In 2012, 24-year-old Sean Michael Phillips was convicted on charges of unlawful imprisonment of his 4-month-old baby daughter. Five weeks later, Mason County 51st Circuit Judge Richard I. Cooper sentenced Phillips to 10 to 15 years in prison, the maximum sentence allowed under Michigan law. While 15 years is the…
In April of 2012 James Wilcox, a Coldwater resident who was 18 years old, was found guilty on four counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct in connection with the alleged sexual assault of his cousin between 2009 and 2010, when the boy was seven years old. Wilcox was charged with…
Recently, the Michigan Court of Appeals upheld the conviction and sentence of 47-year-old Robert Clinton Giamporcaro, who was accused of assaulting his girlfriend and her son in December of 2011. Giamporcaro was charged with three counts of felonious assault, and two counts each of interfering with electronic communications and domestic…
On Tuesday December 3, Nancy Kissel, a Michigan native, lost in her appeal efforts to have her conviction for the 2003 murder of her banker husband overturned, according to News Daily. Kissel has been convicted twice in Hong Kong for the murder of her husband, a senior executive at US…
On Christmas Day in 2009, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight as the airplane descended in Detroit. Abdulmutallab’s efforts failed, leaving him the only person injured of the 286 passengers aboard the Amsterdam to Detroit flight. Now, his defense attorney has appealed Abdulmutallab’s conviction and…
In July of 2012, 23-year-old Jeffrey A. Julian II was convicted of first-degree murder in the 2010 murder of his girlfriend, 33-year-old Lynn M. Spicer. In declaring Julian guilty, Bay County Circuit Judge Harry P. Gill stated that, “I don’t think there’s ever been a crime as thought out as…
In 1987, Temujin Kensu, formerly known as Fred Freeman, was convicted of fatally shooting Scott Macklem in a college parking lot. Kensu, a native of Burton, has maintained his innocence for decades, and been supported by numerous innocence groups including the Innocence Clinic at the University of Michigan. Kensu has…
When convicted of a criminal offense such as armed robbery, murder, breaking and entering, or even drug manufacturing or distribution, you may feel you have been wrongly convicted, or that the sentence you received was excessive. Errors are made in Michigan courts, and you may have grounds for appeal. There…
In December of 2012, Joseph Gentz pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the January 2012 strangulation death of Jane Bashara. Bashara’s husband, Bob Bashara, allegedly threatened Gentz and offered him money to kill his wife. According to news reports at the Detroit Free Press, Gentz did not fully understand the…
In March of 2012, Lorenzo Donnell Relerford was convicted by a jury of armed robbery, first-degree felony murder, and unlawfully driving away an automobile in connection with the murder of Jeanne Hank. Relerford, a Flint resident, allegedly strangled the victim, who was the sister of a Genesee County Sheriff’s deputy,…