PEOPLE OF MI V JAMES DAVID SWAZEY

Court of Appeals, State of Michigan
ORDER
PEOPLE OF MI V JAMES DAVID SWAZEY
Docket No. 380298
LC No. 92-010368-02-FC
Kathleen A. Feeney
Presiding Judge
Stephen L. Borrello
Sima G. Patel
Judges
The motion for immediate consideration is GRANTED.
The application for leave to appeal is GRANTED. The time for taking further steps in this
appeal runs from the date of the Clerk’s certification of this order. MCR 7.205(E)(3). Pursuant to MCR
7.205(E)(4), the issues on appeal will not be limited to those raised in defendant’s application. Instead, in
their briefs on appeal, the parties should also address whether the trial court’s alleged error in holding
defendant’s motion for relief from judgment in abeyance pending our Supreme Court’s final decision in
People v Eads, ___ Mich ___; 25 NW3d 118 (2025), might have been harmless because, in light of
defendant’s guilty plea and any related sentencing agreement, he may have waived any right to raise the
instant collateral challenge to his sentence. Cf. People v Stovall, 510 Mich 301, 346-347 n 34; 987 NW2d
85 (2022) (ZAHRA , J., dissenting) (“by entering into a valid plea and sentencing agreement, defendant
arguably waived his ability to challenge the validity of his sentence . . . .”; People v Carter, 462 Mich 206,
215; 612 NW2d 144 (2000) (noting that waiver is generally “defined as the intentional relinquishment or
abandonment of a known right”) (quotation marks and citation omitted; emphasis added).
Because the prosecutor failed to file an answer to the application for leave to appeal, the
prosecutor must file an appellee’s brief in reply to appellant’s brief, either within 56 days of the Clerk’s
certification of this order as directed in MCR 6.509(D), or within the time stated in MCR 7.212(A)(2)(a),
whichever is later.
_______________________________
Presiding Judge

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