Michigan Supreme Court Grants Barry County Man Remand for New Trial

The Case and the Pressure That Preceded It

In June 2022, Dean Terry Myers went to jury trial in Barry County on an alleged 2018 sexual assault. According to sources, the road to that trial was not straightforward. Prior to trial, Myers reportedly faced significant pressure to accept a four-year plea deal — pressure that, by multiple accounts, involved both Judge Michael Schipper and the Assistant Prosecutor in ways that went beyond standard pre-trial negotiation.

Myers exercised his constitutional right to trial. The result was a sentence significantly above the plea offer — what the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and researchers have documented as the trial penalty, the documented disparity between sentences offered for pleas and sentences imposed after trial verdicts. For Myers, that disparity was not marginal. It was, by sources’ accounts, dramatic. And it is consistent with the upward departure pattern Clutch Justice has documented in Judge Schipper’s sentencing record across multiple cases.

The Michigan Supreme Court’s remand order does not resolve the case. It returns the matter to Barry County Circuit Court for a motion for new trial. What that motion will encounter there is a question the record of this case — and this court — gives cause to watch carefully.

Glaring Problems in the Investigative Record

There is a lot that could have been done for this case and just was not. The professional investigative standards documented in the record are, to put it plainly, shameful. What follows draws from the police report, court transcripts, and records provided to Clutch Justice.

The Detective, the Prosecutor, and the Hallway Argument

Assistant Prosecutor Christopher Elsworth stated on the court record that Detective Karen Larson had not interviewed the victim and therefore could not have been influenced by the victim’s account. The police report establishes that Larson spoke with the alleged victim on October 11, 2021. Larson also testified in court that she took a report from the alleged victim well after the May 2021 disclosure. Elsworth signed the warrant authorizing charges in this case. Signing a warrant requires reading the supporting police report. The police report contradicted the court statement. That was already not a minor discrepancy.

Clutch Justice has now received source accounts that Larson and Elsworth were seen arguing in the hallway during the first trial. Those accounts do not establish the content of the argument. They do, however, matter in context. The same prosecutor who told the court Larson had not interviewed the victim had signed the warrant supported by a police report showing that she had. If Larson and Elsworth were in visible conflict during trial proceedings, that hallway exchange becomes part of the broader credibility problem surrounding what the State knew, what the report said, and what was represented on the court record.

The Forensic Examiner

The forensic examiner in this case, Kellie Summerhays, was a former Michigan State Police Trooper for Wayland — not a mental health professional. That distinction matters in the context of a forensic examination used to support a sexual assault prosecution. In an inadvertent marker of this, Detective Larson’s police report provides the incorrect address for Safeharbor Children’s Advocacy Center, citing Wayland rather than Allegan. The report also refers to MSP Polygraph Examiner Ryan Meier as “Ryan Moro” — a different name — while claiming Myers failed Meier’s examination. The polygraph report is available for review.

The MDOC Physical Examination

According to OTIS, Myers served a prison sentence beginning January 17, 2019 — eight days after the alleged January 9, 2019 assault. The alleged victim described being kicked repeatedly, choked, pulled, and slapped over a 2.5-hour assault. Standard MDOC intake processing includes a physical examination and documentation of visible injuries. Healing bruises consistent with the described assault would have been present and documented at an intake examination eight days after the alleged incident. The investigative record contains no reference to that examination or its findings. The defense and the prosecution both had access to this avenue of inquiry. Neither appears to have pursued it.

Questionable Investigative Work on the Parking Lot

In her 2021 police report, Detective Larson makes no inquiry into whether the Fish Hatchery Park parking lot was available to hospital employees at the time of the alleged assault. She brings it up at trial — but during the investigation, she never contacted City staff or hospital staff to verify dates, access, use, gates, lighting, monitoring, or availability. That omission matters because later FOIA records obtained by Clutch Justice show the City of Hastings and Spectrum Health Pennock executed the Fish Hatchery parking lot lease on June 4, 2019 — approximately five months after the alleged January 9, 2019 offense date.

The lease establishes that a contractual relationship existed in June 2019. It does not establish that the lot was operational for hospital employee parking in January 2019. It contains no security provisions, access restrictions, gate-control procedures, lighting obligations, monitoring requirements, or police enforcement protocols. In other words: paper existence is not functional proof. If the parking lot was presented as the location that made the alleged offense physically possible, then the State needed evidence that the lot was open, accessible, and in functional use at the relevant time. The trial record, as documented in Clutch Justice’s later review, did not establish that foundation.

The Timeline Does Not Work

Detective Larson obtained the alleged victim’s attendance records. There were no days where the timeline described in the complaint even remotely worked. The date ultimately selected — January 9, 2019 — was chosen because the victim was tardy that day, because it predated Myers’ prison intake, and because it occurred in winter. The alleged victim’s own account changed three times on the question of when the incident occurred — settling on November, then December 2018, then finally the January date the prosecution used. The later Fish Hatchery lease record adds another unresolved timeline problem: the parking lot lease was not executed until June 4, 2019, and no trial evidence established operational hospital use on January 9, 2019.

By the alleged victim’s own court testimony, she had missed the bus one morning and claims she was ready for school by 9:15 to 9:30 AM. Attendance records show her arriving at school around 10:00 AM, with no staff noting that she appeared distressed, disheveled, or beaten. The alleged assault lasted 2.5 hours. It included repeated kicking, choking, and physical violence. The alleged victim also claims she and Myers had stopped at McDonald’s before the incident.

The alleged assault also involved significant physical violence against the alleged victim — repeated kicks, choking, being pulled and hit. By her own account, she went straight to school afterward without going home to change. Schools are filled with mandated reporters who are legally required to act when a child appears to have been harmed. No school staff member was ever interviewed. The 3rd hour teacher was never contacted to ask how the alleged victim appeared that day. No Middle School staff were interviewed at all.

There is also the matter of the school itself. The prosecution used the Hastings High School schedule to place the alleged victim’s 3rd hour beginning at 10:00 AM. At the time of the alleged assault, the victim was attending the Middle School, not the High School. The schedules are different. The prosecution used the wrong one. Detective Larson never spoke with a 3rd hour Middle School teacher. There are allegedly no other witnesses because the work was not done to find them.

The Vehicle and the Physical Access Problem

According to the police report, Myers drove a 1998 GMC Sierra C/K 1500 (VIN 2GTEK19R0W1546012) owned by a former girlfriend who, according to sources and Facebook posts, began threatening Myers and spreading rumors after he started dating someone else. Her documented harassment began April 21, 2021 — approximately one month before the initial complaint was filed on May 24, 2021.

That make and model has manual interior locks. By the alleged victim’s own account, she did not attempt to escape the truck or run to the nearby Spectrum Health Pennock Hospital, which was within walking distance. The Fish Hatchery parking lot theory therefore required more than a map point. It required proof that the area was accessible, operational, and functioning in the way the prosecution’s theory assumed on January 9, 2019. Neither the investigation nor the trial record reflects any inquiry into who may have been in or near Fish Hatchery Park during the time window at issue, or whether hospital employees were actually using that lot at the time.

Officer Sensiba’s Testimony and the Liability It Opened

The testimony of Hastings Police Officer Josh Sensiba introduced a significant evidentiary problem that appears to have been overlooked. In 2023, Sensiba testified that the Fish Hatchery Park gate is not regularly secured. Securing that gate is a responsibility of the police department. That testimony, if accurate, establishes that the City of Hastings and the Hastings Police Department failed in their duty to properly secure and monitor the location. Neither the alleged victim nor her family appears to have pursued a civil negligence claim against the City or the department on that basis.

Sensiba’s testimony is also complicated by his broader record. Documentation shows he was previously cited in a civil case for harassing a fellow Hastings Police Department employee over his African-American heritage. He also donated to Prosecuting Attorney Julie Pratt’s 2012 election campaign — as did Shelly Kengis, the court reporter for the Myers trial. The social media record also shows what Clutch Justice has characterized as inappropriate commingling between Sensiba and others connected to the prosecution.

The Schipper Factor

Myers’ original court-appointed attorney practices in Hastings. As documented in prior Clutch Justice coverage, Judge Schipper has acknowledged that area attorneys are “friendly” with the judges and prosecutors. In the official court transcripts provided to Clutch Justice, Judge Schipper protects the attorney’s subpar performance rather than addressing it, makes excuses for gaps the record documents, and ignores evidence that should have been considered on the merits. Schipper also seeks input and guidance from the Assistant Prosecutor during proceedings — a pattern Clutch Justice has documented across multiple Barry County matters as an inappropriate blurring of two separate branches of government that are not designed to operate in tandem.

What’s Next

Per the Michigan Supreme Court’s order, the case is remanded to the Barry County Circuit Court for a motion for new trial. The remand order does not predetermine that outcome — it creates the procedural vehicle for the motion to be heard.

The question of what Barry County Circuit Court does with that motion is one the documented record of this court gives reason to watch carefully. Judge Schipper’s documented history with higher court orders — including the MSC remand in Docket No. 167549 and the Court of Appeals defiance documented in prior Clutch Justice reporting — is part of the relevant record here. This outlet will continue to document proceedings as they occur.

There is also a broader structural point this case illustrates. When small courts operate with the professional insularity Barry County’s record reflects — where attorneys are “friendly” with judges and prosecutors, where investigative work goes unchallenged, where sentencing patterns persist without accountability — the mechanisms designed to correct error at the trial level fail before they can engage. The MSC remand is one of those correction mechanisms. It is not the last word. It is the beginning of the next chapter.