The Michigan Supreme Court said Monday that a judge should not have moved ahead with a man’s rape trial while an appeal of a pretrial ruling was pending before the high court, but the justices were split over whether the man deserved a new trial as a result.
Ronald Scott’s appeal of an intermediate appellate court’s ruling on the admissibility of certain witnesses’ testimony should have resulted in a delay in his trial, the high court found. Scott was convicted of rape by a jury in 2016, while the appeal was pending.
The state justices concluded that Michigan’s court rules required a stay of proceedings while the interlocutory ruling from the Michigan Court of Appeals was appealed to the state supreme court.
A majority of the court said Scott should not automatically receive a new trial due to the error, however, concluding that the judge did not act without authority by holding the trial because interlocutory appeals, unlike final appeals, do not strip lower courts of jurisdiction over cases.
