Background
Uniformed Paw Paw police officers arrived in a marked patrol car to address a neighborhood dispute involving Steven Michael Brooks and his sister, Rebecca Brooks. An officer testified that, while Brooks was highly agitated, he shoved Rebecca with both hands on her shoulders. Brooks and Rebecca instead testified that he tried to hug her and she pushed him away, telling him not to touch her.
As the officers approached, Brooks entered his vehicle, accelerated backward out of a driveway, reversed down the street, turned around, and drove away. The officers testified that they ordered him to stop and pursued with emergency lights and siren activated. After a bench trial, the Van Buren Circuit Court convicted Brooks of third-degree fleeing and eluding and domestic violence. He appealed, challenging the sufficiency of the evidence on both counts.
The Court’s Holding
The Michigan Court of Appeals held that sufficient evidence supported the fleeing-and-eluding conviction. The dashcam video and testimony permitted a rational factfinder to find that Brooks was driving when an officer verbally ordered him to stop and when the patrol car’s lights and siren were activated. His proximity to the officers, rapid backward departure, continued driving despite the pursuit, and apparent failure to stop completely at a stop sign supported findings that he knew of the command and intentionally took affirmative action to flee or avoid capture.
The court also held that sufficient evidence supported the domestic-violence conviction. The trial court was entitled to credit the officer’s testimony that Brooks shoved Rebecca, which established an offensive touching. Alternatively, even under Brooks’s account that he attempted to hug her, her response could support a finding that she reasonably apprehended an immediate offensive touching. The appellate court therefore affirmed both convictions.
Key Takeaways
- Fleeing and eluding requires affirmative conduct intended to flee or avoid capture, not merely a failure to submit to police.
- A stop command may be conveyed by voice, emergency lights, or siren, and awareness may be established through circumstantial evidence.
- On sufficiency review, appellate courts view the evidence in the prosecution’s favor and defer to the factfinder’s credibility determinations.
Why It Matters
The decision illustrates how video evidence, officer testimony, and a defendant’s manner of departure can collectively establish knowledge and intent in a fleeing-and-eluding prosecution even without proof that the defendant exceeded the speed limit.
It also confirms that a domestic-violence conviction may rest on credited testimony of an offensive touching or, independently, on conduct causing reasonable apprehension of an immediate offensive touching.