It appears Bob Bashara will have a legal "team," even though its members are court-appointed and paid by taxpayers, unless the incarcerated Grosse Pointe Park man accused of helping kill his wife changes course and decides he can afford to hire an attorney.

Bashara's court-appointed attorney, Mark Procida, said two of his colleagues from a Detroit-based state public defender group -- attorneys Rene Cooper and Nancy Shell -- will assist him "due to  the amount of discovery and complexity of the case."

This maneuver gives the public the right to whine about the tax dollars going to an accused murderer and convicted solicitor of murder. But looking at the big picture, and as sickening as it may be, Bashara deserves and has a Constitutional right to a quality defense to hold prosecutors to a high standard. 

The trio, by the way, are part of the Legal Aide and Defender Association. Procida is in the State Defender's office, part of the association, which receives 25 percent of criminal appointments in Wayne County.

      This is Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette's press release regarding the state's casino fight. 

     Note his comment that the ruling will affect state's ability to control off-reservation gambling. Michigan wants that control.

     Bay Mill reportedly wants to also locate casinos in Port Huron and Flint Township.

Schuette Takes Fight Against Illegal Vanderbilt Casino to U.S. Supreme Court

Nation’s Highest Court to Hear Important Michigan Case on Whether States Have the Right to Challenge Expansion of Off-Reservation Gambling Operations 

                                                    

LANSING – Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette today announced the U.S. Supreme Court has decided to hear arguments regarding his appeal of a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6^th Circuit that halted Michigan’s legal challenge to the illegal expansion of off-reservation gambling by the Bay Mills Indian Community.  The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments for the case Michigan v. Bay Mills Indian Community this fall.

“Today’s ruling sets the stage for an important discussion about the states’ ability to halt the unrestrained expansion of off-reservation tribal casino gambling,” said Schuette.  “We look forward to making our case before the nation’s highest court this fall.”

In December 2010 the State of Michigan filed a lawsuit against the Bay Mills Indian Community challenging their operation of an illegal off-reservation casino in Vanderbilt, Michigan.  On March 29, 2011 U.S. District Court Judge Paul Maloney issued a preliminary injunction ordering the casino closed pending the outcome of the lawsuit.  The tribe appealed, and on August 15, 2013 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6^th Circuit reversed the trial court decision, declaring that the district court did not have jurisdiction under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act and that the tribe had sovereign immunity.  Schuette sought U.S. Supreme Court review in October 2012.

Criminal defense attorney’s Mark Haddad certainly has a fan in Judge Peter J. Maceroni.

When Haddad on Wednesday asked for a significant increase in his payment for public defense of murder defendant Terry Borgia, the longtime judge didn’t hesitate to approve the request and added the comment:

“Based on what you went through, if anyone feels the court appointed counsel was not competent, they are crazy.”

Haddad’s request went from $19,335 to $28,664, saying he under-estimated his fee paid by taxpayers. That might sound like a lot of money to many people, and it is. But a retained attorney would have charged multiple times that amount. Haddad, who had some help from young attorney Madana Hermiz, estimates he spent 450 to 500 hours on the case. He represented her through three full trials, one partial trial, a plea that was withdrawn, and many other court hearings.

Attorneys may be overpaid sometimes, but not in this case.

By the way, Stephen Rabaut, who had co-counsel in Gail Pamukov, was paid about $42,000 for the Stephen Grant case.

An acidic, graphic quote by Detroit emergency manager Kevyn Orr doesn't exactly improve the image of trial attorneys, a colleague of mine noted yesterday.

Here's Orr's quote from Monday night, his first public comments in a long time:

  

"Now look, I’m a trial attorney. I can cut somebody’s throat and leave them to bleed out in the gutter with the best of them. But I didn’t want to do that. That’s not my role in this job. My role in this job is sort of the zen of emergency management."

My colleague commented: "Whatever else he does, he certainly isn't going out of his way to improve the common perception of lawyers as shysters. Jesus, what a cocky little SOB!"

Orr seemed to get a good reaction from the audience at the hearing Monday, but he should be more careful in his descriptions.

Friday’s acquittal of Trevon Dumas in the stabbing of bouncer Lou Ferrin, who lived in Warren, was one of the more surprising verdicts I’ve seen in several years of covering trials.

Even though I didn’t attend much of the trial, I did view the closing arguments and video, and talked to Ferrin’s family and an attorney involved in the case.

Jurors apparently weren’t convinced that Dumas was the man who stabbed Ferrin, 40, in the neck while Ferrin was removing him from the now-closed Pandemonium nightclub in downtown Detroit. Two witnesses who accompanied Dumas said they saw him strike Ferrin in the neck area but didn’t see a knife. Grainy surveillance video shows a man in a plaid shirt, presumably Dumas, swinging at Ferrin. But again, no knife. A circumstantial case.

Dumas’ attorney Cena Colbert White did a good job of raising reasonable doubt, although her conspiracy claims about cops and/or prosecutors manipulating the video seemed outlandish.

The jury could have chosen first- or second-degree murder or manslaughter but instead concluded, “not guilty.”

This outcome falls into the category that criminal defense attorney Jim Thomas calls, “unproven.” Not necessarily innocent, but the prosecution couldn’t prove guilt.

And for those online commentators who have injected race into the case (Ferrin was white; Dumas is black), the Wayne County jury was made up of nine whites and three blacks.