HIGH PROFILE TRIAL COURT CASES PROCEEDING INTO 2018

News came on a number of court cases as 2017 drew to a close. The Michigan Court of Appeals handed down rulings in two area high-profile cases from 2016 and two Niles area murder cases are proceeding toward trial in the first half of 2018.
The Michigan Court of Appeals has remanded Timothy Gray’s appeal of his 2016 embezzlement conviction back to Berrien County Trial Court to hear his motion for a new trial. Gray, the former director of the Southwestern Michigan Community Ambulance Service, claims that the evidence was not enough for the jury to convict him.
A jury found Gray guilty of embezzlement after a two-week trial in November 2016. They concluded that he took excessive payments totaling more than $50,000 for paid time off, holiday pay, dental and vision reimbursement and short-term disability from 2009 to 2014.
Berrien County Assistant Prosecutor Aaron Mead is handling the Gray appeal for the county. He said no date has been set yet for any hearing in connection with the remand order. He said the presiding trial judge, Judge Angela Pasula, could hold a hearing to hear oral arguments or make a ruling based solely on briefs.
“One of the issues they are raising has to be decided by the trial court,” Mead said. “They say that the verdict was against the great weight of the evidence and should be vacated because the jury got it so wrong. The purpose of the remand is to get evidence on the record.”
He noted that even if Judge Pasula rules against Gray in his bid for a new trial, he and his attorneys can raise the same issues again as well as others before the Michigan Court of Appeals.
Mead said Gray’s appellate attorneys are primarily taking issue with the testimony of forensic auditor David Marshall. Marshall was hired in 2015 to do a forensic audit of the SMCAS books after the new executive director Brian Scribner found inconsistencies in the service’s financial records.
The brief submitted by Timothy Doman, one of Gray’s appellate attorneys, outlines a number of alleged mistakes Marshall made in his audit and testimony. Doman noted that Marshall was inexperienced in conducting forensic audits and made a number of mistakes including making wrong assumptions and not reviewing SMCAS budgets or audits.
Doman concludes that there was neither evidence of actual embezzlement nor intent on Gray’s part to embezzle. He said that while trial court judges are often reluctant to rule that a jury’s verdict was against the “great weight” of the evidence, he thinks this case is unusual enough to warrant such a ruling.
The Court of Appeals rejected a Dowagiac man’s appeal of his 2016 second degree murder conviction. Terry Stineback appealed the verdict handed down by a Cass County Circuit Court jury on a number of grounds including saying that he did not have the chance to directly confront one witness.
Stineback was convicted in June 2016 of the May 2015 murder of his wife at their Dowagiac area home. He claimed self-defense but the prosecution painted a different picture, of a man who had been drinking and got into a verbal confrontation with his wife. He was sentenced in July 2016 to a 22 year prison term.
The main issue in his appeal stemmed from what he said was his inability to directly confront one witness, their nine-year-old adopted daughter. The court allowed the girl to testify via closed circuit television from another courtroom.
The Court of Appeals ruled that the right to confront a witness is not absolute and can be waived when a witness could be traumatized by being in the courtroom with the defendant. The Court of Appeals further ruled that a statement made by the prosecutor about Stineback during closing arguments was not sufficiently prejudicial to warrant a new trial.
In news about current ongoing cases, two Niles area men face murder charges in connection with the deaths of their wife and girlfriend respectively and will go to trial in early 2018.
John Benton Lewis is accused in the Aug. 13 death of his wife, Carla, at their southern Niles Township home. Lewis told police that unknown men broke into their home and shot his wife, but police arrested him on murder and drug charges a few days later.
The trial for Lewis is scheduled to start in late February in St. Joseph before Trial Judge Donna Howard and last for a week or more. The trial could include a life-size replica model of the room where Carla Lewis was shot, a move that has been requested by Assistant Prosecutor Gerald Vigansky.
James Parker Huffman is accused in the July 21 death of Angela Cluver at their South 14th Street home in Niles. Huffman has claimed that the two had a murder-suicide pact but that he was unable to kill himself after killing her.
Huffman walked into the Niles Law Enforcement Complex July 24 and told police that he had strangled Cluver on July 21 in a failed double suicide pact. Police then went to the home and discovered Cluver’s body which was in a state of decomposition.
Huffman was found competent to stand trial earlier this fall but is currently being tested to see if he can be held criminally responsible after his attorney filed notice that he plans to use an insanity defense. His trial is set to start Jan. 24 in Niles.