Brickbat: On the Hunt

Kalamazoo County, Michigan, prosecutor Jeff Getting says he is dropping all charges against Jeff Titus, who spent almost 21 years in prison for killing two hunters. Titus's conviction was overturned after it was discovered that the prosecution had withheld evidence in the case. No physical evidence connected Titus to the killings, and he has always maintained his innocence. The killings happened in 1990, and police at that time cleared Titus. Different investigators reopened the case 12 years later and zeroed in on Titus. But they also looked at another suspect, Thomas Dillon, who pleaded guilty in 1993 to killing five people who were hunting, fishing, or jogging between 1989 and 1992. The presence of another suspect was withheld from the defense.

Comments

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

A link in the linked article says the second investigators and prosecutor, 12 years later, apparently didn’t know about the previous investigation into the serial killer, making that part of the screwup seem more incompetent than corrupt. But that doesn’t explain why the second prosecutor decided the alibi wasn’t good any more, why the judge let that slide, why the jury ignored it, or why his lawyer didn’t bring it up. It doesn’t explain why the first investigation dropped the serial killer as a suspect or why the second investigation didn’t pick him up as a suspect again.

On the whole, it comes off as a judicial system so incompetent and sloppy that stupid mistakes like this can slip through the cracks. Maybe the second investigators and prosecutors had a grudge against Titus; it says he was known for being a hothead about trespassers. Maybe the cold case investigators had a quota to get promotions. Maybe the prosecutor had cronies who wanted the case closed, never mind whether correctly or not.

I can think of some systemic fixes, all exceedingly unlikely.

1. Change to victim prosecution and investigation. Sometimes even more hot to close than impartial government prosecutors, but without having that power of government, it’s harder for police to lean on the public, and harder for prosecutors to lean on the police. And of course rich powerful victims always have a lot of weight to throw around. But I'd take either over prosecutors chasing votes or with political points to make.

2. Disclose all investigation records when a case goes to trial or if it hasn’t gone to trial within a year. Might not have solved this case since the second investigation 12 years later didn’t know about the serial killer as an alternate suspect. When was that record misplaced, and how did the Innocence Project find it when the second investigators and prosecutor didn't?

3. Bring suspects into the case immediately, seeing all the records, evidence, and testimony, rather than having to get it in bits and dribs at the trial a year or 12 later.

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[Rossami]

re: your #1 - I just finished Legal Systems Very Different From Ours by Friedman, et al. That option is not as implausible as I would have thought. But it has some pretty significant adverse incentives of its own if you don't set the system up exactly right. And no matter how good you are at the start, history shows that no system will stay right forever.

If you haven't read the book yet, I recommend it.

[SRG]

I checked it out on Amazon to find that owing to credits, I could dowload it for $0.0. Thanks for the recommendation!

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

It's a fantastic book. I especially got a kick from Athens -- you can search someone's house, but only if you do it naked. And if you are accused of not doing your every-other-year rich man's public service (like buying a trireme), you can get out of it by showing someone richer didn't do his service. How do you show he's richer? He refuses to swap houses with you.

Lots and lots of fascinating details like that.

[Roberta]

4. Statute of limitations on murder prosecutions. Why shouldn't murder have a time limit like everything else?

[Libertariantranslator]

How much longer before I can Lazarus-bail out my dead Grandfather? What's the time limit?

[Fist of Etiquette]

This is why they shouldn't want me on a jury. The fallibility of everyone involved in any trial would force me to vote to acquit every time.

[Jerry B.]

The one time I was on a jury, in a civil case, the attorneys were so bad in their presentations that the jury couldn't figure out what was being litigated. The judge realized this, and sent us out, where we explained our problem to the bailiff. When we came back, the judge gave both attorneys a good reaming out, directed the verdict, and apologized for the attorneys wasting our time.

[mad.casual]

The problem is, this isn't any less corrupt or mending of a broken system. Remember, this is Reason. I wholly expect to read the links and discover that the conflicting narratives are either Titus killed the two hunters or that a serial killer with an alibi stole his gun, used his it to engage the hunters, and then put it back entirely without his knowledge.

Around half the time, failure to acquit is the problem. The other half, a red SUV did some things and if a document gets declassified in the woods and no one's around to hear it we have to figure out who's guilty of illegally retaining it.

[mad.casual]

Yeah, no animosity for Titus, he was originally acquitted and should've remained acquitted but the inclusion of Dillon is spurious at best.

Notably relevant to Reason:

While they [the FBI] didn’t initially come across any physical evidence in his [Dillon's] home, they did discover that he’d recently sold one of his guns. They tracked down the man who bought it and found that the weapon was the same one used to kill Dillon’s final two victims, Hawkins and Bradley.

Oh, huh. Seems like I read somewhere that ballistics analysis was just more junk science used to wrongfully convict innocent people.

Otherwise,

Not until hours later did they learn that two hunters had been killed in the nearby game area, both shot in the back, two different shotguns used, both victims left in the woods.
...
One of the original detectives, Bruce Wiersema, who is now retired, was with the mom and son when they identified Dillon. He told Target 8 that Dillon refused to talk to him back then. He also recalled the serial killer had an alibi.

Dillon had been deer hunting that day at a private hunting grounds in Ravenna, Ohio, 285 miles away.

Instead, the original detectives pursued other leads — and also ruled out Titus, who owned land next to where the two hunters had died. They said alibi witnesses told them Titus, who had no criminal record, had been hunting that afternoon 27 miles away.

The murders remained unsolved until a decade later, when new cold case detectives took over and focused on Titus.

Without the two alibi witnesses, who were elderly and reportedly had dementia, Titus was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder in 2002.

Again, "Titus did it." isn't in any way the correct narrative but "Titus couldn't have done it because Dillon did it." is even less plausible.

Hard cases, bad law.

[mad.casual]

Isn’t in any way the *provably* correct narrative, that is.

[Nazi-Burning Witch]

Ooooh, neat prosecutor trick. Just wait until your chosen culprit's alibis all die out or go loopy, and then charge them!

I'm also highly skeptical of ballistics matching on a fucking shotgun. Maybe if it was slugs.

So, yeah. I'm still not at all convinced they have the actual guy. These dinks sound completely incompetent.

[Nazi-Burning Witch]

He might get a whole million dollars though, after spending 50 to 71 in prison.

Seems weaksauce.

Put the prosecutor in prison for 21 years.

[mad.casual]

I’m also highly skeptical of ballistics matching on a fucking shotgun. Maybe if it was slugs.

Typically, shotguns are identified by the shells rather than the projectile. Even with a slug, the shotgun barrel would have to be rifled to make any sort of reasonable match. Most likely, the hunters were found with their 12 ga. weapons in hand and 20 ga. and 410 ga. holes (or a 410 slug and more 00 buck than could fit in a 410 shell or whatever) in them with the corresponding shells (maybe) lying a couple-dozen yards in the direction their feet were pointing.

But I guess I should’ve been more clear: Dillon murdered 5 people within about 50 mi. of Canton, OH. They put all the previously-considered accidental deaths together by virtue of the *handguns* and *rifles* he owned. I freely admit that he can drive and buy other guns but the idea that he bought and took two shotguns 285 mi. away to kill two people he didn’t even really know would be there seems counter intuitively both spurious and planned for someone who’s very typical of an opportunity/spontaneous killer. And this is the thing that pisses me off about Reason's repeated "Bite mark/DNA/hair fiber/fingerprint/eye witness/ballistics/fire/forensic examination evidence is junk science." take. They aren't discussing science, they're preaching their personal sect of The Science.

I’m still not at all convinced they have the actual guy.

I’m not entirely convinced it was one guy. One guy carrying two shotguns afield is rather unusual even on state-owned hunting grounds. Even if it was a long gun and a Taurus judge or something, drawing and firing or firing akimbo is still all kinds of bizarre and narratively intricate. An intricate narrative that neither Titus nor Dillon really fits.

[Roberta]

Target 8?! How many people in total were shot at?

[Libertariantranslator]

A lot of killers are caught red-handed like Army of God Baby-Saver Robert Dear; some, unlike Chauvin, confess. There is such a thing as beyond a reasonable doubt.

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[Longtobefree]

Clearly this is Trump's fault.
Charge him with this as well.

[Spiritus Mundi]

And when the same system convicts Trump, Reason will claim the result as pure as the wind driven snow.

[Roberta]

This is why we need a statute of limitations on murder. Prosecutors have all these resources to look back in time; who could look that far back to defend themselves?

[Libertariantranslator]

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