People v. Place

In People v. Place, 226 Mich 212; 197 NW 513 (1924), the alleged victim testified that the defendant took certain indecent liberties with her in the afternoon of February 3, 1923, in the defendant's office. Place, supra at 214. The defendant presented various witnesses who testified that they had been with the defendant, in his office, during the afternoon on the date of the alleged incident. Id. When instructing the jurors, the trial court refused a defense request for an instruction specifically limiting the time and date of the offense to the afternoon of February 3, 1923, and instead instructed them that they needed only to determine if the defendant committed the alleged acts "on or about" February 3, 1923. The Supreme Court of Michigan held that the trial court erred in not specifically confining the temporal element of the charge to the afternoon of February 3, 1923, given the specificity of the allegations. Id. at 217.