The Kalkaska County prosecutor doesn't see a need for a new trial for a man convicted of a 1996 rape and murder. Prosecutor Mike Perreault's office has filed a response in the case of Jamie Lee Peterson.
A team of lawyers is trying to free Peterson on DNA evidence that appears to link another man, Jason Ryan, to the crime.
Perrault's office says that doesn't mean Peterson is innocent. It argues that the same evidence was available when Peterson's trial took place in 1998.
Caitlin Plummer, a lawyer with the Michigan Innocence Clinic, disagrees, saying one of two DNA samples was too compromised to identify with 1990s technology.
"The prosecutor specifically insinuated that the second stain came from Peterson," says Plummer. "Now we know that that's just false. He also used the DNA evidence to argue that there were two perpetrators and now the DNA cuts in exactly the opposite direction."
The prosecutor asks the judge to deny the motion, or wait until after a trial for the second suspect, but Plummer says that would be "grossly unfair" to Peterson.
"It's not his fault that it has taken 17 years fort Jason Ryan to be brought to trial," he says. "He tried to have the DNA tested almost a decade earlier and his attempts were rebuffed by the prosecutor's office."
No trial date has been set.
A jury sentenced Peterson to life in prison based on a recanted confession in the murder of Geraldine Montgomery, who was 68 years old.
The prosecutor's office has declined to comment beyond its written response.