A judge in Macomb County, Mich., ruled today that attorneys for retailer Michael George can argue to have his jury verdict overturned.
George was convicted on March 17 in the 1990 slaying of his first wife Barbara. Prosecutors say he shot her in the back of their Clinton Township comic-book store, and staged the crime to look like a robbery. Earlier this month George’s attorneys asked that the verdict be set aside.
Today, Circuit Court Judge James Biernat said defense attorneys can argue on May 6 for a directed verdict.
If the motion is unsuccessful, George faces life in prison without parole. He’s being held in the Macomb County Jail until the May 6 hearing.
April 25th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
“We’re all rooting for you, George.”
Man, someone better “get” that.
April 28th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
Today’s guilty verdict in the Hans Reiser case–http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/reiser-guilty-o.html–
illustrates how the George case is not as much an outlier as his attorney would have us believe. In the Rieser case there were “no reliable eyewitnesses”, not even a dead body, yet the husband was found guilty. And most experts would say the verdict will most likely stand.
George may have another hurdle in getting the judge to set aside the jury’s decision: IIRC, local judges in Michigan are elected. How do you think voters would react to a judge who set a convicted murderer free despite a unanimous jury verdict? Biernat would basically be writing his opponent’s campaign ads.
That said, stranger things have happened in American courts, so I wouldn’t say a directed verdict is impossible. It’s just not the normal outcome.