PEOPLE OF MI V BYRON A BOWDISH
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STATE OF MICHIGAN
COURT OF APPEALS
PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN,
UNPUBLISHED
September 8, 2000
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v
No. 213408
Detroit Recorder’s Court
LC No. 97-009943
BYRON A. BOWDISH,
Defendant-Appellant.
Before: O’Connell, P.J., and Kelly and Whitbeck, JJ.
KELLY, J. (concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I concur in affirming the defendant’s conviction for second-degree murder and his sentence of
forty to eighty years’ imprisonment on that charge. I would, however, vacate the defendant’s conviction
of first-degree child abuse and the consequent sentence for that offense as I consider it a violation of the
Michigan Constitution’s, prohibition against double jeopardy, Const. 1963, art. 1, sec. 15. The
defendant is being punished more than once for the same offense. A single transgression resulted in the
injury which killed the victim. Either way, the injury that killed the child is the same as the injury resulting
in his conviction for child abuse.
Both parties and the majority agree that the injury occurred during the 10 minute absence of the
mother. Defendant told the mother, “the boy fell off the couch onto a near-by space heater.” Both
doctors disputed that version of events. One testified that the split in the victim’s skull was caused by
having his head struck against a flat surface at least three times. The other testified that the victim died
from sudden impact (or shaken impact) syndrome.
I would vacate defendant’s conviction and sentence for first-degree child abuse.
/s/ Michael J. Kelly
-1
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