Background
Moses Richard Emmanuel was convicted by no-contest plea of unarmed robbery, fourth-degree fleeing and eluding a police officer, and resisting and obstructing a police officer in Macomb Circuit Court. He was sentenced to 45 months to 15 years’ imprisonment for the unarmed robbery conviction pursuant to a Cobbs agreement, under which the trial court had agreed to sentence him within the lower third of the applicable guidelines range.
The dispute centered on the scoring of Prior Record Variable 1 (PRV 1), which accounts for prior high-severity felony convictions under MCL 777.51. The trial court assessed 25 points for PRV 1 based on Emmanuel’s 2011 federal conviction for counterfeiting under 18 USC 471, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years. That score placed him in PRV level D with a guidelines range of 36 to 71 months. At sentencing, defense counsel had conceded that 25 points was appropriate for PRV 1, though it successfully challenged other convictions that had initially pushed the score to 75 points.
Emmanuel appealed, arguing that his federal counterfeiting conviction should have been classified as a low-severity felony corresponding to a Michigan offense in a lower offense class, making it scorable under PRV 2 rather than PRV 1. The Michigan Supreme Court, rather than granting leave to appeal, remanded the matter to the Court of Appeals for consideration as on leave granted.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeals held that Emmanuel’s federal conviction under 18 USC 471 corresponds to MCL 750.251, Michigan’s statute prohibiting the counterfeiting of bank bills and promissory notes (i.e., common currency), which is a Class E felony. Both statutes target the same core conduct — the false making, forgery, counterfeiting, or alteration of currency or monetary obligations with intent to defraud — and are therefore “similar or analogous” under the court’s established definition of “correspond” from People v. Crews, 299 Mich App 381 (2013). Because MCL 750.251 is a Class E offense, the federal conviction is a low-severity felony scorable under PRV 2, not a high-severity felony under PRV 1.
The court further held that under MCL 777.51(2)(d), a foreign or federal felony punishable by more than 10 years qualifies as a high-severity conviction only if it does not correspond to any offense listed in Michigan’s sentencing classes. Reading MCL 777.51 and MCL 777.52 in pari materia, the court concluded that allowing the sentence length alone to override a correspondence finding would nullify MCL 777.52(2)(b), which expressly classifies corresponding foreign convictions as low-severity felonies regardless of their maximum punishment. With PRV 1 reduced to 0 points and PRV 2 adjusted to 10 points, Emmanuel’s correct PRV score was 20 (level C), yielding a guidelines range of 29 to 57 months.
On preservation, the court declined to find waiver, consistent with People v. Hershey, 303 Mich App 330 (2013), which holds that conceding a guidelines score at sentencing does not constitute waiver of a later appellate challenge. Applying plain-error review under People v. Kimble, 470 Mich 305 (2004), and reasoning by analogy to People v. Smith, 319 Mich App 1 (2017), the court found that Emmanuel’s 45-month sentence — though within the properly calculated range — violated due process because it exceeded the lower-third band he had bargained for under the Cobbs agreement. The court vacated the sentence and remanded for resentencing, with the option for Emmanuel to withdraw his plea if the trial court determines it cannot comply with the Cobbs agreement.
Key Takeaways
- A federal or out-of-state felony punishable by more than 10 years is not automatically a “prior high-severity felony” under PRV 1 (MCL 777.51(2)(d)); if the offense corresponds to a Michigan Class E, F, G, or H crime, it must be scored as a low-severity felony under PRV 2 instead.
- Courts must read MCL 777.51 and MCL 777.52 in pari materia: classifying a corresponding foreign conviction as high-severity solely because of its maximum sentence would render MCL 777.52(2)(b) nugatory.
- Under Hershey, a defendant’s concession to a particular PRV score at sentencing does not waive appellate challenge to that score.
- A defendant sentenced under a Cobbs agreement is entitled to resentencing whenever a corrected guidelines calculation shows the imposed sentence falls outside the range contemplated by the agreement, even if the sentence technically falls within the broader corrected range — due process requires the plea to be knowing and voluntary as to the actual guidelines.
Why It Matters
This decision clarifies how Michigan courts must classify foreign and federal felony convictions when computing prior record variables — a question that arises frequently in the era of overlapping federal and state criminal codes. Sentencing courts cannot treat maximum-sentence length as a trump card to elevate a conviction to high-severity status when that same offense clearly maps onto a lower-class Michigan analog. Defense attorneys handling clients with prior federal convictions should scrutinize whether those offenses correspond to Michigan’s enumerated offense classes before accepting a PRV score at face value.
The case also reinforces the due-process protections embedded in Cobbs agreements. Even where a defendant fails to preserve a guidelines objection through the standard channels of MCL 769.34(10), plain-error review is available when a corrected calculation shows the sentence exceeded what the defendant actually bargained for. Trial courts that cannot honor the original Cobbs agreement under the corrected range must afford the defendant an opportunity to withdraw the plea entirely.