Post by WaTcHeR on Jun 3, 2006 13:58:39 GMT -5
06.03.2006 - CHARLEVOIX - A Charlevoix County man who is in prison for ramming the barrel of a shotgun into the face of Charlevoix County Sheriff George T. Lasater in 2002 is seeking a new trial on the grounds that his ex-wife now claims that she was coerced to lie on the witness stand during the 2003 jury trial that led to his conviction.
John Joseph Shulick, now 47, filed the motion in Charlevoix County's 33rd Circuit Court in mid-April.
Shulick is serving consecutive terms of five to 10 years, two to four years and two years on convictions for assault with intent to cause great bodily harm less than murder, resisting and obstructing a police officer causing injury, and possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony, respectively. The Michigan Department of Corrections lists Shulick's earliest release date as Sept. 24, 2011 and a latest discharge date of Sept. 24, 2018.
The convictions stem from an incident that took place on Sept. 23, 2002 at Shulick's former home on Korthase Road in Charlevoix County's Wilson Township. At about 6:45 a.m. on that day, Lasater, along with three other deputies, went to Shulick's house in an attempt to serve him with papers ordering him to vacate the house. As Lasater attempted to serve the papers, Shulick struck Lasater in the mouth with the gun causing serious injuries to Lasater's mouth.
The background
At the trial Lasater testified that Shulick's ex-wife Barbara (through her attorney) had asked his office to serve the court order - which included authorization to forcibly remove her ex-husband if he refused to leave voluntarily.
In his testimony, Lasater said he and Barbara Shulick made the unusual paper service arrangements (which included written permission from Barbara to enter the house) because John had vigorously avoided service of court papers on several occasions in the past. The court order to vacate the premises followed the couple's divorce proceeding, in which Barbara Shulick was awarded possession of the house in exchange for a payment to her ex-husband for his interest in the home.
Barbara Shulick testified that she was eager to have her ex-husband out of the house because she wanted to regain custody of their then-14-year-old daughter who had been removed from the home by the Family Independence Agency amid allegations of abuse (on his part) and neglect (on her part) against the couple. Barbara Shulick testified that officials with FIA had told her that they would not allow her daughter to return to the home from foster care as long as her ex-husband was still living there. She said other attempts to get him out of the house, including presenting him with a check for his interest in the home had been ineffective.
The confrontation
Lasater testified that as he entered the home he asked Barbara Shulick “where is he?” and that Barbara pointed to the upstairs. Lasater said he ascended the stairs to second floor of the home where Shulick, dressed in camouflage, wearing a bandoleer of shotgun shells and brandishing a shotgun, met him at the top of the stairs. Lasater testified that he had a flashlight in his hand, but was not shining it in Shulick's face.
He said Shulick shouted, “Hold it right there or I'll blow your head off!”
Lasater testified that he told Shulick, “All I want to do is give you these papers.”
Moments later, according to testimony from undersheriff Don Schneider who said he was standing at the bottom of the stairway at the time, Shulick rammed the barrel of the gun into Lasater's mouth. The impact knocked Lasater down the stairs, knocked out several of his teeth and nearly severed his upper lip.
As the other deputies in the house attended to the sheriff, Shulick slipped out a back door. Dozens of officers from all over the area, including a SWAT-type team, surrounded the house and evacuated nearby homes for more than 30 hours believing that an armed Shulick was still holed-up inside. When officers finally entered the house the next day, they discovered that Shulick was not there. An hour or two later, a neighbor found Shulick hiding in his boat. The neighbor eventually convinced Shulick to turn himself in.
Another version
When John Shulick testified, he said he had fallen asleep in his bedroom on the morning of the incident when he was awakened to hear what “sounded like an army” in the house and saw “beams of light bouncing off the walls.” He said he didn't know what was going on or who was in his house but knew that it was people who were not supposed to be there. Shulick testified that he grabbed a shotgun and bandoleer of shells from under the bed and went to the top of the stairs. There, he said, he was met by somebody shining a flashlight in his eyes. He said he could not tell who it was and yelled “Drop it!” He said the person in front of him (Lasater) grabbed the barrel of the shotgun and there was a brief struggle. Moments later he heard somebody yelling “Officer down!” and that's when he fled the house. Shulick said he did not hear anyone say, “I just want to give you these papers.”
So, what's new?
This latest motion appears to be a last-ditch effort on Shulick's part to have his conviction overturned. The Michigan Court of Appeals has already upheld the conviction and the Michigan Supreme Court refused to hear the case.
In his “motion for relief from judgment,” Shulick writes that in January of this year he received a letter from his ex-wife in which she claims that she lied on the witness stand during the trial because of threats, promises and coercion to do so by several people including staff with the Family Independence Agency, her former attorney and attorneys with the Charlevoix County Prosecutor's office at that time.
The filing includes an affidavit (or sworn statement) made by Barbara Shulick in which she claims that then-Charlevoix County prosecutor Mary Beth Kur and then-assistant prosecutor Jennifer Deegan told her that if she didn't falsely testify against her ex-husband she would face repercussions. Among the allegedly threatened repercussions were that she would not have the neglect charges against her dropped, she would not regain custody of her daughter and that her name would not be taken off the FIA's central child abuse registry. The last item was important to Barbara because she was employed by the FIA and could not continue in that capacity if she was listed on the registry.
In her affidavit, Barbara Shulick says she lied on the witness stand during the trial when she testified that her ex-husband saw Lasater when he entered the house and then ran up the stairs. She claims Shulick was already upstairs when Lasater entered the house. She also said her testimony that she pointed out where her husband was to the sheriff was false.
Although the six-page affidavit discusses in detail how pressure was placed upon her to falsely testify, these were the only specific portions of her testimony that Barbara Shulick recanted in the filing.
In the document, Barbara Shulick also claims she lied when she told authorities that her ex-husband had said “there would be blood on the walls” if anyone tried to forcibly remove him from the house. She now says she made the statement because her attorney told her she needed to show the judge that John had made threatening statements.
Kur, who now is in a private practice in Petoskey, denied Shulick's allegations when contacted by the News-Review.
“In all the years that I've been an attorney, the only conversation I've ever had with any witness prior to his or her testimony in any proceeding was that I told them to listen carefully to the questions that they are asked and to answer with the truth, whole truth and nothing but the truth in response to those questions. Barbara Shulick was no exception.”
Why does it matter?
What, if any, implications Barbara Shulick's recantation has on her ex-husband's case will initially be something for 33rd Circuit Court Judge Richard M. Pajtas to decide. At the trial, Barbara Shulick testified that her ex-husband knew very well it was the police when Lasater and company arrived.
She testified that she was with her ex-husband in the living room when the couple's younger son, Tim, came in the house and said, “Someone's here.”
According to Barbara Shulick's trial testimony, John Shulick replied, “Is that the cops? Yeah, it's the pigs.”
“I'm not here,” she said John said as he went upstairs.
“I'm not lying for you,” Barbara testified she said as John left the room.
She now claims that was all a lie that she was force to tell at the behest of a host of people.
Because a main part of Shulick's defense was that he did not know who was in his house and was acting in self defense when he struck Lasater, he argues that the change Barbara's testimony “is such as to render a different result (verdict) probable on retrial.”
John Shulick also contends that because Barbara claims that she was also forced or coerced to get the court order and to give consent for the sheriff to enter the house, that the officers were not properly in the building and therefore were properly treated as intruders.
Lasater said he believes Shulick's filing and the claims by his ex-wife contained therein are of little or no consequence to the case.
“I can honestly say I still think he is responsible for his actions. I have the scars on my face and the emotional scars to prove it,” Lasater said. “I have no doubt he knew who I was. I told him what I was there for before he hit me.”
Shulick raises several other issues in the filing but many, if not all of them do not center around the recantation and are likely to be moot because the issues either already were, or should have been, addressed during the trial or appellate process.
Some holes
Two items in Shulick's voluminous filing seem to fly in the face of his and his ex-wife's claims of coercion.
First, is an order dismissing the abuse/neglect charges against Barbara Shulick because she had “taken steps to ensure the safety of the minor child if returned home, including, but not limited to preventing all contact between (her daughter), Tim Shulick and John Shulick ... She has also agreed to testify truthfully in the (abuse/neglect) trial regarding John Shulick.” The order makes no mention of the trial involving Lasater.
That order was signed by probate court judge Frederick Mulhauser on Nov. 22, 2002 - more than two months before she testified at John Shulick's criminal trial.
Secondly, Barbara Shulick also notes that despite the fact that she gave ostensibly false testimony that she was allegedly force to give, her name was never removed from the central registry after the trial and that she was demoted and later fired from her position with the FIA. The documents do not address whether or not she ever regained custody of her daughter, who is now an adult.
Possible new charges?
Current Charlevoix County prosecutor John Jarema, who was neither the county prosecutor or employed with the prosecutor's office at the time of Shulick's trial, said he has asked the Michigan Attorney General's office to appoint a special prosecutor to handle the motion to avoid a possible conflict of interest. One of Jarema's assistant prosecutors, Mark Muniak, served as Barbara Shulick's attorney through the child abuse/neglect case. Muniak is one of the people who Shulick claims coerced her into giving the sheriff permission to enter the house and perjuring herself.
Jarema declined to comment on the appeal itself, since another prosecutor will be handling it.
Jarema did say that he would wait until after the appeal is completed to decide if he will issue perjury charges against Barbara Shulick. Jarema noted that a perjury charge generally requires that an untruth told under oath be relevant or “material” to the case. He said the court's findings about what, if any, impact Barbara Shulick's recantation has on the case could impact his decision about issuing perjury charges.
In theory, Barbara Shulick's allegations could also lead to charges of suborning perjury against those whom she said coerced her allegedly false testimony.
Now what?
Judge Pajtas has given the prosecutor's office (or its substitute) until July 28 to file an answer to Shulick's motion and ordered that a public defender be appointed for Shulick for the upcoming proceedings. After the attorneys have filed all of their motions and requisite answers, the judge can either grant or deny the motion outright, or hold an evidentiary hearing before making his decision. If the judge grants the motion to set aside the conviction, the case would likely be re-tried.
John Joseph Shulick, now 47, filed the motion in Charlevoix County's 33rd Circuit Court in mid-April.
Shulick is serving consecutive terms of five to 10 years, two to four years and two years on convictions for assault with intent to cause great bodily harm less than murder, resisting and obstructing a police officer causing injury, and possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony, respectively. The Michigan Department of Corrections lists Shulick's earliest release date as Sept. 24, 2011 and a latest discharge date of Sept. 24, 2018.
The convictions stem from an incident that took place on Sept. 23, 2002 at Shulick's former home on Korthase Road in Charlevoix County's Wilson Township. At about 6:45 a.m. on that day, Lasater, along with three other deputies, went to Shulick's house in an attempt to serve him with papers ordering him to vacate the house. As Lasater attempted to serve the papers, Shulick struck Lasater in the mouth with the gun causing serious injuries to Lasater's mouth.
The background
At the trial Lasater testified that Shulick's ex-wife Barbara (through her attorney) had asked his office to serve the court order - which included authorization to forcibly remove her ex-husband if he refused to leave voluntarily.
In his testimony, Lasater said he and Barbara Shulick made the unusual paper service arrangements (which included written permission from Barbara to enter the house) because John had vigorously avoided service of court papers on several occasions in the past. The court order to vacate the premises followed the couple's divorce proceeding, in which Barbara Shulick was awarded possession of the house in exchange for a payment to her ex-husband for his interest in the home.
Barbara Shulick testified that she was eager to have her ex-husband out of the house because she wanted to regain custody of their then-14-year-old daughter who had been removed from the home by the Family Independence Agency amid allegations of abuse (on his part) and neglect (on her part) against the couple. Barbara Shulick testified that officials with FIA had told her that they would not allow her daughter to return to the home from foster care as long as her ex-husband was still living there. She said other attempts to get him out of the house, including presenting him with a check for his interest in the home had been ineffective.
The confrontation
Lasater testified that as he entered the home he asked Barbara Shulick “where is he?” and that Barbara pointed to the upstairs. Lasater said he ascended the stairs to second floor of the home where Shulick, dressed in camouflage, wearing a bandoleer of shotgun shells and brandishing a shotgun, met him at the top of the stairs. Lasater testified that he had a flashlight in his hand, but was not shining it in Shulick's face.
He said Shulick shouted, “Hold it right there or I'll blow your head off!”
Lasater testified that he told Shulick, “All I want to do is give you these papers.”
Moments later, according to testimony from undersheriff Don Schneider who said he was standing at the bottom of the stairway at the time, Shulick rammed the barrel of the gun into Lasater's mouth. The impact knocked Lasater down the stairs, knocked out several of his teeth and nearly severed his upper lip.
As the other deputies in the house attended to the sheriff, Shulick slipped out a back door. Dozens of officers from all over the area, including a SWAT-type team, surrounded the house and evacuated nearby homes for more than 30 hours believing that an armed Shulick was still holed-up inside. When officers finally entered the house the next day, they discovered that Shulick was not there. An hour or two later, a neighbor found Shulick hiding in his boat. The neighbor eventually convinced Shulick to turn himself in.
Another version
When John Shulick testified, he said he had fallen asleep in his bedroom on the morning of the incident when he was awakened to hear what “sounded like an army” in the house and saw “beams of light bouncing off the walls.” He said he didn't know what was going on or who was in his house but knew that it was people who were not supposed to be there. Shulick testified that he grabbed a shotgun and bandoleer of shells from under the bed and went to the top of the stairs. There, he said, he was met by somebody shining a flashlight in his eyes. He said he could not tell who it was and yelled “Drop it!” He said the person in front of him (Lasater) grabbed the barrel of the shotgun and there was a brief struggle. Moments later he heard somebody yelling “Officer down!” and that's when he fled the house. Shulick said he did not hear anyone say, “I just want to give you these papers.”
So, what's new?
This latest motion appears to be a last-ditch effort on Shulick's part to have his conviction overturned. The Michigan Court of Appeals has already upheld the conviction and the Michigan Supreme Court refused to hear the case.
In his “motion for relief from judgment,” Shulick writes that in January of this year he received a letter from his ex-wife in which she claims that she lied on the witness stand during the trial because of threats, promises and coercion to do so by several people including staff with the Family Independence Agency, her former attorney and attorneys with the Charlevoix County Prosecutor's office at that time.
The filing includes an affidavit (or sworn statement) made by Barbara Shulick in which she claims that then-Charlevoix County prosecutor Mary Beth Kur and then-assistant prosecutor Jennifer Deegan told her that if she didn't falsely testify against her ex-husband she would face repercussions. Among the allegedly threatened repercussions were that she would not have the neglect charges against her dropped, she would not regain custody of her daughter and that her name would not be taken off the FIA's central child abuse registry. The last item was important to Barbara because she was employed by the FIA and could not continue in that capacity if she was listed on the registry.
In her affidavit, Barbara Shulick says she lied on the witness stand during the trial when she testified that her ex-husband saw Lasater when he entered the house and then ran up the stairs. She claims Shulick was already upstairs when Lasater entered the house. She also said her testimony that she pointed out where her husband was to the sheriff was false.
Although the six-page affidavit discusses in detail how pressure was placed upon her to falsely testify, these were the only specific portions of her testimony that Barbara Shulick recanted in the filing.
In the document, Barbara Shulick also claims she lied when she told authorities that her ex-husband had said “there would be blood on the walls” if anyone tried to forcibly remove him from the house. She now says she made the statement because her attorney told her she needed to show the judge that John had made threatening statements.
Kur, who now is in a private practice in Petoskey, denied Shulick's allegations when contacted by the News-Review.
“In all the years that I've been an attorney, the only conversation I've ever had with any witness prior to his or her testimony in any proceeding was that I told them to listen carefully to the questions that they are asked and to answer with the truth, whole truth and nothing but the truth in response to those questions. Barbara Shulick was no exception.”
Why does it matter?
What, if any, implications Barbara Shulick's recantation has on her ex-husband's case will initially be something for 33rd Circuit Court Judge Richard M. Pajtas to decide. At the trial, Barbara Shulick testified that her ex-husband knew very well it was the police when Lasater and company arrived.
She testified that she was with her ex-husband in the living room when the couple's younger son, Tim, came in the house and said, “Someone's here.”
According to Barbara Shulick's trial testimony, John Shulick replied, “Is that the cops? Yeah, it's the pigs.”
“I'm not here,” she said John said as he went upstairs.
“I'm not lying for you,” Barbara testified she said as John left the room.
She now claims that was all a lie that she was force to tell at the behest of a host of people.
Because a main part of Shulick's defense was that he did not know who was in his house and was acting in self defense when he struck Lasater, he argues that the change Barbara's testimony “is such as to render a different result (verdict) probable on retrial.”
John Shulick also contends that because Barbara claims that she was also forced or coerced to get the court order and to give consent for the sheriff to enter the house, that the officers were not properly in the building and therefore were properly treated as intruders.
Lasater said he believes Shulick's filing and the claims by his ex-wife contained therein are of little or no consequence to the case.
“I can honestly say I still think he is responsible for his actions. I have the scars on my face and the emotional scars to prove it,” Lasater said. “I have no doubt he knew who I was. I told him what I was there for before he hit me.”
Shulick raises several other issues in the filing but many, if not all of them do not center around the recantation and are likely to be moot because the issues either already were, or should have been, addressed during the trial or appellate process.
Some holes
Two items in Shulick's voluminous filing seem to fly in the face of his and his ex-wife's claims of coercion.
First, is an order dismissing the abuse/neglect charges against Barbara Shulick because she had “taken steps to ensure the safety of the minor child if returned home, including, but not limited to preventing all contact between (her daughter), Tim Shulick and John Shulick ... She has also agreed to testify truthfully in the (abuse/neglect) trial regarding John Shulick.” The order makes no mention of the trial involving Lasater.
That order was signed by probate court judge Frederick Mulhauser on Nov. 22, 2002 - more than two months before she testified at John Shulick's criminal trial.
Secondly, Barbara Shulick also notes that despite the fact that she gave ostensibly false testimony that she was allegedly force to give, her name was never removed from the central registry after the trial and that she was demoted and later fired from her position with the FIA. The documents do not address whether or not she ever regained custody of her daughter, who is now an adult.
Possible new charges?
Current Charlevoix County prosecutor John Jarema, who was neither the county prosecutor or employed with the prosecutor's office at the time of Shulick's trial, said he has asked the Michigan Attorney General's office to appoint a special prosecutor to handle the motion to avoid a possible conflict of interest. One of Jarema's assistant prosecutors, Mark Muniak, served as Barbara Shulick's attorney through the child abuse/neglect case. Muniak is one of the people who Shulick claims coerced her into giving the sheriff permission to enter the house and perjuring herself.
Jarema declined to comment on the appeal itself, since another prosecutor will be handling it.
Jarema did say that he would wait until after the appeal is completed to decide if he will issue perjury charges against Barbara Shulick. Jarema noted that a perjury charge generally requires that an untruth told under oath be relevant or “material” to the case. He said the court's findings about what, if any, impact Barbara Shulick's recantation has on the case could impact his decision about issuing perjury charges.
In theory, Barbara Shulick's allegations could also lead to charges of suborning perjury against those whom she said coerced her allegedly false testimony.
Now what?
Judge Pajtas has given the prosecutor's office (or its substitute) until July 28 to file an answer to Shulick's motion and ordered that a public defender be appointed for Shulick for the upcoming proceedings. After the attorneys have filed all of their motions and requisite answers, the judge can either grant or deny the motion outright, or hold an evidentiary hearing before making his decision. If the judge grants the motion to set aside the conviction, the case would likely be re-tried.