March 9, 2021. Bond Motion Before Judge Valentine "They made me aware last Tuesday night there were two reports in particular that were not turned over to defense. It appears that those two reports were in the prosecutor's office possession in September or October of 2019. In my opinion, those two reports are exculpatory in nature and should have been turned over in a timely fashion. They were not. Judge. In my opinion, a remand, at a minimum, is necessary in this case. I have informed the officer in charge, as well as the victim's mother, of the decision that we have made. They both understand the situation that we're in, Judge." Marc Keast * The victim mother was informed of the decision that McDonald and Keast have made one day before the hearing March 8, 2021 via email thru Nicole Kennedy.
BOND MOTION BEFORE THE HONORABLE VICTORIA A. VALENTINE Tuesday, March 9, 2021 3:34 p.m. THE CLERK: Your Honor, now calling the case People v Remington, 2019-272593-FC. MR. KEAST: Thank you. Marc Keast on behalf of the People. THE COURT: Thank you. MR. ROCKIND: Neil Rockind, P-number 48618, on behalf of Nicholas Remington. And we would consent to this hearing via Zoom and to waiving Mr. Remington's presence for this proceeding.
THE COURT: Thank you. I am in receipt of an order, stipulated order requesting to reduce bond from $1 million to 10,000 and a tether. Correct?
MR. KEAST: That is correct, Judge.
MR. ROCKIND: Yes, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Mr. Keast, why don't you go ahead and address the bond issue.
MR. KEAST: Yes, Judge. As the Court knows, I was assigned the case in January of this year. I spoke with Mr. Rockind a number of times regarding some issues regarding discovery I did discover from the beginning, in January, obtained a copy of the police report from beginning to end, and sent it to defense counsel. I think January the 28th of 2021, are what my notes reflect. Counsel and co-counsel, Randy Lewis, went through the discovery. They made me aware last Tuesday night that there were two reports in particular that were not turned over to defense. It appears that those two reports were in the prosecutor's office possession in September or October of 2019. In my opinion, those two reports are exculpatory in nature and should have been turned over in a timely fashion. They were not. I believe Mr. Rockind and his office may be filing a motion regarding that. I have suggested my own remedy to Mr. Rockind. That is included in the stipulated order, Judge. In my opinion, a remand, at a minimum, is necessary in this case. That will cause further delay to this case being adjudicated. Defendant has been in custody; I believe since the beginning of this case. In my opinion, the delay, at this point moving forward, is attributable to the State. So because of that, I do believe that a stipulated order to the effect that was submitted to this Court is appropriate in this case.
I have informed the officer in charge, as well as the victim's mother, of the decision that we have made. They both understand the situation that we're in, Judge.
THE COURT: Okay. With regard to the bond conditions, for some reason it won't let me scroll down on the proposed order. Read me the bond conditions.
MR. KEAST: Mr. Rockind, do you have that in front of you?
MR. ROCKIND: I do. Your Honor, I'm going to, if you don't mind, I'm actually in a sweatshirt.
THE COURT: That's fine.
MR. ROCKIND: So with permission -- I mean, I can come on if you want the video or I could just do an audio feed. It's entirely up to you. I hope you don't mind if I -- it's really up to you. I just don't want to offend the decorum of the court by appearing in a sweatshirt.
THE COURT: I am more than aware of the fact that I gave you about five minutes to choose to go on --
MR. ROCKIND: Mine says "Family is everything, hustle all day," or something like that.
THE COURT: Whatever you're comfortable with, Mr. Rockind.
MR. ROCKIND: Oh, I don't mind appearing, I mean, it's fine, I just didn't want to, you know, to undermine the solemnity of the court proceedings.
THE COURT: No, I'm fine with that, sir.
MR. ROCKIND: So the bond conditions currently, according to the order, proposed, order, will reduce the bond to a $10,000 cash surety, no 10 percent bond. Mr. Remington will be subject to global position electronic monitoring and home confinement. We envision that that will involve one specific tether unit, and the purpose of that tether unit would be that he would be on home confinement. The tether unit will have the ability to track his global positioning if he's permitted to leave for any of the permitted travel. And I don't mean travel out of state, I mean travel from his home other than --
THE COURT: Right, to meet with you and something else, right?
MR. ROCKIND: I'm sorry?
THE COURT: Is that to meet with you?
MR. ROCKIND: To meet with us, to meet at my office. And we will certainly give Pretrial Services my office address. And if he has any scheduled medical and dental visits. And if those are -- if he has those, we'll of course provide proof or verification that he has them in advance and that he attended them after. He's a student at the University of Michigan and he will be able to attend college university via virtual classes but not actually go to campus or go to a college campus. So he will be on what is the equivalent of home confinement other than for what I would call essential -- for some essentials. And those essentials are specified as lawyer's office, doctor's office, dentist's office. After that, he's going to be at home. He's not to have contact with anybody who is identified as a witness in the case. He shall be prohibited from the use of any controlled substances or alcohol. And he will -- and he's prohibited from the use of social media. I didn't want to get into, I can if the Court wants me to get into the Brady issues, but they're really -- I alluded to them once during our last pretrial conference. I think I alluded to them in a letter regarding the status of the case --
THE COURT: I read everything. I'm pretty familiar.
MR. ROCKIND: Okay. No doubt. And there's more, and we have some motions to file. The purpose of today is because we anticipate that there could be some delays related to this issue, and as a result we are stipulating to a reduction of Mr. Remington's bond.
THE COURT: Are you also stipulating to go back down to the district court for a preliminary exam?
MR. ROCKIND: No, not at this point, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Okay.
MR. ROCKIND: I know the People -- if you'll permit me to say this. Mr. Keast and I have had a lot of conversations back and forth about this case. I attempted to apprise Mr. Keast of what I believe were some of the disclosure issues. He has been -- he has been, I think, patient and diligent and has been responsive to what I have -- what I have advised him I believe to have occurred. And he's, I think, done his own investigation to look into that.I think the disagreement at the moment is -- I don't even know if the disagreement is to the extent of it. I think the real disagreement at the moment is probably of what is the remedy. We have a view of what the remedy is. The State has a view of what the remedy is. And I think that's going to -- that may have to be fleshed out in some kind of a motion. And we've got a motion to -- a couple of motions that we're prepared to file.
MR. KEAST: If I might just add on to that, Judge. That is why that sentence is included about a potential remand, because defense is not prepared to stipulate, and that's fine. But I would agree with Mr. Rockind, I think the disagreement at this point -- and I say "this point" because as I come into this case, I come in with, I guess, a fresh look, and I'm open to really everything; as I discover things I speak with Mr. Rockind. But I think at this point we have a disagreement as to the ultimate remedy, so that is why -- the remand is one potential, but either way I believe there will be additional delay in this case.
THE COURT: Okay. Couple things. I can't pull this up at all. I have to restart my computer. The bond conditions, I want there to be no drug paraphernalia. No drugs. Not being around anybody with regard to drugs. I know it's only to leave the home, but I don't want people coming there either.
MR. ROCKIND: Can we just add, so I have -- we can add it to the proposed order. So no drug paraphernalia. Okay.
THE COURT: No drugs.
MR. ROCKIND: Right, we have that. THE COURT: No one -- not be around anybody who is using any illegal substance. MR. ROCKIND: Okay, not to be --
THE COURT: No contact with anybody.
MR. ROCKIND: It says not to be in the company or presence of someone using illicit drugs -
THE COURT: Possession, not just using.
MR. ROCKIND: Possession, okay.
THE COURT: Does he have a criminal record?
MR. ROCKIND: He does, Your Honor. He's actually -- he's on -- this is -- he's on probation to Judge Poles. So he's on HYTA probation to Judge Poles. There's a bond in that case.
THE COURT: There's a bond?
MR. ROCKIND: There is a bond in that case, correct.
THE COURT: And what was the case for?
MR. ROCKIND: I believe that was a possession case. But I don't, you know, I don't want to speak out of turn, because I don't represent him in that case. I haven't. Mr. Lewis did.
MR. KEAST: It looks like a possession of controlled substance, that's correct.
THE COURT: User or dealer?
MR. ROCKIND: It was a possession case. It was not (indiscernible).
MR. KEAST: That's correct.
THE COURT: Twenty-five or less?
MR. KEAST: From the charge code, I can't tell if it was 25 or less for the cocaine or heroin, or if it was just a controlled substance, which could be methamphetamine or any other type of drug. I'm going to see if I can find that out.
THE COURT: Mr. Busch, Mr. Soba [ph], can you pull that case and give me a case number?
THE CLERK: Do you happen to know what year that was filed?
MR. ROCKIND: I can tell you in one second. Give me a second here. Judge, to be frank with you, I have not looked at Mr. Remington's criminal history in a very long time.
THE COURT: That's okay.
THE COURT: I believe there may have been some misdemeanors, but I don't want -- again, I don't --
MR. KEAST: I have a CCH now.
MR. ROCKIND: Okay. I don't want to misstate something. I'll rely on what the prosecutor has to say about that.
MR. KEAST: It looks like we have a conviction of an ordinance violation, destruction of personal property -- I'm sorry, that was dismissed. In 2018, a trespass, misdemeanor trespass, out of Northville Township. In 2017, there were two counts of possession. One was possession of analogs. Judge, that tells me it could be anything from an amphetamine pill, Vicodin, Xanax, of the like. As well as a possession of marijuana. Those were both from 2017. Both have been taken under 74-11 status. And I believe he was on probation for those offenses, if I'm not mistaken.
MR. ROCKIND: Then, you know what, you can be right, it would be 74-11 as opposed to HYTA. Again, I didn't handle -- I haven't appeared on that case, and so I'll rely on whatever Mr. Keast says is his criminal history.
MR. KEAST: That's from this court, so that would make sense.
THE COURT: Can you read me -- was that everything, Mr. Rockind, with regard to what's on the bond order?
MR. ROCKIND: That's everything that we had on our proposed stipulation. The remaining -- I should add, Judge, that there's an additional provision at the bottom which says all other bond conditions imposed by the 52-1 District Court shall remain in place. And I could try to pull up that bond order. Again, I didn't look at it very carefully at the time because -- in fact, let's see if I have it here. I do have it in front of me. I can share it,if you want to see it, Judge.
THE COURT: Yeah, can you share it?
MR. ROCKIND: I can.
THE COURT: You're going to have to refile your strip, too, because with the change I just indicated, it's not even letting me log back in to pull it out.
MR. ROCKIND: Can you see this?
THE COURT: Yep.
MR. ROCKIND: So this is from this case. I can blow it up if you want, but Nicholas Remington --
THE COURT: (Indiscernible).
MR. ROCKIND: Yes, ma'am. So it was no contact with the family of Denis Preka or any witnesses. Standard conditions here, Pretrial Services, no new offenses, drug tests, GPS tether prior to release, no contact with witnesses.
THE COURT: I think there's a couple more witnesses that aren't named on there.
MR. KEAST: That must have been from the initial witness list --
MR. ROCKIND: That was from the -- this was actually at his arraignment. So I would -- I would -- I think that an appropriate order is going to prohibit him, as it would, I think, any defendant, from having contact with any listed witness. And there's an information that's filed which contains a list of the witnesses and we'll certainly reference that, if we need to, in an additional order.
THE COURT: Yeah, but don't you have an issue because the prosecutor's office, you're indicating, didn't disclose certain witnesses; isn't that, Mr. Keast, what you were indicating?
MR. KEAST: Not witnesses, Judge, material.
MR. ROCKIND: So to give the Court just -- I'm going to give the Court as much of an impartial thumbnail sketch as I can. There's a couple of -- there's a couple of potential -- so one is Detective Balog. He's at the center of one of these issues. There's not going to be any contact with Detective Balog. He's the officer in charge of the case. The other was an investigator from -- who's part of a disclosure issue that we've raised before, who I believe was a now-retired investigator from the prosecutor's office. His name is Terry Healey [ph]. I don't foresee there being any contact between a private investigator, or an investigator who used to work for the prosecutor's office, having any contact with Mr. Remington voluntarily one way or the other. The issues that are now the subject to our motions and of this stip and order relate to Snapchats that came from Mr. Remington's, or I should say the account that was identified as Mr. Remington's account, while he was in jail and could not have sent them. And so that information is the information --
THE COURT: Okay.
MR. ROCKIND: And there was a lot of information that Mr. Keast and I have talked about. There were actual Snapchats. There were search warrants and affidavits. There were letters written to Snapchat. There was investigation into it. There were disclosures. None of that was provided to us during the preliminary examination when these issues were being litigated and during the subsequent year up until Your Honor taking over the -- I should say Your Honor being assigned to the case. And I think more importantly, Mr. Keast taking over the case, and he and I having frank conversations about the Brady issues that I was concerned about and Mr. Keast just doing a total review of the file and delivering to us what he had. So it's not really any witnesses that weren't identified, I think it's more that there was evidence, exculpatory evidence that was not disclosed to the defense during the preliminary examination, during the original motion filings, including our motion to quash and the State's response to the motion to quash, that were not disclosed that I think we agree -- well, I want to state, I believe that could have made a difference in the outcome of the decision of the magistrate. I'm not saying it would have, but it certainly -- so one of the issues we're addressing -- so I don't think that -- I don't think that's going to be an issue. There's no new witnesses that were identified with whom he could have, Mr. Remington could have contact.
THE COURT: Okay. You have on there, no social media?
MR. ROCKIND: We have no social media on there. Mr. Keast believed that that was an important condition. And I had a suspicion that the Court would probably prohibit Mr. Remington, if it were inclined to grant the order, to prohibit social media because, look, freedom is more important than social media.
THE COURT: Right. So with regard to the social media by his own act or a third party's. I don't want any -- anything out there with regard to social media at all. And I know that he's going to have to use a computer, you're indicating, for his classes --
MR. ROCKIND: Let me be frank. I mean, I know some of these conditions sometimes are not -- I think they're difficult to enforce. But we take very seriously the fact that Mr. Remington has the potential to be released on bond throughout the pendency of the case. I know that's not an easy decision that's reached by the prosecutor's office. I don't think it's an easy decision that is to be reached by the Court and agreeing to the stipulated order. We're going to make sure that Mr. Remington is aware of that when -- when we're referring to social media, we mean, you know, nothing; not doing it, not asking someone to do it. And I have a -- I just think that if there was a hint that Mr. Remington was directing others to post on social media that it would -- there are enough people that are watching what Mr. Remington is doing or watching the case that I think that it would get discovered. correct.
THE COURT: You said he's in school at U of M?
MR. ROCKIND: He goes to University of Michigan,
THE COURT: Okay.
MR. ROCKIND: Ann Arbor.
THE COURT: Anything else that you want to state, Mr. Keast?
MR. KEAST: No, Judge. I appreciate the opportunity to amend the order on the record here today. I agree with everything that we have in the stipulated order and everything the Court has said as well.
THE COURT: Okay. I do need a new order and I need --
MR. ROCKIND: (Indiscernible), Your Honor, for us to, for Mr. Keast and I to work on that now? I can send it to him via DocuSign, or if he's more comfortable preparing, amending it and sending it to me and I can DocuSign and we can get it to the Court?
THE COURT: Yeah, that's fine. My issue is, can you send it both via the upload and email it to my staff?
MR. ROCKIND: Yes.
THE COURT: It's not letting me in my signing mechanism at all.
MR. ROCKIND: Your Honor, just so you know, that was how I wanted to do it originally, I wanted to send you the stip and order to your chambers and I -- and I was told to just file -- I'm not blaming your staff. I mean, I'm sure you guys are inundated with all kinds of stuff.
THE COURT: No, no, no, no, that's how we would choose to do it, I just have -- there's some issue going on where it's not letting me into the document at all.
MR. ROCKIND: Can we review, just so -- because I'm going to type up the order as soon as I get off the phone. Can we just review what the additional conditions are besides what's on the stip and order? So I have no drug -- additionally, besides what's already on there, no drug paraphernalia, no drugs, not to be in the company or presence of anyone using and/or possessing illicit drugs. What else, just so I --
THE COURT: I hate to lawyer it up, but just, I mean, as far as the defendant in this case, I don't want him to be in possession of any drugs either, not just using or paraphernalia, but no possession of any drugs whatsoever as well.
MR. ROCKIND: We will reiterate no possession or use by defendant.
THE COURT: And then not in the presence of anybody in possession, use. I actually don't want him -- I want him on home arrest, I'm just having a caveat in case someone comes to his home, that they say, well, it's my parents' friend or something.
MR. ROCKIND: Got it. Okay.
THE COURT: Cousin or whatever.
MR. ROCKIND: And then we have the no use of social media, and we have the -- do you want -- Judge, there's provisions within the 52-1 District Court order that require him to test four times a week for alcohol and drugs. He would have to leave the house to do that. Is that a condition that you still want to be in place?
THE COURT: Yeah.
MR. ROCKIND: Okay. And Pretrial Services monitoring.
THE COURT: Yeah. So that means tether from them. And I don't know if they tether him before he gets out.
MR. ROCKIND: I think they do, don't they? I mean, that's --
THE COURT: Depends if it's Pretrial Services or MDOC, right, Mr. Keast?
MR. ROCKIND: I don't think it would be an MDOC tether because he's not in prison, so I think it'd have to be -- it'd have to be Pretrial Services.
MR. KEAST: If it's a condition they'll tether him before he's let out.
MR. ROCKIND: I think they won't let him out of the jail without a tether.
THE COURT: Okay. I don't know what his other bond conditions were, of the other case. Did he VOP on that case, then?
MR. KEAST: The violation is a result of --
MR. ROCKIND: This is the basis for the probation violation, this charge.
THE COURT: I know, but has he gone in front of the judge on a VOP?
MR. ROCKIND: He's gone in front of Judge Jarbou and that case has been adjourned for the pendency of -- the outcome of this case.
THE COURT: Okay. Yeah, so the only reason I want you to send me that order two ways is because I can't get into the system, which I normally would not tell you to email it at all because
MR. ROCKIND: I will do it now.
THE COURT: Okay.
MR. ROCKIND: So I'm going to do exactly what we added with the conditions that you have here.
THE COURT: Okay. And Mr. Keast, you're in agreement with all the conditions and you're stipulating, it's your stipulation with regard to reducing the bond from the million to 10,000?
MR. KEAST: That's correct, Judge.
THE COURT: Okay. With the tether. Okay. Okay, thank you.
MR. ROCKIND: Thank you very much, Judge. (March 9, 2021 3:55 p.m proceedings concluded.)
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