Labels: criminal appeal, criminal conviction, impeachment, Kalkaska County, motion for new trial, myspace.com, remand for further proceedings, upper peninsula
The case of People v Prentice (Docket 303602) provides some relevancy to MYSPACE. On June 19, 2010 a 15 year old victim and two other minors, including defendant’s son, ended up spending the night at the defendant’s house. The three consumed alcohol provided by the defendant and the victim passed out. The victim alleged, that during the course of the evening, the defendant sexually assaulted her twice. There were no witnesses or physical evidence. The criminal defendant was found guilty of two counts of CSC III (victim 13-15), and two counts of furnishing alcohol to a minor. After the trial the defendant filed a motion for a new trial. Supporting this motion were two witnesses testifying that the victim told them she didn’t remember what had happened that night due to her intoxication. In addition, a post from her MY SPACE page, dated June 20, 2010, she admitted she didn’t remember anything from the prior evening.
The trial court admitted that the witnesses and the quote were “powerful”, however that evidence alone could not “serve as the basis for awarding a new trial under existing case law because it could only be used for impeachment purposes.” The Court of Appeals disagreed citing People v. Davis, 199 Mich App 502, 515; 503 NW2d 457 (1993), which held that “to merit a new trial on the basis of newly discovered evidence, a defendant must show that the evidence (1) is newly discovered, (2) is not merely cumulative, (3) would probably have caused a different result, (4) was not discoverable and producible at trial with reasonable diligence.”
While newly discovered evidence may be used for impeachment to grant a retrial the evidence must do more than impeach. For example, “the discovery that testimony introduced at trial was perjured is an inappropriate ground [for retrial].” The Court of Appeals noted that, “ the [trial] court did not consider whether this was a proper grounds for granting a new trial.” The Court of Appeals remanded the case to the lower court for reconsideration of the motion for a new trial.
