FELTON WOODS V DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS
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STATE OF MICHIGAN
COURT OF APPEALS
FELTON WOODS,
UNPUBLISHED
June 14, 2011
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v
No. 296609
Muskegon Circuit Court
LC No. 09-046978-AH
DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS,
Defendant-Appellee.
Before: GLEICHER, P.J., and SAWYER and MARKEY, JJ.
PER CURIAM.
In 1986, the Saginaw Circuit Court convicted plaintiff Felton Woods of breaking and
entering an occupied dwelling, and sentenced Woods as a fourth habitual offender, MCL 769.12,
to an enhanced term of life imprisonment. (Lower court #85-006602-FH). Woods appealed his
conviction and sentence to this Court, which affirmed. People v Woods, unpublished opinion per
curiam of the Court of Appeals (Docket No. 91026), issued March 31, 1987.1 Between 1987 and
2008, Woods sought various forms of relief from this Court on 10 occasions.2 In 2009, Woods,
who resides in the Muskegon Correctional Facility, filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in
the Muskegon Circuit Court, which denied the petition. Woods yet again resorted to this Court,
and the Court “order[ed] that the parties shall proceed to a full hearing on the merits in the same
manner as an appeal as of right.” Woods v Dep’t of Corrections, unpublished order of the Court
of Appeals, entered June 30, 2010 (Docket No. 296609).
Woods petitioned for habeas corpus on the grounds that (1) the trial court erroneously
instructed the jury that, in passing on whether Woods qualified as a fourth habitual offender, it
could take judicial notice of the date of Woods’s breaking and entering conviction, and (2) the
trial court neglected to fully examine the extent of Woods’s displeasure with his trial counsel in
the course of his breaking and entering bench trial. Both of the complaints in Woods’s habeas
1
The Michigan Supreme Court denied Woods’s application for leave to appeal. People v
Woods, 428 Mich 907 (1987).
2
See Docket Nos. 123517, 124660, 130207, 154461, 187664, 216554, 217200, 232912, 263604,
and 287863.
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petition derive from his breaking and entering conviction and sentence in lower court #85006602-FH.
The current Michigan statute embodying a prisoner’s right to habeas corpus, MCL
600.4310, recognizes that “[a]n action for habeas corpus to inquire into the cause of detention
may not be brought by or on behalf of the following persons[,]” including “[p]ersons convicted,
or in execution, upon legal process, civil or criminal.” MCL 600.4310(3). Michigan courts have
consistently interpreted subsection 4310(3) as “‘generally consonant with often-repeated judicial
declarations that habeas corpus cannot serve as a substitute for an appeal and cannot be used to
review the merits of a criminal conviction.’” Cross v Dep’t of Corrections, 103 Mich App 409,
415; 303 NW2d 218 (1981), quoting People v Price, 23 Mich App 663, 669; 179 NW2d 177
(1970).
The Michigan Supreme Court reiterated this proposition in In re Lamanna, 263 Mich 62;
248 NW 550 (1933), when confronted with a petition for habeas relief by a prisoner convicted of
kidnapping in 1931. Id. at 63. Our Supreme Court instructively addressed the petition in
pertinent part as follows:
Without quoting further from the record, it may be said petitioner’s
application for the writ of habeas corpus is based solely upon a claim that “there
is positively and absolutely no evidence to support (his) conviction.” In other
words, he here seeks a review of the merits of the case and raises only questions
which could have been reviewed on appeal.
“Questions decided in review on writ of error may not be reviewed in
habeas corpus proceeding, nor may further review of alleged errors . . . .
“Writ of habeas corpus cannot function as writ of error.” In re Palm
(syllabi), 255 Mich 632[; 238 NW 732 (1931)].
“Questions reviewable by writ of error may not be reviewed in habeas corpus
proceeding.” In re Garnder (syllabus), 260 Mich 122[; 244 NW 253 (1932)].
In petitioner’s brief it is asserted that the undisputed testimony in the trial
court was to the effect that petitioner had nothing to do with and knew nothing
about the commission of the crime until several days after it was committed. He
was a witness in his own behalf, and this phase of the record was urged in his
defense. However, there was testimony which disclosed that, subsequent to the
kidnapping, defendant acted as a go-between in negotiating and securing the
payment of a ransom incident to the release of the victim. The jury evidently
found petitioner guilty as an accessory, if not as principal, in the commission of
the offense charged. It was petitioner’s claim that whatever he did as a gobetween in negotiating the ransom was done involuntarily and under compulsion
of threats of those who actually committed the offense. All this went to the jury
on the factual aspect of the case, and is not now reviewable on habeas corpus.
Petitioner was duly convicted in a court of competent jurisdiction, the sentence
imposed was within the statute . . . , and the commitment under which he is
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imprisoned is regular upon its face. Nothing reviewable upon habeas corpus is
presented in this record. Petitioner is not entitled to be discharged, the relief
prayed for is denied, and the writ dismissed. [Id. at 63-65.]
In this case, Woods’s plainly and improperly seeks to challenge through his habeas
corpus petition the merits of his conviction and sentence in lower court #85-006602-FH, which
the habeas procedure does not entitle him to do. In re Lamanna, 263 Mich at 64-65; Cross, 103
Mich App at 414-415. Notably, petitioner in his original appeal of right to this Court of his
conviction in lower court #85-006602-FH raised the same complaint he resurrects in his current
habeas petition concerning the validity of judicial notice in the course of his habitual offender
trial.3 And records of this Court reflect that Woods already has unsuccessfully raised in this
Court on two occasions the second issue he presents in his current habeas petition: whether “the
trial court violated the right to counsel by falling [sic] to permit petitioner to discharge an
attorney he was not satisfied with, by not inquiring of petitioner as to the reason, and by
requiring him to bring his problems with the attorney to the attorney rather than to the court?”
Woods presented this identical issue to the Court in the context of a 1995 application for leave to
appeal the Saginaw Circuit Court’s denial of a motion for “postappeal relief” in Docket No.
187664) and a 1999 application for leave to appeal a Saginaw Circuit Court order denying
Woods’s motion for relief from judgment in Docket No. 217200.
Woods’s current “habeas corpus” petition in reality amounts to another motion for
postjudgment relief, subject to appellate review under subchapter 6.500 of the Michigan Court
Rules. As MCR 6.502(G)(1) instructs, “one and only one motion for relief from judgment may
be filed with regard to a conviction. The court shall return without filing any successive motions
for relief from judgment.” In summary, because Woods cannot challenge the merits of his
3
This Court rejected Woods’s argument as follows:
Defendant also argues on appeal that reversible error occurred at his
habitual offender trial. At that trial, the trial court took judicial notice of the fact
that defendant had been convicted earlier that day for a breaking and entering that
occurred on July 13, 1985. The court then instructed the jury that in determining
defendant’s guilt they were not required to accept as true any judicially noticed
fact. Defendant argues that because the prosecutor was required to prove that he
was convicted of prior offenses before the date of the commission of the principal
offense, it was improper of the court to take judicial notice of the date of his most
recent conviction. We disagree. If the court had not taken judicial notice of the
conviction which occurred earlier in the day, the prosecutor would have simply
been required to produce the record of that conviction. Defendant certainly
cannot argue that he was not convicted of that offense and thus the accuracy of
the judicially noticed fact is undisputed. See MRE 201(b). Therefore, we find
that the defendant was properly convicted as an habitual offender. [People v
Woods, unpublished opinion per curiam of the Court of Appeals, issued March
31, 1987 (Docket No. 91026), slip op at 2-3.]
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conviction in lower court #85-006602-FH, either via a habeas petition, MCL 600.4310(3), or in a
successive motion for relief from judgment, MCR 6.502(G)(1), we decline to consider the merits
of his petition.
We dismiss Woods’s petition for habeas corpus.
/s/ Elizabeth L. Gleicher
/s/ David H. Sawyer
/s/ Jane E. Markey
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