People v Morgan
Key claim: The Michigan Supreme Court held that evidence of a deceased motorcyclist’s blood alcohol concentration was relevant and admissible in a moving-violation-causing-death prosecution because it must be considered in combination with the victim’s speeding and rapid acceleration as probative of proximate causation, and the district court abused its discretion by excluding it.
Abstract
Michigan Supreme Court opinion decided 2026-06-24. Michigan Supreme Court Lansing, Michigan
Syllabus Chief Justice: Justices: Megan K. Cavanagh Brian K. Zahra Richard H. Bernstein Elizabeth M. Welch Kyra H. Bolden Kimberly A. Thomas Noah P. Hood
This syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been Reporter of Decisions: prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. Kimberly K. Muschong
PEOPLE v MORGAN
Docket No. 167492. Argued October 8, 2025. Decided June 24, 2026.
Michael M. Morgan was charged in the 53rd District Court with moving violation causing
death, MCL 257.601d(1), as the result of a collision between the car he was driving and a
motorcycle driven by Donald D. Arnold, who later died from his injuries. Eyewitness testimony
indicated that the decedent had accelerated quickly after a traffic light turned green and that he
struck the side of defendant’s vehicle as defendant was attempting a U-turn. Defendant moved to
admit evidence that the decedent might have reached a speed exceeding 20 miles per hour over the
posted limit before the collision, as well as evidence that the decedent’s blood alcohol
concentration (BAC) at the time of the collision might have been as high as 0.071 to 0.081 g/dL.
The district court, Daniel B. Bain, J., ruled that the speed evidence was admissible but the BAC
evidence was not, and the Livingston Circuit Court, Matthew J. McGivney, J., denied defendant’s
application for leave to appeal that ruling. After granting defendant’s interlocutory application for
leave to appeal, the Court of Appeals, RIORDAN and CAMERON, JJ. (MARKEY, P.J., dissenting),
affirmed in an unpublished per curiam opinion issued August 8, 2024 (Docket No. 367789), on
the ground that People v Feezel, 486 Mich 184 (2010), required a preliminary showing of gross
negligence before evidence of intoxication was admissible and, because no such showing had been
made with respect to the decedent’s conduct, the district court did not abuse its discretion by
excluding the BAC evidence. Defendant sought leave to appeal in the Supreme Court, which
ordered oral argument on the application and directed the parties to file supplemental briefing
addressing (1) whether evidence of the decedent’s BAC is relevant, and (2) whether the probative
value of that evidence is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice. 516 Mich
924 (2024).
In an opinion by Justice HOOD, joined by Chief Justice CAVANAGH and Justices
BERNSTEIN, WELCH, BOLDEN, and THOMAS, the Supreme Court held:
The district court abused its discretion by excluding the evidence of the decedent’s possible
intoxication. Under Feezel, evidence of a victim’s BAC must merely have any tendency to make
gross negligence on the part of the victim more or less probable. In this case, the BAC evidence
was relevant under MRE 401 because it was probative of proximate causation in light of other
admissible conduct, and it was admissible under MRE 403 because the risk of unfair prejudice was
low compared to the evidence’s probative value in determining whether the decedent’s
intoxication, speed, and acceleration constituted gross negligence or a superseding cause of the collision. The district court abused its discretion by considering the evidence in isolation rather than as part of the comprehensive body of evidence that could inform the jury’s decision on proximate cause and also by excluding, without a clear rationale, evidence of intoxication while admitting evidence of speeding.
1. To convict a defendant of moving violation causing death, MCL 257.601d(1), the
prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant caused a death by committing a moving violation while operating a motor vehicle on a highway or other place open to the public. The causation element of MCL 257.601d(1) has two parts—factual and proximate— and the prosecution is required to prove both parts. Factual causation exists if a fact-finder determines that but for defendant’s conduct, the result would not have occurred. Proximate causation requires a finding that the victim’s injury was a direct and natural result of the alleged criminal conduct, with no intervening cause that superseded the defendant’s conduct and broke the causal link between the defendant’s conduct and the victim’s injury. Whether an intervening cause supersedes a defendant’s conduct is a question of reasonable foreseeability. Ordinary negligence is reasonably foreseeable, so it cannot be a superseding cause that would sever the causal link between the defendant’s conduct and the victim’s harm, whereas a victim’s gross negligence or intentional misconduct is sufficient to break the causal chain because it is not reasonably foreseeable.
2. The district court erred by excluding evidence of the decedent’s BAC as irrelevant under
MRE 401. The evidence of intoxication was material because the charged crime required the prosecution to prove an element of causation beyond a reasonable doubt. It was also probative because, under Feezel, evidence of the victim’s BAC must merely have any tendency to make gross negligence on the part of the victim more or less probable. While neither intoxication nor speeding, standing alone, might have been relevant under Feezel, in this case, those two pieces of evidence occurred together. As a result, the decedent’s alleged speeding and high rate of acceleration must be considered in light of his possible intoxication, and his possible intoxication must be considered in light of his alleged speeding and high rate of acceleration. Applying Feezel to these facts led to the conclusion that the decedent’s BAC was relevant. The lower courts misapplied principles from Feezel, which held that, generally, the mere fact that a victim was intoxicated when the defendant committed a crime is not sufficient to render evidence of the victim’s intoxication admissible and that being intoxicated, by itself, is not conduct amounting to gross negligence. But Feezel did not set a floor for the level of intoxication that is relevant, it did not set a floor for the type of conduct that opens the door to consideration of intoxication, and it did not strictly analyze intoxication or conduct in isolation. Further, by admitting the evidence of the decedent’s speeding—which appeared to bear on one issue, causation—the district court implicitly determined that gross negligence was in issue. Accordingly, the jury may consider the role intoxication played in the decedent’s possible speeding, his rates of acceleration, and his ability to react to defendant’s allegedly unlawful U-turn.
3. The district court also erred by excluding evidence of the decedent’s BAC under MRE
- The evidence was not unfairly prejudicial because the decedent’s possible speeding and rapid acceleration on a motorcycle after possibly drinking went to the heart of whether he was grossly negligent and therefore related directly to the disputed element of proximate causation. Though the conduct was less eg
Why this matters
The Michigan Supreme Court held that evidence of a deceased motorcyclist’s blood alcohol concentration was relevant and admissible in a moving-violation-causing-death prosecution because it must be considered in combination with the victim’s speeding and rapid acceleration as probative of proximate causation, and the district court abused its discretion by excluding it.