If you or a family member was convicted of a felony in Detroit’s Wayne County Criminal Justice Center, the conviction or sentence may be reviewable through Michigan’s appellate process. A conviction following a jury trial does not necessarily mean the legal issues in the case are over. Neither does a guilty plea. The correct appellate…
Ineffective assistance of counsel can provide grounds for relief from a Michigan criminal conviction or sentence. But proving that an attorney made a mistake is not enough. A defendant generally must establish two things: That constitutional framework comes from Strickland v Washington, 466 US 668 (1984), and is applied by Michigan courts through decisions including…
Yes. A guilty plea does not necessarily eliminate your ability to appeal a Michigan criminal conviction or sentence. But appealing after a guilty or no-contest plea is different from appealing a conviction after trial. In a Michigan felony case, a defendant convicted after a guilty or no-contest plea generally does not have an automatic appeal…
A Michigan criminal conviction cannot stand unless the prosecution presented sufficient evidence from which a rational factfinder could find every essential element of the offense proven beyond a reasonable doubt. If the prosecution failed to prove even one required element, the conviction may be reversed on appeal. But an insufficient-evidence appeal is not simply an…
A criminal conviction is not necessarily legally valid simply because a jury returned a guilty verdict. The People v McClure Michigan appeal illustrates this fact. One of the most important questions in a criminal appeal is more fundamental: Did the prosecution actually prove every legal element of the offense? People v. McClure, unpublished opinion of…
A Michigan Supreme Court criminal appeal usually begins with an application for leave to appeal after a Michigan Court of Appeals decision, including an order denying leave. Under MCR 7.305(C)(2), the general deadline at that stage is 56 days from the applicable triggering event. Filing on time requests review; it does not guarantee that the…
Winning a criminal appeal requires more than identifying something that went wrong at trial. An appellate attorney must find the legal significance of that error, preserve or develop the necessary record, frame the constitutional issue, and persuade an appellate court that the error requires meaningful relief. People v. Gonzalez-Raymundo, 308 Mich App 175; 862 NW2d…
A Michigan application for leave to appeal is a written request for permission to obtain appellate review when an appeal of right is unavailable. In a circuit-court criminal case, it can ask the Michigan Court of Appeals to review a plea-based conviction, sentence, or other qualifying order. The application must present the legal argument and…
The Michigan criminal appeal process begins by identifying the court order to challenge, choosing an appeal of right or an application for leave to appeal, and protecting the filing deadline. The next stages involve transcripts, review of the trial or plea record, legal briefing, and a court decision. A qualifying circuit-court conviction after trial generally…
Yes. You can appeal a Michigan criminal sentence in many circumstances—even if you are not challenging your conviction. A Michigan criminal sentence may be challenged when it is unreasonable or disproportionate, based on inaccurate information, affected by an error in scoring the sentencing guidelines, based on an improper sentencing factor, or otherwise imposed contrary to…
