Fraudulent license plate; Venue; “Uses”; MCL 257.257(1)(d)

The court affirmed “the circuit court’s dismissal of this case, finding venue remains improper.” Defendant-Carollo “printed a fraudulent license plate in Macomb County and affixed it to a” work truck. “A different person then drove that truck across the state, ultimately getting pulled over in Mackinac County. The Mackinac County prosecutor filed charges against Carollo for unlawful acts done in Macomb County, which resulted in a reversal by this Court based on improper venue.” The prosecution argued “that the circuit court erred in limiting the term ‘uses’ as provided in” MCL 257.257(1)(d). According to the prosecution, Carollo was “properly prosecuted for violating MCL 257.257(1)(d) in Mackinac County because Carollo used a false plate, the use of that plate continued into Mackinac County, and [he] knew its use would so continue.” The circuit court relied on dictionary definitions of “use” in finding “Carollo’s ‘use’ of the plate concluded in Macomb County.” The court agreed “with this statutory interpretation by the circuit court.” The prosecution stressed “that use of the false plate continued after the truck left Macomb County, but it fails to explain how Carollo’s use of it did.” The court held that its “analysis could end here because neither party focuses on ‘holds’ and the word ‘use’ is not ambiguous because it has the same or similar definition in both legal and lay dictionaries. Therefore, it is not ‘susceptible to more than one reasonable interpretation.’” However, stopping “here would not completely address the prosecution’s argument, as . . . the prosecution highlights ‘knowing’ of the use of the plate as Carollo’s criminal behavior in Mackinac County. Carollo himself may have only held or used the plate in Macomb County, but [he] knew of its use throughout the state, which is, according to the prosecution, the very conduct criminalized under MCL 257.257(1)(d).” The court concluded that “one can commit the criminal act of using a forged title, but if that same person does not know of the forged nature of that title, that person has not committed a crime under MCL 257.257(d). That is in keeping with the structure of the statute as a whole. Subsections (a), (b), (c), (f), and (g) criminalize behavior that one undertakes themselves—altering, forging, falsifying, counterfeiting, indicating. Subsections (d) and (e) criminalize the possession, use, and sale of something that is falsified or forged by oneself or another if the falsified nature is known to the possessor/user/seller. In all subsections, one has knowledge of the criminal behavior.” In this case, “no one debates that Carollo knew of the false nature of registration plate. He made it himself. What the circuit court recognized, though, is that Carollo’s ‘use’ of the plate ceased in Macomb County.”