By Zach Gorchow
Gongwer News Service
A First Amendment challenge to Michigan's 21-year-old law criminalizing hazing was rejected by the Court of Appeals.
In 2004, the state enacted "Garret's Law" creating a specific crime of hazing with escalating penalties depending on the severity of injury.
In 2021, four fraternity pledges were presented with five shots of alcohol each at a fraternity party. They immediately consumed them. Ethan Cao, a "pledge master" at a Michigan State University fraternity, was deemed the person in charge of the event.
Testimony at the preliminary examination established that the pledges, all of whom testified they had no memory of anything after drinking the shots, were encouraged to continue drinking through the night. Videos and photographs later recovered from cell phones showed that fraternity members drew on the pledges' shirtless torsos while they appeared to be unconscious.
Police eventually were called to the party. One of the four was dead. The other three were alive but unconscious. The pledge who died, Phat Nguyen, had a blood alcohol level of .386.
The three others were hospitalized but survived. One, whose blood alcohol level was .427, was intensive care for two days.
Cao was charged under the anti-hazing law and was bound over to stand trial after a preliminary examination. He appealed and lost at the Ingham Circuit Court and then appealed to the Michigan Court of Appeals, challenging both the question of whether the district court had sufficient evidence to bind him over and the constitutionality of the law.
Judge Matthew Ackerman, in a published opinion dated Monday and released Tuesday, held that there was sufficient evidence.
He also wrote – in the first ruling on the constitutionality of the anti-hazing law – that the law is constitutional.
"While the First Amendment protects 'certain forms of orderly group activity,' we emphasize that the protection is for orderly activity," Ackerman wrote. "It does not extend to conduct that deliberately or recklessly endangers the physical health or safety of current or prospective members."
Ackerman also dispatched of equal protection and vagueness constitutional challenges.
"It has been two decades since the Legislature enacted Garret's Law through 2004 PA 111, but it has not received appellate scrutiny until now," he wrote. "We join the consensus of other states in upholding the constitutionality of anti-hazing legislation, both facially and as-applied, against challenges based on freedom of association, equal protection, vagueness, and overbreadth."
Judge Kirsten Frank Kelly and Judge Philip Mariani also signed the opinion in People v. Cao (COA Docket No. 373185).
Gongwer News Service
A First Amendment challenge to Michigan's 21-year-old law criminalizing hazing was rejected by the Court of Appeals.
In 2004, the state enacted "Garret's Law" creating a specific crime of hazing with escalating penalties depending on the severity of injury.
In 2021, four fraternity pledges were presented with five shots of alcohol each at a fraternity party. They immediately consumed them. Ethan Cao, a "pledge master" at a Michigan State University fraternity, was deemed the person in charge of the event.
Testimony at the preliminary examination established that the pledges, all of whom testified they had no memory of anything after drinking the shots, were encouraged to continue drinking through the night. Videos and photographs later recovered from cell phones showed that fraternity members drew on the pledges' shirtless torsos while they appeared to be unconscious.
Police eventually were called to the party. One of the four was dead. The other three were alive but unconscious. The pledge who died, Phat Nguyen, had a blood alcohol level of .386.
The three others were hospitalized but survived. One, whose blood alcohol level was .427, was intensive care for two days.
Cao was charged under the anti-hazing law and was bound over to stand trial after a preliminary examination. He appealed and lost at the Ingham Circuit Court and then appealed to the Michigan Court of Appeals, challenging both the question of whether the district court had sufficient evidence to bind him over and the constitutionality of the law.
Judge Matthew Ackerman, in a published opinion dated Monday and released Tuesday, held that there was sufficient evidence.
He also wrote – in the first ruling on the constitutionality of the anti-hazing law – that the law is constitutional.
"While the First Amendment protects 'certain forms of orderly group activity,' we emphasize that the protection is for orderly activity," Ackerman wrote. "It does not extend to conduct that deliberately or recklessly endangers the physical health or safety of current or prospective members."
Ackerman also dispatched of equal protection and vagueness constitutional challenges.
"It has been two decades since the Legislature enacted Garret's Law through 2004 PA 111, but it has not received appellate scrutiny until now," he wrote. "We join the consensus of other states in upholding the constitutionality of anti-hazing legislation, both facially and as-applied, against challenges based on freedom of association, equal protection, vagueness, and overbreadth."
Judge Kirsten Frank Kelly and Judge Philip Mariani also signed the opinion in People v. Cao (COA Docket No. 373185).
––––––––––––––––––––
Subscribe to the Legal News!
https://legalnews.com/Home/Subscription
Full access to public notices, articles, columns, archives, statistics, calendar and more
Day Pass Only $4.95!
One-County $80/year
Three-County & Full Pass also available
