Oakland County judge to decide if Farmington Hills man can be resentenced for 2011 murder

Kara Berg The Detroit News Published: May 24, 2023, 5:05 Pm ET

Pontiac — An Oakland County judge is considering a request from prosecutors and

defense attorneys to vacate a Farmington Hills man's first-degree murder

conviction and resentence him for second-degree murder after two key witnesses

recanted testimony they gave at trial.

Oakland County Circuit Court Judge Mary Ellen Brennan said Wednesday she plans

to watch the entirety of the original trial, the surveillance video that captured part of

the murder and will go over all relevant evidence in Hayes Bacall's case.

Bacall, 63, was sentenced to life in prison in 2011 for killing his nephew, 33-year-old

Saif Jameel. Each of his four appeals — to the Michigan Court of Appeals, the

Michigan Supreme Court, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of

Michigan and the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals — was denied or not heard by

the court.

Now, prosecutors and Bacall's attorneys are trying to get Bacall resentenced for

second-degree murder due to prosecutorial misconduct and lies two witnesses told

during the trial. Neither witness is being prosecuted for perjury at this time, said

Assistant Prosecutor David Williams, though it remains an option.

"What we have in this case is a first-degree murder conviction that hangs by a

thread," Williams said.

Conviction Integrity Unit Director Beth Greenberg Morrow said the unit looked at

emails sent to and by Bacall from prison and checked his visitor and phone log to

see who he had been talking to to ensure he hadn't influenced witnesses. She said

what the witnesses told them in interviews last year matches more closely to what

they told police immediately after the shooting than it does to their trial testimony.

"We recognize this is family," Greenberg Morrow said. "This has divided this family

so drastically and so tragically that there's going to be interaction (between parties).

Our investigation did not show there was undue influence by Bacall or people who

have sided with Bacall on the witnesses."

Brennan expressed concerns that neither witness answered questions about how

Bacall's family knew they wanted to recant their testimony. Bacall's attorney, David

Gorcyca, said some of Bacall's family members called him and mentioned the two

witnesses who wanted to recant their testimony, which he passed along to the

prosecutor's office.

Brennan will have to determine the credibility of the witnesses and if the new

information would make a different result probable on retrial.

"An inability to hear unfettered testimony would've certainly impacted the trial,"

Gorcyca said. "Had they heard truthful testimony, it could've been manslaughter, it

could've been an acquittal."

The Oakland County Conviction Integrity Unit reviewed the case in 2022 and

determined that prosecutorial misconduct related to lies the prosecutor told during

closing arguments, as well as witnesses recanting their testimony, resulted in a weak

conviction. The prosecutor said several times during closing arguments that Bacall

had never brought up a self-defense case before the trial began, which was not true.

"The lawfulness of Hayes Bacall's first-degree murder conviction has been

questioned for more than a decade," Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald's

office wrote in a statement. "Upon review, it became clear that the meager evidence

in support of a deeply flawed conviction had been undermined, and that the

conviction of first-degree murder could no longer stand. Instead, the CIU

determined that the remaining evidence was only sufficient to support a conviction

for second-degree murder."

With the newly discovered evidence, it would be a "miscarriage of justice" to allow

Hayes Bacall's conviction and sentence to stand, according to the motion filed by

prosecutors and Gorcyca. This testimony was "central" to the prosecutor's case

because Bashi was the only eyewitness, and Samir Bacall laid the foundation that

Hayes Bacall acted with the required premeditation, according to the joint motion.

Taking away Bashi's story that portrayed Jameel as a calm actor who was abruptly

shot by Bacall "materially alter(s)" the facts, as does taking away Samir Bacall's

testimony about previous threats to kill Jameel and his son, the joint motion from

Bacall's attorneys and the Oakland County Prosecutor's Office said.

Jameel's widow, Genniver Jameel, has expressed concerns that Bacall's family is

making campaign donations to McDonald in an effort to sway the decisions in this

case.

Hayes Bacall's three brothers, his son, the Chaldean Chamber of Commerce's

political action committee, 15 other people connected to the chamber and three

others donated $86,000 to McDonald's reelection campaign over a two-day period,

May 17-18, 2022. The influx of donations represented 94% of McDonald's total

fundraising in the first seven months of 2022, a Detroit News analysis of campaign

finance reports shows.

McDonald's office and Bacall's son, Maher Bacall, said the donations have nothing

to do with Hayes Bacall's case.

"The Conviction Integrity Unit is independent and bases its decision on the

evidence," the prosecutor's office said in a statement. "Any suggestion that the

Conviction Integrity Unit’s review of this case and subsequent conclusion was based

on anything other than the facts is absolutely false and deeply offensive."

Credit Detroit news

kberg@detroitnews.com

Print Story Here