Michigan v. Johnson

In consolidated cases, at issue before the Michigan Supreme Court was whether the trial court erred by declining to grant new trials following defendants’ motions for relief from judgment. These cases arise from the 1999 murder of Lisa Kindred. Lisa was shot and killed while in her vehicle with her three children. Earlier in the evening, Lisa, her husband William Kindred, and her three children had gone to see a movie at a drive-in theater in Dearborn, Michigan. On their way home, William announced that he wanted to make a stop on the east side of Detroit to talk to his sister’s boyfriend, Verlin Miller, about purchasing a motorcycle. Lisa, who was driving, parked their minivan across the street from Miller’s home and waited in the van with the children while William went inside. At one point, Lisa went to the door of the house and asked William to come back to the van, but William told her that he would be out shortly, and Lisa returned to the van. Soon afterward, William heard a noise, which turned out to be gunfire, and went to the front door just in time to see both Lisa’s van speeding away and a man fleeing on foot. William chased after the fleeing individual but failed to catch him. Having been struck by the gunfire, Lisa drove the van to a nearby gas station, stopped, and then collapsed out of the vehicle. She later died at the hospital. Two individuals who were in the same neighborhood at the time of the crime implicated defendants Justly Johnson and Kendrick Scott in the shooting. All four individuals knew each other from the same neighborhood. Johnson and Scott were tried separately: Johnson by bench trial and Scott by jury trial. After weighing the evidence presented at the trials along with defendants’ claims of newly discovered evidence, the Michigan Supreme Court held the evidence in the form of testimony given by Charmous Skinner Jr. would have made a different result probable on retrial. Accordingly, the Court reversed the judgment of the Court of Appeals in part and remanded these cases to the trial court for new trials. View "Michigan v. Johnson" on Justia Law