156189 - People v Travis Sammons
Attorney Information
The People of the State
of Michigan,
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Carmen Fillmore
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Plaintiff-Appellee,
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v
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(Appeal from Ct of
Appeals)
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(Saginaw – Jackson, D.)
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Travis Travon Sammons,
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Gaetan Gerville-Reache
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Defendant-Appellant.
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Order Link
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Opinions Link
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Summary
Page Content
A jury convicted defendant Travis
Sammons and his codefendant Dominique Ramsey, Jr., of conspiracy to commit open
murder for the fatal shooting of Humberto Casas. Independent eyewitnesses testified to the
shooting. One eyewitness identified the
vehicle in which the assailants had fled and in which defendant and his
codefendant were found eleven minutes after the shooting. Another eyewitness positively identified
defendant as the shooter in a lineup conducted at the police station hours
after the shooting. Defendant and his
codefendant were jointly tried, and the jury found both guilty of conspiracy to
commit open murder. They each filed a motion
for a directed verdict or a new trial.
The trial court denied defendant’s motion, holding that there was
sufficient evidence to convict him of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder,
but granted the codefendant’s motion and acquitted him of conspiracy to commit
murder. Defendant appealed. The Court of Appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court, after ordering the
prosecuting attorney to respond to defendant’s application for leave to appeal,
has ordered oral argument on the application to address whether (1) the lineup identification
procedure at the police station was impermissibly suggestive, see People v Kurylczyk, 443 Mich 289,
303-306 (1993); (2) if so, whether the identification was nonetheless
sufficiently reliable to be admitted at trial, see Perry v New Hampshire, 565 US 228, 238-239 (2012); and (3) if
improperly admitted, whether it is more probable than not that the erroneous
admission of the detective’s identification testimony affected the outcome of
the trial, see People v Lukity, 460
Mich 484, 496 (1999).