by Yada Phillips Comment Closed

When people find out what we do for a living, the conversation usually turns to whatever case is in the news. This year, three Michigan cases keep coming up. So let’s talk about them the way we would across a table.

First, the ground rules. We did not work on any of these cases. Everything we know about them comes from public news reports, which are linked at the bottom, and news reports can be incomplete. Two of the cases are still in court, and every person charged with a crime is presumed innocent. We are not here to say who did what. We are here to talk about the questions these cases raise for anyone who does defense investigation.

“How does someone spend 17 years in prison for something he didn’t do?”

That question comes from the Dell Crawford case. News outlets reported this spring that a Wayne County judge set aside his murder conviction after new DNA testing, and that he went home after about 17 years. The Cooley Law School Innocence Project worked on his case.

Here is what goes through our minds when we hear a story like that. How much of the original case rested on what one person said? Did anyone go back and talk to that witness again? Was the physical evidence kept in a condition that allowed it to be tested years later? A witness statement is where an investigation starts, not where it ends. And evidence that cannot be tested today might be testable in ten years, but only if someone preserved it.

“Can someone be charged with murder when no one has been found?”

That one is about the Skelton brothers of Morenci, who have been missing since Thanksgiving 2010. Their father, John Skelton, has been charged in Lenawee County, and news reports say a judge ordered the case to trial after a preliminary examination late this summer. He is presumed innocent, and the case is pending.

We won’t guess at how it ends. What we can talk about is what a case like this looks like from the investigation side. When there is no single piece of physical proof, everything rests on details: timelines, phone and location records, and what each witness actually saw versus what they assumed. Every one of those has to be rebuilt and checked against the others. It is slow work, and it is the work a defense investigator is there to do.

“Why has the Stislicki case taken so long?”

Danielle Stislicki disappeared in 2016. Floyd Galloway Jr. has been charged in Oakland County, and the case has been in court for years. He is presumed innocent, and the case is pending. News coverage has described long arguments over which evidence can be used and how some of it was obtained.

That is the part that interests us as investigators. How evidence is gathered can decide whether a jury ever hears it. It is also why the confidentiality around a defense team’s work is taken so seriously. When we work a case, we work under the defense attorney, inside that protected relationship.

So what do these three have in common?

None of them comes down to one dramatic moment. They come down to witness accounts, records, preserved evidence and procedure. That is everyday defense investigation, and it does the most good when it starts early.

If a case of your own has you asking questions like these, we are glad to talk. Phillips Private Investigations & Consulting Firm works with defense attorneys, assigned counsel and families in every Michigan county. Call 734-941-5200 or send us a message. The consultation is free and strictly confidential.

This article is our commentary on public news reports. It is not a statement of fact about any person’s guilt or innocence, and it is not legal advice.

Sources