PEOPLE OF MI V EUGENE CHARLES STEVENS

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STATE OF MICHIGAN COURT OF APPEALS PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, UNPUBLISHED Plaintiff-Appellant, v EUGENE STEVENS, Defendant-Appellee. No. 199175 Recorder’s Court LC No. 94-009116 ON REMAND Before: Doctoroff, P.J., and Markman and O’Connell, JJ. O’CONNELL, J. (concurring in part and dissenting in part). I agree with the majority opinion that the recent United States Supreme Court decision in Richards v Wisconsin, ___ US ___; 117 S Ct 1416; 137 L Ed 2d 615 (1997) controls the outcome of this case. However, I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the prosecution has had an opportunity to “articulate a reasonable justification for an unannounced entry” as required by the Richards decision. Richards was decided almost two and one-half years after the trial court entered its order granting the motion to dismiss for violation of the “knock and announce rule.” I would vacate the decision of the trial court and remand this case for further proceedings pursuant to Richards, supra.1 If the prosecutor can “articulate a reasonable justification for the entry” then the evidence should not be suppressed. However, if the prosecutor is unable to comply with the Richards’ requirements then the suppression order should be affirmed. /s/ Peter D. O’Connell 1 I concur with the majority opinion that this is not a “no knock” case. The police did, in fact, knock and then waited eleven seconds prior to entry. The narrow issue appears to be the reasonableness of the waiting period.

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