Update: Lawyer Found Guilty in Wife's Murder
Maggie
compromise verdict, to keep a hold-out happy. (This was the guy who, out of
the blue, asks his estranged wife to accompany him to a shooting range, then
says she killed herself in the bedroom of her home while he was in the
bathroom. Note that the fact that they both fired a gun at the shooting range
means gunpowder residue would be found on both their hands.) From the AP:
Lawyer Found Guilty in Wife' ' s Death
By ALEXANDRA R. MOSES / Associated Press Writer
PONTIAC, Mich. (AP) -- A lawyer was convicted Friday of killing his pregnant
wife in a scheme that prosecutors said he concocted to further his affair with
a judge.
Michael Fletcher, 30, faces up to life in prison for the Aug. 16 shooting death
of 29-year-old Leann Fletcher at their home in the Detroit suburb of Hazel
Park.
Prosecutors said he staged the shooting to look like suicide or an accident; he
contends that he was in the bathroom when his wife was killed in the bedroom
and that he played no role.
" We know in our hearts that he did this, " said Mrs. Fletcher' s mother,
Gloria Misener. " I' d like to know why, why not divorce?"
Fletcher had been charged with first-degree murder, but after 22 hours of
deliberations, jurors found him guilty of second-degree murder. A first-degree
murder conviction would have meant life in prison with no parole.
Prosecutor Greg Townsend had told the jury Fletcher didn' t love his wife,
professing his love instead to a judge with whom he was having an affair. He
showed the jury letters, e-mails and cards that Fletcher sent to Warren
District Judge Susan Chrzanowski.
" Keep that lovely little chin up, pretty lady, " Fletcher wrote to Chrzanowski
in one e-mail message.
" Remember that I am here for you in any capacity, " he wrote in another.
Defense attorney Brian Legghio said the idea that Fletcher killed his wife to
further his affair with Chrzanowski is far-fetched. The defense played for the
jury the 911 tape of a hysterical-sounding Fletcher calling police after his
wife' s shooting.
" They say he wanted to be with the judge, " Legghio said. " He was with the
judge."
Prosecutors don' t think Chrzanowski is connected to the slaying, but she is
under state scrutiny over her assigning thousands of dollars in indigent cases
to Fletcher.
Fletcher' s head dropped as the murder verdict was read, but then he lifted it
and stared straight ahead and showed no other emotion. His mother started
crying uncontrollably and was consoled by her husband. They didn' t make any
statements afterward.
Jurors said outside court they had quickly ruled out the notion Mrs. Fletcher
committed suicide but voted for a second-degree murder conviction because they
couldn' t establish Fletcher acted with premeditation.
Copyright 2000 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be
published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
© Copyright 2000. All rights reserved.
Maggie
"There are lots of people who mistake their imagination for their memory."
Josh Billings
WWWoLadyA
true-crime. Thankfully, that still left the "gun enthusiasts".
Premeditation was sticking point for Fletcher jury
July 1, 2000
Detroit Free Press
After 15 minutes of deliberation, jurors said they knew Leann Fletcher did not
kill herself. Shortly after, they ruled out an accident.
But it took days to decide whether Michael Fletcher plotted to kill his wife.
After four days behind closed doors, the 12-member panel found him guilty of
second-degree murder Friday.
"We couldn't place the gun in Leann Fletcher's hand, therefore Michael Fletcher
had to have killed her," said juror John Patterson, talking from his Hazel Park
home two hours after the verdict was read in Oakland County Circuit Court.
Patterson, 46, said the jury stopped short of finding Michael Fletcher guilty
of the maximum charge -- first-degree murder -- because there was not enough
proof.
"I was convinced right from the start he was guilty," said juror Scott Frush, a
29-year-old investment analyst from Royal Oak. "I wasn't convinced he committed
first-degree murder. There wasn't enough evidence."
Jurors said they ruled out suicide after hearing the testimony of Leann
Fletcher's family.
Scott Frush, an investment analyst from Royal Oak who sat on the jury in the
trial, said he "was convinced right from the start" that Michael Fletcher was
guilty.
"She had no reason to take her life. She had a 3-year-old daughter, she was
pregnant and had a loving family," Frush said.
What convinced jurors that Leann Fletcher did not accidentally shoot herself
was the position of the gun in relation to her body, Frush said.
Many on the jury were "gun enthusiasts" who looked at crime scene photos and
decided that because of the force from the gun's kickback, the gun would have
landed behind her body, not in front of it, Frush said.
Once they decided that, jurors spent most of the time debating whether Michael
Fletcher planned the killing.
But Frush said that nothing -- not Michael Fletcher's affair with Warren
District Judge Susan Chrzanowski or his trip to the rifle range the day of his
wife's death -- was enough to convince the jurors that Michael Fletcher had
planned to shoot her.
"How could anybody plan something like this?" asked Patterson, a sales and
service engineer.
Most on the jury developed a theory that Michael Fletcher saw an opportunity to
kill his wife when she had her back turned to him, Frush said. "He saw a moment
there ...and he took it. Our feeling is that as soon as he saw Leann bleeding,
that's when he freaked out."
In the end, Michael Fletcher's fate was sealed in a series of votes that began
Thursday night and continued through Friday, Patterson said.
On Thursday, jurors handed a note to Judge Jessica Cooper, asking whether they
could find Fletcher guilty if they determined that his wife could not have shot
herself.
The judge responded by telling them to reread their instructions.
Patterson said the jurors were frustrated with the judge's answer but went back
and read the instructions and took their first vote:
Do you believe Leann Fletcher killed herself? No hands went up, Patterson said,
and the jury broke for the night.
Shortly after arriving Friday morning, they had voted unanimously that Michael
Fletcher was guilty. What followed, the jurors said, was a series of mixed
votes on whether he was guilty of first- or second-degree murder.
Some jurors initially voted in favor of convicting him on a first-degree
charge. Ultimately, one by one, each juror voted to convict Fletcher of the
second-degree charge.
"You can't sleep, you don't want to eat, you don't want to talk to your wife,"
said Patterson, who plans a weekend trip to northern Michigan to rest. "It was
a very emotional thing."