When the Timeline Doesn’t Work: The Fish Hatchery Parking Lot Theory in the Dean Myers Case

The Background

Dean Terry Myers went to trial in 2022 for an alleged 2018 sexual assault. The Michigan Supreme Court subsequently granted a new trial. Clutch Justice obtained public records, including the parking lot lease, through FOIA requests to the City of Hastings and other public entities, and has examined the investigative record that was presented to the jury.

The timeline problems in this case are not abstract. They turn on real-world operational facts: when places were accessible, when people were present, and whether anyone confirmed those details before presenting them as the factual basis for conviction. The public record raises serious questions about how this case was constructed and why foundational facts went unverified.

What the Lease Establishes — and What It Does Not

The June 4, 2019 lease agreement between the City of Hastings and Spectrum Health Pennock was obtained through a FOIA request to the City. A review of the document reveals no security provisions governing the Fish Hatchery parking lot. The lease addresses term, maintenance, insurance, and indemnification. It contains no restricted access requirements, gate-control procedures, lighting obligations, monitoring requirements, or police enforcement protocols.

The Timeline Problem

A lease signed five months after the alleged offense does not establish that the lot was operational at the time of the alleged offense. Those two facts can coexist without contradiction. They cannot, however, both support the prosecution’s narrative without independent evidence of operational use in January 2019. That evidence was not introduced.

What Was Not Verified

These are verifiable questions. Municipal records, operational logs, and employee communications could have answered them. The investigative record does not show that this verification was performed before the lot was presented to the jury as the crime scene.

Why Operational Proof Is Required

In criminal law, opportunity is not theoretical. Courts consistently recognize that establishing opportunity at a specific location requires proof that the location was open, accessible, and in functional use during the relevant period. Presenting a location as a crime scene without establishing its operational status at the relevant time is an evidentiary gap, not a harmless omission.

Investigative tunnel vision — the pattern of forming a theory first and minimizing contradictory facts — produces exactly this kind of gap. A location is selected because it fits the narrative. Basic verification that would test whether it fits the facts is not completed.

The Supreme Court Context

The Michigan Supreme Court’s decision to grant a new trial did not arise from a single isolated detail. It arose from record integrity concerns. When timeline problems, operational fact gaps, and investigative omissions accumulate in the same case, appellate courts evaluate whether the record as a whole can be trusted to support the conviction. The parking lot is one data point in that accumulated record. It is a credibility indicator — a location that was presented as established when the foundational verification was never completed.

The Case for a Conviction Integrity Unit in Barry County

Conviction Integrity Units, typically housed within prosecutors’ offices, are designed to review claims of wrongful conviction, audit investigative steps and evidentiary foundations, examine whether exculpatory material was overlooked, and review timeline feasibility and operational facts. They are designed to check reliability, not to preserve prior outcomes.

Barry County has now seen appellate intervention from both the Court of Appeals and the Michigan Supreme Court in this matter, record inconsistencies and timeline disputes, claims of investigative omission, and credibility questions tied to unverified municipal facts. When these patterns recur, internal review is responsible governance. A CIU does not undermine public safety. It strengthens institutional credibility by demonstrating that accuracy takes priority over finality when finality is built on an unexamined record.

Why This Matters

The parking lot is not a logistical detail. It is a foundational element of the prosecution’s theory of the case — the location that made the alleged offense physically possible. Presenting a location as a functional crime scene without establishing its operational status at the relevant time places the evidentiary weight of conviction on an assumption rather than a verified fact. The State bears the burden of proving opportunity. Paper existence is not functional proof. When the calendar, the lease record, and the operational facts are placed alongside each other, they do not align with the theory that was presented to the jury.