendant remains in prison. The Parole Board has many factors to weigh in each of its
decisions, to be sure. But when the Parole Board next considers this case, it might also
consider that the trial court may have intended this defendant to have been paroled
already.
I, Larry S. Royster, Clerk of the Michigan Supreme Court, certify that the
foregoing is a true and complete copy of the order entered at the direction of the Court.
October 11, 2019
p1008
Clerk