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Showing posts from December, 2013

To Testify or Not to Testify? COA Says Defendants Must

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Yesterday, the Michigan Court of Appeals published an opinion affirming the first degree home invasion conviction of a defendant who decided not to testify in his own defense because the trial court had ruled, in limine, that the prosecution could impeach him with a prior home invasion conviction under MRE 609 .  In People v McDonald , Docket No. 311412 (December 17, 2013), Judges Borello, Fitzgerald and Murphy held that Gerald McDonald had failed to even preserve the issue because he did not testify in the trial. The defendant was accused of having broken in to a woman's apartment and, with a silver pistol, ordered her to give him money.  She told the intruder she had no money and he left, taking her purse from where she had left it in the kitchen.  The police attempted to arrest defendant a short distance from the apartment, but still in the same complex, and the defendant resisted.  During the struggle the Officers discovered a silver pistol on the ground where the struggle