Can you name all 2,967 statutes in the Michigan Penal Code? Have you tried navigating the Michigan Legislature’s website to determine if you’re properly following the rules on activities like hunting and driving? Michigan’s penal code lists 1,170 felony statutes and 1,797 misdemeanor statutes, according to my recent study, which echoes the Mackinac Center's 2014 findings. Michigan has created a legal maze so confusing that reasonable state residents cannot understand and interpret the law in their daily lives.

One problem within the law is poor cross-referencing. Cross-referencing is what happens when one law is connected to another law by citing it — that is, referring its terms or application to a section in another law that contains the details. So instead of restating text that appears elsewhere, a law may mention "a rule promulgated under section # or in violation of section # / article #." This wording is meant to let the reader understand the context of a law, including its penalties, without restating long swaths of text. But when a statute uses excessive cross-referencing, it’s hard to read the statute on its own, increasing its complexity.

Another problem is that some statutes refer to laws that no longer exist, while others fail to specify which previous laws they refer to. A Revised School Code statute about penalties for violating the School Code, for example, prescribes penalties for violating rules that no longer hold force, having been repealed. A law on athletic service providers also references repealed sections of law. As a result, Michigan residents cannot fully understand what the law requires. They will struggle to determine which behavior is protected under the law and which is not.

Some laws have a different shortcoming: They simply don't specify what they're referring to. A law regarding sales of baby animals just states “as provided by the laws of this state,” without specifying which laws. This language also appears in statutes describing acts that violate the Market Conditions Act.

Structural problems in many statutes in the Michigan Criminal Code result in confusing conditional clauses and unclear references to other statutes. Without a clear legal structure, it’s impossible for the reasonable person to interpret a law.

The Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act, NREPA, comprises at least 3,500 active individual statutes. Some exempt snowmobiles from taxes and fees. Others include hyper-specific references to sturgeon fishing and commercial fishing regulations. One statute includes confusing penalties for operating under the influence. Another statute grants the Natural Resources Commission exclusive powers over hunting regulations, bypassing the traditional legislative process. When all these statutes are combined into one act, law-abiding citizens and law enforcement officials alike struggle to locate, interpret, and follow laws governing activities such as fishing, boating, and snowmobiling.

Michigan’s massive environmental protection act is also confusing due to omissions. One part of the act, dedicated to Pollution Prevention Policy, contains no actual statutes or text. A state resident might reasonably conclude that no such prevention policy exists.

The worst problem in Michigan’s lawbooks may be the use of conditional clauses in the criminal code. These clauses explain the conditions that must be triggered for a law to come into effect. In simpler terms, the law appears when searched for on the Michigan Legislature website, but it does not become official law until the one or more conditions are triggered. Often these conditions relate to other laws being passed or certain regulations being changed.

A part of state law dealing with wolves illustrates the dangers of conditional clauses, leading to ambiguity in how state and federal law interact. One conditional clause had multiple conditions, including whether gray wolves were removed from the federal list of endangered species in Michigan. Throughout subsequent years, gray wolves were repeatedly added and removed from the federal list as a result of federal court cases and agency decisions. This means that the Michigan law was heavily debated across federal courts and agencies. The law was once again modified when a 2022 order from a federal court in California suspended the law — a change that persists to the present day. That federal judge was able to impact a Michigan law by reclassifying the gray wolves as endangered, which suspended a conditional clause.

As this example shows, a conditional clause that invokes a federal statute or agency rule essentially permits a federal judge to suspend a state law. Every time federal courts and agencies chose to change their rulings on wolves, Michigan state law was impacted.

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources opposed putting wolves back on the list, as it determined wolf levels to have long exceeded the federal and state goals set for recovery. So the conditional clause confuses state law while also making harder for Michigan to control its own law. A federal court ruling left Michigan with a policy outcome contrary to what its own DNR decided was best.

Public officials must revise the state criminal code if Michigan is to avoid overcriminalization and an opaque legal system. The Michigan Criminal Code suffers from poor organization, confusing conditional clauses, and cross-reference inconsistencies, making it impossible for Michiganders to understand the law's intent. Legislators should continue to evaluate existing laws, update cross-references, create better organizational methods, and use modern technologies to simplify website and legal navigation. Lawmakers should create a criminal code that better supports the broad needs of the people who call Michigan home.

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