People v. Bowman

1

PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. DANIEL LEE BOWMAN, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 361291

Court of Appeals of Michigan

December 21, 2023

UNPUBLISHED

Ogemaw Circuit Court LC No. 20-005366-FC

Before: HOOD, P.J., and JANSEN and FEENEY, JJ.

PER CURIAM.

Defendant Daniel Lee Bowman appeals his convictions of carjacking, MCL 750.529a, and unlawfully driving away an automobile (UDAA) MCL 750.413, following a jury trial. The trial court sentenced Bowman as a fourth-offense habitual offender, MCL 769.12, to concurrent prison terms of 225 months to 50 years for carjacking and 48 months to 50 years for UDAA. We affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

A. OFFENSE CONDUCT

This case arises out of Bowman's theft of a pickup truck and driving away while the victim, Andrew Grindstaff, tried to stop him. In late February 2020, Bowman convinced his daughter and her friend to go on a search for his white 1997 Chevrolet pickup truck that he claimed his girlfriend took after dropping him off at a hospital the night before. They stopped after seeing a white 1997 Chevrolet pickup truck at a gas station. Bowman's daughter told Bowman that the truck, which unlike his had a red tailgate, was not his truck. At trial, it was undisputed that Bowman's truck did not have a tailgate. According to Bowman's daughter, after Bowman saw the tailgate on the truck, he said, "That's not my truck." After leaving the gas station, Bowman told his daughter's friend to turn around. They returned to the gas station and followed the truck to a house. Bowman's daughter told Bowman twice while following the truck that the truck was not his. Bowman again said, "That's not my truck."

When the driver of the truck went into the house, Bowman exited his vehicle. He testified that he entered the truck and started it with the key that was still in the ignition. Notably, the ignition of Bowman's own pickup truck was broken and could not be started with a key. Bowman testified that he intended to take the truck because he believed it was his, but that he had no intention to steal the truck and that it was "all a misunderstanding." He reversed the truck and began to drive off.

According to Bowman, Andrew Grindstaff, the owner of the truck, whom Bowman did not know, jumped into the truck as soon as Bowman put the truck into reverse. Grindstaff showed Bowman the registration to prove his ownership of the truck and offered to help Bowman look for his truck. He also suggested driving to the home of another man to see if Bowman's truck was there. Instead, Bowman testified, he drove to his parents' home.

When Bowman heard sirens, he fled his parents home. He did not explain to officers that he had made a mistake. He later explained that he was scared because Grindstaff "showed me that the vehicle was his." During trial, Bowman said, in a nonresponsive answer to a question, that he "already knew he was gonna end up going to jail." He said that "when they dragged me out of the hospital the night before . . . they denied me medical treatment in the midst of an overdose."

Grindstaff, the owner of the white 1997 Chevrolet truck, provided a different version of events. Grindstaff testified that as soon as he got into his house and shut the front door he heard his truck starting. He opened the front door and saw his truck backing out of the driveway, so he ran after it. Grindstaff caught up to the truck, grabbed the front passenger-side door, and opened it as the driver, whom he did not know, tried to drive off. Grindstaff had one hand on the truck's door frame and one hand on the door handle. He positioned himself between the door and the truck and tried jumping inside. As he did so, Grindstaff asked Bowman what he was doing. According to Grindstaff, Bowman said that the truck was his and that he was taking it. Grindstaff tried to tell Bowman that the truck was not his, but Bowman refused to listen and drove off down the road, dragging Grindstaff roughly 60 to 100 yards at 20 to 30 miles per hour. Grindstaff either had to get into the truck or risk getting run over. When the truck slowed as it was approaching a cross street, Grindstaff got inside the truck.

Grindstaff again asked Bowman what he was doing. Bowman said that the truck was his, that it was stolen from him, and that he was taking it back. Grindstaff testified that Bowman "didn't seem right." Grindstaff offered to show the registration for the truck prove to Bowman that the truck belonged to Grindstaff, but Bowman kept driving. When Bowman told Grindstaff to show him the registration, Bowman looked at the registration and said, "Anybody could print something like that off." Bowman continued driving. Grindstaff testified that he did not call 911 from his cell phone because he did not want to agitate Bowman.

According to Grindstaff, Bowman was eerily calm for the situation and that frightened him. He was scared because he did not know if Bowman was "taking him to the woods" or to "someplace where he had friends." Bowman drove to a house and stopped the truck and tried to get out of the driver's door. He asked Grindstaff how to open the driver's door.^[1] Bowman followed Grindstaff out of the passenger door. A man later identified as Bowman's father immediately came running out of the house and yelled to Bowman, "What are you doing? This isn't your truck. That's-doesn't even-it's not like your truck. This ain't your truck."^[2] Bowman gave the keys to Grindstaff, who said, "I'm calling the cops." Law enforcement officers arrived at the Bowman home and, after being informed that Bowman had fled into the woods, followed tracks in the snow leading away from the yard and found Bowman hiding in the snow covered by chairs inside of another residence's tiki hut. The prosecution charged Bowman as a fourth-offense habitual offender with carjacking and UDAA.

B. COMPETENCY ISSUES

Throughout the pretrial phase, the trial court refered Bowman for compentency evaluations three times. Each time he was determined to be competent to stand trial. The court also refered him for an evaluation of criminal responsibility, but Bowman refused to participate in that evaluation. The trial court first ordered Bowman to undergo a competency examination at the Center for Forensic Psychiatry (CFP) to determine whether he was competent to stand trial in mid-March 2020. In late April 2020, Dr. Jay Witherell, a licensed psychologist with CFP, interviewed Bowman. Dr. Witherell issued a report in early May 2020 opining that Bowman was competent to stand trial. In early September 2020, the parties stipulated to entry of an order requiring Bowman to undergo a second competency examination with the CFP. In mid-March 2021, the trial court ordered Bowman to undergo a third examination at the CFP to determine whether he remained competent to stand trial. According to the CFP report issued in early July 2021, though Bowman appeared for the examination, he refused to cooperate because he had "already been forensically evaluated." Dr. Andrew P. Cheff, another licensed psychologist with the CFP, issued the report and opined that, based on the "available information," there was "insufficient support that Mr. Bowman [was] incompetent to stand trial and thus it [was his] opinion that [Bowman] should be presumed competent to stand trial."

During this time, Bowman had frequent outbursts during pre-trial proceedings, including before and after his examinations with the CFP. During the preliminary examination, the court muted Bowman's microphone because of an outburst during a prior proceeding. During the final pretrial and plea cutoff hearing regarding three separate cases, including possession of methamphetamine charges that stemmed from traffic stops, the prosecutor placed the plea agreement for the present case on the record. Bowman rejected the plea offer, but not before an outburst during which he claimed law enforcement smashed his face to the ground, pushed him out of the hospital "to die," indicating that he would only agree to one year in jail, and indicating he would call 20 witnesses if the case went to trial. The court told Bowman that if during trial "you continue to outburst like this, you're gonna be doing your trial from another room watching it on television." The court also told Bowman, "So you either get your act together or you don't, it's up to you, but I'm not gonna have this courtroom turned into a circus because you can't keep your mouth shut."

During a status conference in late April 2021, Bowman told the court that he wanted to file charges of attempted murder against the officers who dragged him out of the hospital, alleging police brutality. When addressing bond, he continued to insist that the state police dragged him out of the hospital. He claimed the cases against him were "illegal" and that police targeted and physically abused him "15 times in a . . . 3-week span," leading to "attempted murder caught on camera ...." He continued, "I know my rights. I did a forensic test, passed it." And he referred to the charges as "some bogus ass shit ...." The court told Bowman that he had to control himself or he would be removed from the courtroom. Bowman responded that the alleged abuse was on camera. The court told Bowman that it had heard his story four times and that "I need you to stop now." Bowman said, "I'm clearly upset."

During his various pretrial hearings, Bowman made outbursts about perceived procedural defects in his case unrelated to the pretrial hearings. For example, during a hearing on defense counsel Darris Richards's motion to withdraw, Bowman continued asserting that officers tried to murder him and reiterated that the officers' conduct was "caught on camera." During a status conference in early October 2021, Bowman...