BERRIEN COUNTY COURT NEWS

Court news this week includes the acquittal of a Coloma man on murder charges in connection with a May incident in Benton Township, news of preliminary hearings set for Berrien and Cass Counties and the Michigan Supreme Court’s decision to consider the Coloma gun range case.
        Derrick Bailey, 23, of Coloma, had been charged with open murder in connection with the shooting death of Nicholaus Kling, 37, of Eau Claire on May 1 at the intersection of Red Arrow Highway and Benton Center Road. Kling had previously dated Bailey’s girlfriend and came up to the car Bailey was riding in that evening.
A week-long jury trial in Berrien County Trial Court ended last week with Bailey being acquitted of the murder charge and a two-year offense of committing a felony while armed with a firearm. He was convicted only of carrying a concealed weapon which is a five year felony. He’s scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 20.
Bailey and his attorneys argued that it was self-defense and he feared for his life when Kling approached the car Bailey was in.
Preliminary hearings were set for this week in a Niles murder case and a Dowagiac criminal sexual conduct case.
Former Southwestern Michigan College instructor George Field was scheduled to be in Cass County District Court Wednesday for a preliminary hearing. He had originally been set for a hearing earlier this month but it was delayed when he hadn’t hired an attorney. The court then appointed an attorney for him.
Field is charged with five felony charges. They are one count of first-degree criminal sexual conduct (CSC), one count of second-degree CSC, two counts of fourth-degree CSC and one count of practicing psychology/counseling without a license.
First-degree CSC carries a maximum penalty of life in prison, while second-degree CSC carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison. The practicing without a license charge is four-year felony while the fourth-degree CSC charge is a two-year felony.
Field is alleged to have engaged in sexual penetration and contact with a 20-year-old female who had been both his student and his client in his counseling practice. The incidents allegedly occurred between September 2015 and June 2016 at “The Family Center” in Dowagiac and Field’s home next to the center.
The Niles murder case is that of James Parker Huffman who is accused in the late July death of his girlfriend at a home on South 14th Street in Niles. He faces a charge of open murder in the July 21 death of Angela Cluver.
Huffman walked into the Niles Law Enforcement Complex July 24 and told police that he had strangled his girlfriend as part of a failed suicide pact. He told police he tried to kill himself but failed. Police then went to the South 14th Street home and discovered Cluver’s body in a state of decomposition.
In the Coloma shooting range case, the Michigan Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal by the Berrien County Sheriff’s Department of a September 2016 Michigan Court of Appeals ruling. The Court of Appeals ruled last year that the county could not operate a shooting range in Coloma Township.
The court case involving the shooting range has been going on for more than a decade. It began when local business owners took issue with the sheriff’s department using the range as they said it disrupted the wineries, u-pick farms and other tourist attractions in the area.
The Michigan Supreme Court is expected to consider whether state law about the authority and powers of counties means that the sheriff’s department’s need to have a training site supersedes any local zoning ordinance rules. Organizations such as the Michigan Sheriffs Association and Michigan Municipal League have been invited to submit briefs.