COURT NEWS

Last week’s court news included sentencings as well as a ruling from the Michigan Court of Appeals regarding a 2016 Cass County criminal sexual conduct conviction and sentence.
A three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals ruled Jan. 11 to affirm the conviction and sentence of Galen McLean. McLean was convicted in May 2016 of three counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct, one count of conspiracy to commit criminal sexual conduct and one count of failure to comply with sex offender registration act.
McLean was sentenced in Cass Circuit Court as a habitual offender in July 2016 to four concurrent terms of life in prison and one concurrent term of four to 15 years in prison. His wife, Ashley McLean, was sentenced to a prison term of 10 to 15 years after pleading guilty to third-degree criminal sexual conduct.
The couple were found to have sexually molested a friend’s young daughter. The girl was staying with them at their Dowagiac area home in 2014 and 2015 while her mother was dealing with a variety of issues.
McLean and his attorneys claimed that he was unfairly convicted for a number of reasons including the trial judge allowing the prosecution to ask leading questions of the young victim, allowing hearsay evidence from a nurse examiner and allowing the prosecution to amend one of the charges midway through the trial.
McLean also claimed receiving ineffective counsel from his trial attorney during the trial and sentencing relative to the failure to register as a sex offender charge. He and his wife had moved to Missouri in April 2015 and he had not informed officials here of his move.
The Court of Appeals found McLean’s claims to be without merit and affirmed his conviction and sentence. The judges noted that leading questions are permitted in instances when a witness is a child and are not prejudicial to the defendant. Similarly, they said that hearsay evidence made during the course of medical treatment can be offered at trial.
The judges also ruled that the prosecution’s amending of information during the middle of the trial was not prejudicial as the one count affected only changed slightly to reflect the testimony given during the trial.
As for ineffective counsel argument, they said it was reasonable for McLean’s trial attorney to spend more time defending the criminal sexual conduct counts than the failure to register count since it was a less serious charge.
In sentencings in Berrien County Trial Court, former Howard Township Supervisor Michael Sutherland was sentenced in connection with the late December 2016 deaths of his two daughters during a traffic crash in Weesaw Township. Sutherland was the Howard Township supervisor in the mid 2000s.
Sutherland, 67, and his wife were seriously injured in the crash as was a friend of one of their daughters who was also in the car. The family was returning from a post-Christmas lunch at a Sawyer restaurant when Sutherland failed to stop at the intersection of Warren Woods Road and Cleveland Avenue north of Galien and hit another vehicle.
Sutherland pleaded no contest in early December to one count of operating while intoxicated causing serious injury and had two counts of operating while intoxicated causing death dismissed. Police reported that his blood alcohol level was found to be .18 which is more than twice the legal limit.
Sutherland was placed on one year probation and ordered to perform 480 hours of community service and pay $34,000 in restitution to the driver of the car he hit in the accident.
Also last week, a South Bend man charged with making methamphetamine in Niles last May was sentenced to prison. Donald Swank, 54, had been convicted of four meth-related charges in a June 2017 trial and was sentenced to a prison term of 12 to 30 years on the two most serious charges.
Meanwhile, a Niles man was sentenced to prison for fleeing and eluding police. Nathan Remus, 32, was sentenced to 12 to 20 months in prison for fourth degree fleeing and eluding a police officer. The incident occurred Aug. 31 in Niles Township.