Background
Cecil McKinney, incarcerated since 2021 on convictions for absconding on bond and tampering with an electronic monitoring device, was charged with being a prisoner in possession of a weapon under MCL 800.283(4) after a correctional officer observed him holding a lock stuffed inside a sock in his cell. Officers reported McKinney was in a defensive stance, swinging the improvised weapon at the cell window, and that he threatened: “I have a lock with your guys’ name on it.” Three officers were required to remove him to segregation after he resisted.
McKinney’s defense at trial was that he had found the lock-in-sock among a pile of clothes left by a prior cellmate and was attempting to surrender it to officers when they responded. Before closing arguments, defense counsel requested a special jury instruction on “momentary possession”—the theory that a defendant who possesses a weapon only briefly in order to turn it over to authorities lacks criminal culpability. The trial court denied the request, reasoning the offense was a strict-liability crime requiring no additional intent element. The jury convicted McKinney, and the court sentenced him as a fourth-offense habitual offender to 36 to 300 months’ imprisonment.
McKinney appealed on three grounds: (1) that the trial court erred by refusing the momentary-possession jury instruction; (2) that denial of his adjournment request—sought so he could obtain a functioning hearing device—violated his due-process rights; and (3) that his sentence was disproportionate.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeals affirmed on all three grounds. On the jury instruction issue, the court noted the trial court was technically wrong to classify prisoner-in-possession as a strict-liability crime—it is a general-intent offense requiring only the intent to perform the act of possession—but held that error harmless. More significantly, the court ruled that “momentary possession” is simply not a cognizable defense to the charge. Relying on the Michigan Supreme Court’s decision in People v. Hernandez-Garcia, 477 Mich 1039 (2007), which rejected the defense for unlawful concealed carry, and this court’s own decision in People v. Dupree, 284 Mich App 89 (2009), which rejected it for felon-in-possession, the panel held the same rule applies to prisoner-in-possession. All three offenses are general-intent crimes with parallel two-element structures—possession plus ineligibility—and none of them permits intent-to-surrender as a defense.
The court declined to follow the earlier decision in People v. Perry, 145 Mich App 778 (1985), which had allowed a “self-defense plus momentary possession” instruction in a prisoner-weapon case. The panel distinguished Perry on its facts—McKinney requested only a stand-alone momentary-possession instruction, not the combined self-defense theory—and further held that, even read broadly, Perry is a pre-November 1, 1990 decision that need not be followed where the legal landscape has materially shifted, as it has here through Hernandez-Garcia and Dupree.
On the hearing and sentencing issues, the court found no reversible error. The trial court’s courtroom reconfiguration—reseating witnesses to face McKinney and instructing them to speak toward him—adequately addressed his hearing difficulties, and McKinney himself confirmed he could hear after those accommodations were made. On sentencing, his within-guidelines term of 36 to 300 months carried a rebuttable presumption of proportionality that he failed to overcome, given his nearly fifty prior convictions, dozens of in-prison misconducts, and the threatening nature of the charged conduct.
Key Takeaways
- “Momentary possession”—the claim that brief possession intended only to surrender a weapon to authorities negates criminal liability—is not a defense to prisoner-in-possession of a weapon under MCL 800.283(4), consistent with Michigan precedent rejecting it for concealed carry and felon-in-possession charges.
- Prisoner-in-possession is a general-intent, not strict-liability, crime, but that distinction is inconsequential to the momentary-possession analysis: the offense requires only the intent to possess, and an intent to later surrender does not negate that element.
- Pre-November 1, 1990 published Court of Appeals decisions retain persuasive weight on stare decisis grounds, but a panel may depart from them when intervening Supreme Court or Court of Appeals authority has shifted the legal landscape.
- A trial court denying a hearing-accommodation adjournment does not violate due process where it promptly implements alternative measures and the defendant acknowledges he can meaningfully participate in the proceedings.
Why It Matters
This published decision definitively closes the door on “momentary innocent possession” as a defense across the full spectrum of Michigan weapon-possession offenses. Defense counsel in Michigan can no longer invoke the theory—whether for concealed carry, felon-in-possession, or prisoner-in-possession charges—even where a defendant presents a plausible story of intending to hand over a weapon immediately. The ruling also reaffirms the framework for when panels may depart from older published Court of Appeals decisions, signaling that doctrinal evolution through later Supreme Court authority is a recognized basis for doing so.
For correctional-law practitioners, the case also provides practical guidance on trial accommodations for hearing-impaired defendants: courts that promptly reconfigure proceedings and confirm on the record that the defendant can participate will likely satisfy due-process requirements without granting a continuance.