People v. Wilson
Docket No. 154039
Trial Lawyer’s Takeaway: multiple felony-firearm convictions can arise from a single criminal incident.
MCL 750.227b(1) sets out mandatory sentencing if a person is convicted of multiple convictions of felony-firearm possession: 5 years for a second conviction and 10 years for a third conviction. Before Wilson’s felony-firearm conviction in this case, he had been convicted twice of felony-firearm, but these two convictions arose from the same criminal incident. Under the Court’s decision in People v. Stewart, 441 Mich. 89 (1992), Wilson argued that these prior felony-firearm convictions should only count as one for purposes of the statute because they arose from the same criminal incident.
Justice Larsen wrote a unanimous opinion in which the Court overruled Stewart to hold that the plain language of MCL 750.227b(1) did not require that felony-firearm convictions must arise from separate criminal incidents to count as multiple felony-firearm convictions. Therefore, Wilson’s two felony-firearm convictions that arose from one criminal incident still counted as two convictions for purposes of the statute.
The Court ran through its stare decisis analysis and determined that overruling Stewart was necessary.
Full opinion here.