David Timm Versus the Goliath State

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This last week I had the occasion to attend an interesting jury trial in Mason County lasting two full days.  The thirteen jurors heard a twisted tale that started with testimony from a mother about a son's homecoming that went horribly wrong, ultimately leading to the incarceration of her 41-year-old son for 14 months in the local jail and this public ordeal 22 months after the fact.

                                                       David Timm with his mother in 2018

Timm would sit through about 16 hours of courtroom antics with an amazing amount of composure and patience, considering that six of the seven witnesses (including his mother) would comment negatively on his state of mind and his intentions back in January 2024.  Assistant Prosecutor Mark Webb would try to magnify those in the course of his attempts to prove that Timm had committed the 20-year felony of possessing methamphetamine (meth) with the intention of distributing it.

In Timm's corner, public defender Ravi Gurumurthy would put up a spirited defense with well-measured cross examinations that exploited the porosity of the state's arguments and the weakness of their proofs. Having seen Gurumurthy in action before, his major impediment in such trials have traditionally been 51st Circuit Court Judge Susan Sniegowski showing partiality towards the prosecutor.  This was not the case here, a visiting retired (in 2021) judge from Muskegon County named Timothy Hicks would sit in and direct the courtroom in the fairest manner I've ever seen in that venue, ever.  

You have likely never heard of this case.  The felony imposed never saw a formal arraignment, you won't find his charge in any of the local media who monetize such prosecutions, and this reporter would be the only one inhabiting the cheap seats for what we would find out was a victimless crime.  The sole reason I was there was that I was told this was a case I needed to follow by Lance Eichler, who heard of Timm's case during their overlapping terms of incarceration and considered it as a grave injustice. 

You may remember Eichler as another person who was in the county jail for 14 months before being found guilty by Sniegowski for contacting his probation officer too often and sent to prison, where he has remained for 18 months even after Eichler's appeal was successful in getting the case remanded back to the circuit for entries of acquittal.  That published opinion by the Michigan Appeals Court was 56 days ago, the local court has done nothing to correct that injustice at this point other than note that there was a court of appeal's order

I would know few details going into the courtroom other than the charge against him was "Possession with intent to deliver" (or P-WIT, as I would find out from expert testimony), and like the jurors would learn even more as the prosecutor laid out their case.  I would have a slight advantage of being able to hear what went on while the jury would be told to leave the room and have the ability to freely associate with witnesses. 

The Background:  What follows is a brief summary of what happened back in early January 2024, coordinating testimony from two deputies, Neill Brooks and Seth Pranger, Timm's mother, and part of Brooks' body cam footage shown in court.  In any fact-finding mission, such as the task given to jurors, it's always important to not only consider what is presented to you, but what could be presented, but isn't.  

The first part of this incident begins in Hamlin Township at Timm's mother's house.  Timm arrives with his SUV towing a U-Haul the night of January 10,2024, telling his mom that he's moving back to the area from Texas.  Timm had conducted legitimate work throughout the country and without but was set on moving back to his home.  His mother would have probably been pleased with the move, but she noticed her son was having some sort of mental health crisis by the way he was acting and talking.  Being concerned for her own safety, and perhaps that of her son, she called 911 the next day for what would be later qualified as a well-being check. 

MCSO Deputies Pranger and Brooks arrive, they split up and interview the mom and Timm, respectively.  The deputies hear enough to determine that Timm's perception of reality was suspect and so Timm consensually goes with them to Ludington's Corewell Hospital to have his mental health evaluated. 

While the process was underway for a few minutes, his mother shows up with a small gray bag.  She indicates that she was removing cat carriers from the back of Timm's SUV when she found the bag, opened it and found four small clear baggies with a white crystalline substance therein.  The footage would show them opening the bag, finding the baggies and noticing the resemblance to meth (which would later be confirmed), finding about $9000 mostly in $100 bills, and in a pocket, find Timm's passport.  

One can tell that the deputies are unsure how to proceed at this point with a piece of evidence that appears to help the mom's intention to keep her crazy-acting son out of her house, by ultimately putting him in jail.  But the footage ends and we are told by Pranger that Timm was 'surprised' when told shortly after the reveal that there was a bag full of drugs found in his SUV.  

Was the jury wondering like me why the prosecutor didn't include the footage of this interview where Pranger reportedly gave Timm his Miranda Rights (with the understanding that Timm may not have been mentally competent to comprehend them) and could make their own determination of whether he was aware of such contraband in his effects?  The deputies certainly didn't think it was enough to arrest him that day, nor do follow-up investigations.  

For while they surely had enough probable cause to get warrants for a blood draw from Timm pursuant to see whether he was a user, forensically review his cell phone, and search the rest of his effects in his SUV and U-Haul, they would do nothing of the sort.  They wouldn't even check for fingerprints or DNA, and they would wind up giving Timm's mother the $9000 once they figured out that the money came from a recent bank withdrawal he made pursuant to moving.  No link was ever made between his mental issues and meth use.

Three weeks after this, Timm was arrested and put in jail for P-WIT, and while his mom had enough money to bail him out, $9000 was more than enough, she wouldn't.  During closing argument, Prosecutor Webb would lead off by saying "Mother knows best."  This was more like something from "Mommie Dearest", where you can't help but think the mother had a better way to cope with the problem rather than what transpired over the last two years.

The circumstantial evidence may seem compelling for P-WIT-- you have a bag with a lot of meth (48 g total), a lot of money, and the passport of the defendant.   Contrary to being clear cut, however, you have a mom who saw her son as threatening and crazy and she was on the camera effectively making the case for the state to take care of him, after delivering a bag that she admitted to opening and finding bags of powder allegedly in the back of his SUV mere minutes after the police left.  The prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant knowingly and intentionally possessed a controlled substance to prove the 'P', but they only got a surprised reaction from a guy who was going through a mental health crisis and who offered nothing else to indicate his knowledge of the drug.

The Trial:  Attorney Gurumurthy would establish through his cross examinations of the deputies that they did not follow through with an investigation to establish possession or make any attempt to determine distribution other than finding out that the large amount of cash was apparently withdrawn from a bank where deposits were consistent with legal activity.  One would think that the lack of further investigation indicated that it would be nigh impossible to prove even the possession prong.

The state's experts were disasters.  The first one from the MSP crime lab would testify primarily that the baggies found contained meth. He was a 'stand-in' drug expert called at the last minute to retest the sample, reportedly because the initial tester was reportedly fired due to something left undisclosed.  The amount of material he tested had actually grew in weight from the prior tester, a result he had never seen before in over three decades of doing such tests.  This was explained away by saying moisture may have got into the closed container over time, but if that was the case, how did the water get in the sealed bag, and wouldn't the test have noticed additional water molecules diluting the meth?   

The second expert was Jacob Miller, detective with the LPD who was admitted as a drug trafficking expert.  Though I and many in the jury learned a lot about meth and street lingo, the basic idea behind Prosecutor Webb calling Miller was to establish one basic idea: that when someone has a certain amount of meth (or other drug) over an arbitrary threshold, that person has the intent to distribute.  

This just didn't make any sense to me, when they got to that point of legal legerdemain, because Miller had already established that buying in bulk from a big city dealer rather than single doses from local dealers could save a meth user am awful lot of money, and lower the risk of being caught by making only one purchase rather than 50.  Gurumurthy would counter such an absurd conclusion by asking who the buyer in this case was and what communication between them and Timm established such a deal.  There was none ever claimed by either of the four experts that testified, nor had there been with the other three.

The next expert appeared after the state had rested its case, without making much progress, Andrew Fias, the defense's expert in drug trafficking.  With three decades in the field at the MSP working drug cases, some commanding the local SSCENT task force that Miller was a part of, he made a lot more sense, indicating that in all cases where P-WIT is to be pursued for prosecution, you do a thorough investigation and use all of the tools available.  Fias would clearly explain that in this case those tools were never used and went through what could have been done after the mom had given them a substantial amount of probable cause to make a case.

Prosecutor Webb would take two tactics, neither that seemed to work on the jury, who were submitting many questions to the witnesses when witness examinations were finished.  He would ask Fias how much he was being paid to be an expert witness and by who.  The answer was the same agency that provides legal defense to indigent defendants, the MIDC and he would be receiving about $700.  A recent county board packet claimed Beth Hand spent $30,000 on one expert witness during the last year.

The second tactic was to try and make him agree with the outlandish notion that mere possession of a certain amount of a drug was proof that there was an intent to distribute, but all he would ever get from him is that larger amounts actually make further investigation much more necessary and from what he had seen, wasn't done in this case.  

Prosecutor Webb likely felt rather overplayed at the end of this exchange, so he and his boss, Beth Hand, arranged to get a rebuttal witness at the last moment, Detective Kyle Boyd from the MCSO, who has had several years of experience in drug trafficking and was admitted as another drug trafficking expert, albeit reluctantly by Gurumurthy who wasn't clear on what part of his expert's testimony was being rebutted.  

This attempt to rebut Fias turned into a fiasco for the prosecutor, since Boyd wasn't a participant or aware of what happened in this case when he took the stand.  The prosecutor would try to make him agree with what Miller said earlier, but he would side with Fias without knowing, indicating clearly in the cross examination by Gurumurthy that further investigation is the way to go to establish the elements of the crime for prosecution.  One could sense that the P-WIT charge was dead in the water at this point even without the defense telling us that they never found any attempt to sell the meth or identify any potential or past buyer of Timm.

This tangled web of poor reasoning and deception was mostly echoed in what was probably the weakest closing argument I've heard at a jury trial because none of the elements were really proved other than the incident happened in Mason County.  That vacuum of common sense on the prosecution side was acknowledged in Gurumurthy's closing argument, showing how the elements were not even close to being proved, and definitely did not come close to meeting the high standard of the burden of proof needed for conviction.

After two full days the jury went into chambers and discussed the charges, they could consider not guilty, guilty of P-WIT, or guilty of possession only.  They would come back to the court with a not guilty verdict that appears to be fair not only to them, but to this reporter.

The Review:  This case shows several things about our county prosecutor, Beth Hand, who chose to prosecute this speculative case without a lot of evidence and assuredly used more money for her expert witnesses than the defense counsel, who made his expert count.  Her actions of choosing to prosecute with evidence provided only by a mother whose motives seemed erratic and questionable, led to David Timm being a ward of the county for 14 months of his life that he can never get back. 

Her assistant Mark Webb was undoubtedly made a sacrificial lamb when she determined that there would be no win here; one wonders how long he will hang around when he sees that justice is being perverted in this county.  He will likely join a growing list of former assistant prosecutors of Mason County when he figures it all out and determines that he doesn't want to be associated with it anymore.

Never backing down from a baseless "intent to distribute" charge in plea deals, insured the people of our county that tens of thousands of dollars would be wasted over the course of the last two years in order to assuage a prosecutor who desires to take any case up even when there is no victim (as in this case) in order to prove that she supports law enforcement and they should support her for her loyalty. 

The only thing she is proving is that she is disloyal to true justice and would seek the locking up of a person for up to 20 years even when there is no rational link to the crime, even when the intent element is taken out.  It appears that people innocent of any crime must still serve 14 months in the local gulag just to find that out, because this prosecutor just can't stop charging enough with crimes, and a local circuit court judge does everything to accommodate her pursuits.  

[AnxiousGuy]

I was forced to take a plea deal on a similar sounding story with marijuana in Wisconsin. The police used the amount alone to charge me. They illegally searched my home and safe (found my backup key) based on the police call (well being check). I was facing felony intent charges with up to 5.5 years in prison. They offered me plea deals and when I refused they added 2 charges after 2 refusals. The one charge they added was a disorderly conduct (in my own home) which now gave them a reason to enter my home. Since they showed up with AR-15s and ordered me out like I was a bank robber. Then on the second plea refusal they added a gun storage modifier to the disorderly conduct to up the time range on my punishment even more. The weed was home grown, but I gave them the same bulk purchase reasoning used in this story. It didn’t matter. I was young and had no outside support or means to fight the case at trial. In the end a lawyer who tricked me into paying him full price ($11k in 2010), would have been the same guy assigned to me for a public defender. He convinced me to take a plea from the a prosecutor whom he also told me he helped move into his house. I took a plea and had a deferred adjudication agreement. When I completed the state legal requirement (1/2 the time) to that plea my probation officer petitioned to release me from probation early. The prosecutor was so angry he tried to recharge me with a felony. Thankfully a fair judge seen that I made positive changes in my life and that continued probation was not warranted. He dismissed the felony charge, but not without the prosecutor smashing the doors open on his way out of the courtroom.

Small towns are a nightmare for any outside lawyers. I called all over the state and everyone knew the county I was having issues with was a nightmare. Almost everyone told me it would be a $25k case to handle due to the county alone. While also being told the areas of the state the charges would not have been hard to beat. It was a tough time in my life. Not only fighting the changes unneeded to make in my life but also an overzealous prosecution looking to make it hard on a guy where there was NO VICTIM.

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Thanks for that personal story, it helps illustrate the Spiderman adage applied to those who choose to be prosecuting attorneys:  "With great power comes great responsibility."  One of the saddest things about out-of-control prosecutors is that their abuse of power generally isn't noticed beyond the victims of that abuse and will often be re-marketed by the abusive party as being tough on crime before any re-election attempt.

Good, bad, and ugly news out of the 79th District Court this morning.  The good:  a high school girl had two specious charges of domestic violence against her dropped.  The bad:  Mark Webb, set to prosecute the shaky case, had health issues happen over the weekend making him unable to appear in court for this or another district court trial scheduled for today.  The ugly:  had the trial progressed, the jury and our readers at the Ludington Torch and Ludington Pitchfork would have heard a story where the sheriff's office and the prosecutor would have looked very corrupt; the MCSO for starting the investigation with a major conflict of interest, the prosecutor for choosing to prosecute these DOA charges when the facts just don't add up for them.

While we hope that AP Webb has a complete recovery from whatever ails him, we hope that he will recognize that taking up cases like Timm's and this unjust one will take a toll on his health over time.  Webb has had a full career without meaningful controversy while practicing his profession; prosecuting these types of cases in the twilight of his career will have an adverse effect on the physical, spiritual, and mental well-being of anybody with a shred of conscience. 

That latter qualifier exempts Beth Hand, driven by some internal demon to collect heads and damn any consequences.