Michigan Supreme Court holds that evidence that a child was present in a home in which defendant was in possession of drugs and firearms is, by itself, legally insufficient to support defendant’s conviction under MCL 750.145 for doing an act that tended to cause a minor child to become neglected or delinquent.

People v Tennyson, ___ Mich ___ ( #137755, 9/7/2010)


In Tennyson, supra, the Michigan Supreme Court granted leave to appeal to consider whether evidence that a child was present in a home in which defendant was in possession of drugs and firearms is, by itself, legally sufficient to support defendant’s conviction under MCL 750.145 for doing an act that “tended to cause a minor child to become neglected or delinquent so as to tend to come under the jurisdiction of” the family division of the circuit court.

The Supreme Court held that where there is no evidence that the child was aware of such drugs or firearms that there is insufficient evidence to support defendant’s conviction under this statute. To decide otherwise would render a conviction under MCL 750.145 an increasingly routine appendage to a broad array of other criminal charges in instances in which a child is merely present in a home where evidence of a crime has been uncovered. Moreover, to decide otherwise would have considerable implications for the process by which parental rights are terminated in this state, for, as the facts of this case demonstrate, a conviction under MCL 750.145 would almost certainly constitute a trigger at least for the initiation of the termination process by the Department of Human Services. Because this result has never before been reached by courts of this state, and because we believe that such result was never intended by the Legislature, we reverse in part the judgment of the Court of Appeals, vacate defendant’s conviction under MCL 750.145, and remand to the trial court for proceedings consistent with this opinion. Defendant’s drug and firearms convictions, which the Court of Appeals has affirmed, are not affected by this decision.