Privileged records; MCR 6.201(C); In camera review; People v Stanaway; Right to recross-examination; Proportionality challenge to a within-guidelines sentence; Restitution; Causal relationship requirement

The court affirmed defendant’s CSC I convictions and his sentence in part, but partially vacated the ordered restitution, and remanded to amend it “to remove the requirement that defendant reimburse the victim the cost of her vehicle.” He was sentenced to 15 to 50 years for each conviction. The key issue for purposes of the appeal was “whether defendant articulated a good-faith belief, grounded in articulable fact, of a reasonable probability that the requested records were likely to contain material information necessary to his defense.” The court concluded that he “failed to meet this standard. In his second motion for therapy and medical records, [he] requested that the court conduct an in camera review of the records[.]” His argument presented “a good-faith belief grounded in demonstrable fact that the records likely contain what defendant claims they do.” The problem for him was “that the information he sought in these records—that the victim did not disclose defendant’s abuse to her providers before 2018—was not material to his defense. This was a delayed-disclosure case, and the victim admitted that she never disclosed defendant’s abuse until 2018. Defendant did not need the victim’s privileged records to establish this fact or to cross-examine [her] about it. Because the information that defendant sought in the privileged records was already available to him, it was not material to his defense.” The court found that “the trial court properly denied defendant’s motion for in camera review of the victim’s privileged records.” Defendant next argued “that the trial court deprived him of his right to confront the witnesses against him when it denied his request to recross-examine” a detective. The court concluded that the trial “court did not plainly violate defendant’s confrontation right by prohibiting recross-examination.” Defendant next challenged his sentence, principally arguing that, in light of his advanced age, it was disproportionate. But, as the court “recently explained, the mere fact that a defendant will be of advanced age by the time he or she is eligible for parole ‘is insufficient to overcome the presumption of proportionality.’” Further, it concluded “that the trial court’s decision to sentence defendant to a maximum term-of-year sentence instead of a life sentence was proportionate and not an abuse of discretion.” Finally, the court held that the restitution order was “partially invalid because it compensates the victim for the loss of her vehicle, which was not part of the direct losses she sustained from defendant’s criminal conduct constituting the sentencing offense.”