IN RE WILLIAM ERIC MOON
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STATE OF MICHIGAN
COURT OF APPEALS
IN RE WILLIAM ERIC MOON
PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN,
UNPUBLISHED
February 27, 1998
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v
No. 200345
Wayne Probate Court
LC No. 96-340005
WILLIAM ERIC MOON,
Defendant-Appellant.
Before: Michael J. Kelly, P.J., and Fitzgerald and M.G. Harrison*, JJ.
MEMORANDUM.
In this delinquency proceeding, defendant entered a plea of admission to assault and battery,
MCL 750.81; MSA 28.276, and to incorrigibility, MCL 712A.2a(2)(a)(3); MSA
27.3178(598.2a)(2)(a)(3). This represented a reduction from the original charge of felonious assault,
MCL 750.82; MSA 28.277. By way of factual basis, defendant acknowledged that during a verbal
argument with his brother, he swung a broomstick at him, and that there are occasions when he refuses
to obey his mother’s reasonable commands.
A decision on disposition was initially deferred, pending preparation of various reports, and
subsequently again deferred. Eventually, on November 13, 1996, defendant was ordered placed with
the Family Independence Agency, the referee rejecting recommendations of both the probation officer
and the prosecuting attorney for intensive probation.
Defendant now appeals by right; this appeal is being decided without oral argument pursuant to
MCR 7.214(E). We affirm.
Defendant contends that the trial court abused its sentencing discretion in ordering a placement
with the Family Independence Agency instead of probation. Review of a sentencing determination in
juvenile proceedings is similar to that for adult proceedings, Matter of Chapel, 134 Mich App 308;
350 NW2d 871 (1984), and thus involves review for abuse of the trial court’s sentencing discretion.
* Circuit judge, sitting on the Court of Appeals by assignment.
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That standard requires this Court to conclude that no reasonable sentencing authority would have found
the actual disposition appropriate. People v Merriweather, 447 Mich 799, 807; 527 NW2d 460
(1994).
Here, the referee was concerned that, while awaiting disposition, defendant had been expelled
from school, and that he failed to embark on a course of therapeutic counselling, despite having been
directed to do so in conjunction with deferral of disposition, as well as with the lack of improvement in
defendant’s behavior despite the administration of prescription medication. On this record, this Court is
unable to say that no reasonable sentencing authority could have found placement with the Family
Independence Agency appropriate; defendant, by following a pattern of behavior that is dangerous to
others and by demonstrating a continued inability to follow socially acceptable norms of conduct, has
justified by his actions the disposition directed.
Affirmed.
/s/ Michael J. Kelly
/s/ E. Thomas Fitzgerald
/s/ Michael G. Harrison
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