PEOPLE OF MI V TIMOTHY JON SPYTMA
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STATE OF MICHIGAN
COURT OF APPEALS
PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN,
UNPUBLISHED
May 9, 1997
Plaintiff-Appellee,,
v
No. 188253
Muskegon Circuit Court
LC No. 75-18765-FY
TIMOTHY JON SPYTMA,
Defendant-Appellant.
Before: Taylor, P.J., and Hood and Gribbs, JJ.
PER CURIAM.
This case involves a crime that occurred over twenty years ago and is before a panel of this
Court for the sixth time. This is the third opinion to be issued in this matter. On this appeal, defendant
contends that his waiver of jury trial was invalid, that there was no valid waiver of juvenile court
jurisdiction, and that his counsel was ineffective. We affirm.
The facts of this case are set out in the lower court’s detailed opinion and in one of the
unpublished per curium opinions issued by this Court. People v Spytma, #93377, rel’d 8-28-87. The
underlying crime occurred in December 1974. After consuming a quantity of barbiturates, defendant
and Michael Saxton, both fifteen years old, went to the playground of an elementary school armed with
rifles and a machete. Defendant and Saxton were sent home after being apprehended by school
officials.
At defendant’s suggestion, defendant and Saxton then broke into the home of defendant’s next
door neighbor. Defendant provided gloves for himself and Saxton so that they would not leave
fingerprints. While defendant and Saxton were inside the home, the mother of the family (decedent)
returned home. She asked defendant what he was doing there, and defendant grabbed her, struck her
in the head and knocked her unconscious. Defendant and Saxton blindfolded decedent and carried her
to a bed in one of the bedrooms. While Saxton sexually abused decedent, defendant brought in a bottle
of liquor. Saxton eventually broke the liquor bottle over decedent’s head, struck her in the head with a
baseball bat, and left her nude body lying on the floor beside the bed. Defendant loaded decedent’s car
with two television sets, a stereo, a jar of pennies, two checkbooks and two rifles. Defendant returned
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to the bedroom and cut decedent’s wrists with a knife, “to put her out of her misery.” Decedent’s
clothes were left draped down the front of the kitchen cabinets.
Decedent’s body was discovered by her son. There were ink marks on her breasts and
abdomen, with obscene graffiti scrawled across her body. Decedent’s body was extensively bruised
and lacerated. Her skull was badly fragmented. A portion of her skull, more than three inches square,
was missing and her brain was exposed. There was a quarter and a large amount of sperm in
decedent’s vagina, and she had been sexually assaulted with a baton. Decedent died as a result of a
massive hemorrhage from the damage to her skull and brain
Defendant and Saxton were apprehended in a vehicle belonging to decedent’s husband after
they ran a stop sign, hit another vehicle, and crashed into a telephone pole. Inside the vehicle, police
found the stolen articles and a bloody knife.
In the presence of his attorney, after being advised of his Miranda1 rights, defendant confessed
to police that he and Saxton broke into decedent’s home with the intent to steal, and admitted to
struggling with decedent after she returned home unexpectedly. Defendant admitted having a knife,
referred to the baseball bat, and spoke of the sexual assault and the quarter in decedent’s vagina, but
said that “someone else” had done it. Defendant knew decedent was dead before he left the house.
Following a juvenile waiver hearing, defendant was charged with felony murder. Defendant
signed a written form waiving his right to a jury trial. The circuit judge rejected defendant’s insanity
defense, and defendant was convicted of first-degree felony murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Codefendant Saxton was tried before a different judge. Saxton was also convicted of first-degree
felony murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Defendant’s conviction and sentence were affirmed by a panel of this court in an unpublished
per curium opinion, #31487, rel’d 2
-13-78. On August 24, 1982, this Court issued a published
opinion reversing codefendant Saxton’s first-degree murder conviction on the basis that the underlying
felony, burglary, was committed during the day rather than at nighttime. Saxton’s case was remanded
for entry of a second-degree murder conviction and for resentencing. People v Saxton, 118 Mich App
681; 325 NW2d 795 (1982). Defendant filed a motion and, later, an appeal asking for the same relief,
and this Court vacated his first-degree conviction and remanded for entry of a conviction of second
degree murder and resentencing. The circuit court again sentenced defendant to life imprisonment and,
after more remands for explanation of defendant’s sentence, his sentence was ultimately affirmed by a
panel of this Court.
In this appeal, almost eight years after this Court affirmed defendant’s sentence, defendant
contends that the trial court lacked jurisdiction to conduct a nonjury trial in the absence of a valid jury
waiver. Defendant acknowledges that he signed a written waiver, but asserts that he did not sign it in
open court. No transcript of a waiver hearing in this matter can be located.
Although the requirements of the waiver statute are to be strictly construed, we do not agree
that the waiver process creates jurisdiction, and reject defendant’s suggestion that a defect in the jury
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waiver process deprives the court of jurisdiction. Cf. In re Wayne County Prosecutor, 192 Mich App
658, 681; 482 NW2d 176 (1991). Because we find that a waiver challenge does not give rise to a
jurisdictional question, we find defendant’s motion is untimely and that, to seek appellate review,
defendant must establish both good cause and actual prejudice resulting from the alleged error. MCR
6.508(D)(3). Defendant has had ample opportunity to raise this issue in the past twenty years and has
failed to establish a reasonable likelihood that a jury would have acquitted him if the waiver had not
been recognized as valid. In addition, we note that the lower court records show that defendant’s
voluntarily signed waiver form was “read, approved and signed in open court.” Defendant is not
entitled to any relief on this issue.
Defendant also argues that he is entitled to reversal of his conviction because there was no valid
waiver of juvenile court jurisdiction. Defendant contends that the trial court did not adequately
investigate the evidence before granting the waiver. There is no merit to this claim. To support a
juvenile waiver, the prosecution must show by a preponderance of the evidence that the best interests of
the juvenile and of society would be served by the waiver. MCL 712A.4; MSA 27.3178(598.4);
MCR 5.950. A panel of this Court concluded concerning the juvenile waiver in codefendant’s trial,
Saxton, supra at 687, that any error there was harmless in light of the overwhelming evidence justifying
the waiver presented at Saxton’s trial. In this case, there was ample evidence at defendant’s trial of
defendant’s prior contact with the juvenile court, and of the horrific nature of the present crime.
Defendant’s own psychiatrist testified that he was not certain that defendant was “even treatable” and
that defendant would need long-term treatment within a secure and “tightly controlled” environment. As
in Saxton, Id, any error concerning the juvenile procedure here was harmless in light of the evidence
presented at defendant’s trial supporting the waiver.
Finally, there is no merit to defendant’s claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. Defendant
alleges that counsel was ineffective in failing to recognize the errors committed by the probate court in
waiving jurisdiction and in failing to pursue an appeal on that basis. Even assuming that counsel erred in
this regard, defendant is unable to show that the error was prejudicial. A remand would have led, at
best, to a correction of the waiver procedure and not to a different result. We find neither a reasonable
probability that the result in this case would have been different, nor that the result of the proceeding
was fundamentally unfair or unreliable. People v Pickens, 446 Mich 298, 302; 521 NW2d 797
(1994); People v Poole, 218 Mich App 702, 718; 555 NW2d 485 (1996).
Affirmed.
/s/ Clifford W. Taylor
/s/ Harold Hood
/s/ Roman S. Gribbs
1
Miranda v Arizona, 384 US 436, 444; 86 S Ct 1602, 1612; 16 L Ed 2d (1966);
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