On Thursday, May 1, Criminal Defense Attorney Anastase Markou provided live legal expertise on WZZM 13 through its livestreaming digital platforms for the fourth day of the murder trial of former GRPD officer Christopher Schurr.
Schurr is charged with second-degree murder in connection to the shooting death of Patrick Lyoya in April 2022. During the courtroom’s lunch recess on Thursday, Markou participated as a panel expert during WZZM’s digital livestream.
WZZM: We’re on day four of the murder trial of ex-GRPD officer Christopher Schurr. What is your perspective of what you have seen so far from the start on day one?
“It’s been an absolutely fascinating trial,” said Markou. “I think the concept of self-defense for a police officer and what that means is not something that's well settled in the law and we can see through all of the expert testimony about firearms, tasers – all of that type of testimony. It’s really a fascinating legal issue about how much of that is relevant on a self-defense type claim. It’s been great legal work from both sides.”
WZZM: We’re about halfway through day four (Thursday, May 1) and we have seen a lot of people from GRPD talking about policies that they have within the department and how that compares to the other experts. What’s your reaction to what we’ve heard so far on day four?
“Well, I can tell you as a criminal defense lawyer I would have objected to that type of testimony if the prosecutor had offered it because some of the questions seem to be really about the ultimate issue here: What was reasonable and whether or not the officer had an actual fear,” Markou said. “However, when you're talking about self-defense, Michigan law is pretty clear that the jury’s supposed to consider it from the standpoint or the viewpoint of the person who's claiming self-defense, and because he’s an officer and he’s had that training and he’s had that experience, that is relevant in some ways to the ultimate question the jury has to reach. I think there’s some leeway the judge is allowing here that some judges probably would not.”
WZZM: What are your thoughts on Kent County prosecutor’s awareness of GRPD policies
“We all know that as defense lawyers that the chief prosecuting official is the chief law enforcement officer for that county and he should be aware of what the policies are,” said Markou. “I’m sure he’s had input at some point – prosecutors do have input on policies like that. The second point about the delay in trying to interview defense witnesses, I don't know why that happened. It creates a problem for the prosecution in this case and they waited so long to interview basically their own officers. It's a strange tension that’s going on there that you just don't see normally. Those are his officers. Those are the officers that that office relies upon for all their other cases and that he's cross-examining them. That tension is pretty evident.”
WZZM: Do you think it would be a good or bad idea if Christopher Schurr were to take the stand
“That’s such a judgement call based on your evaluation as a defense lawyer, interviewing your client and then assessing where the evidence is at that particular point in time,” Markou said. “Most defense lawyers know that for self-defense you have an initial burden of production – meaning you have to show at least some evidence of self-defense in order to get the jury instruction. That's clearly out here from the video and from the testimony that's already out there. Now, it really is a strategic decision and you just don't know whether or not he's going to hurt the case more than help. That's ultimately the decision that every defense lawyer has to make on a case like this – will it will it help more than it hurts. That's a tough decision to make in any situation like this because the reality is none of us know right at that moment you're making the decision is the jury on our side or not. You make your best assessment based on the evidence that's come in and your own assessment of how well your client does with public speaking, how well they handle pressure, how well they understand questions. Some people are very literal, they just are, and they might not hold up well the questioning – because they don't really understand what's happening.
“Some of my clients are really argumentative – that's just who they are as people. You don't really want them necessarily arguing in front of a jury – so those are all kind of personality issues that the defense lawyer has to assess.”
WZZM: Do you think the defense is setting up a good case for possible appeal if it gets to that point?
“There are two different types of you know appeals that can be done,” said Markou. “One is the judge was wrong to allow in this ultimate opinion issue. What’s going to happen on the appeal is, I think, if it gets to that point, a court of appeals might very well say that the judge was wrong on allowing some of that testimony in. But then the next question is, how was he prejudiced? The judge has now allowed the other side to do the same thing. So now the question becomes how does that really affect the ultimate decision from the court? Will the court of appeals say, ‘we don’t care about prejudice because this is so obviously an error?’
“I don't know how that’s going to go, but it’s clear that the defense lawyers are preserving all the issues they need to preserve for the appeal, and I think they're doing an excellent job doing that.”
WZZM: We’re seeing questions about why GRPD officers are only for the defense and not the prosecution. What’s you’re perspective? Do you think that’s a good move for the prosecution or do you think it hurts them?
“I'm just going to read between the lines here and say that the prosecuting attorney knew early on during this investigation that that police force was not going to be favorable in talking about their policies and how they would have reacted under those circumstances – so he made the tactical decision to go to experts outside,” Markou said. “Whether the jury finds the local police officers to be more credible and understand the policies better than the national that's really for the for the jury to decide. Ultimately, you can see that what Mr. Becker is saying here is what he's trying to do, and whether it’s effective is a different question, he’s trying to say, ‘Yeah, we have policies about totality and about reasonable, but what I’m asking you is what does that really mean under these circumstances?’ And he's trying to get these witnesses to say, ‘What about this? What about this?’ And he’s done some effective cross-examination on those on those topics.
“Ultimately, on self-defense, there's an element of necessity about acting in self-defense when you kill somebody – that’s an issue – we don't know whether this foot pursuit is part of that or not, we don't know how much that testimony is going to weigh for the jury. There's also a question about duty to retreat because Michigan has complex exceptions about when you have a duty to retreat and when you don't. So all of these different witnesses from both sides are creating questions and the judge is going to have to instruct the jury on the law on that and we’ll see how that plays out down the road.”
WZZM: What is the perception this is creating for GRPD?
“In in my opinion, of course it's going to open up discussion about policies,” said Markou. “If you're having testimony that, under our training, you can shoot somebody in the back of the head under these circumstances, then sure, it’s going to open up discussions about whether that's good policy or not. Same with foot pursuit – when there is no policy in place. Ultimately, this is a criminal case and you just want to make sure that there’s due process and that there’s a fair and just result and that's what the system’s designed to do. After that, it’s really for the political process to kind of play out and figure out whether or not that local police department needs to re-evaluate their own policies.”
WZZM: Talking about expert witness, how does one become an expert witness? Talk to us about that process.
“What actually happened in this case is really confusing to me because it’s not particularly clear how these people were allowed to testify on opinions when there wasn't a clear basis set forth foundation and then, ‘Hey, they’re an expert in this.’ They’re clearly allowed to testify about their own training, but to give the opinion testimony was where you're really talking about expert opinion. I found this whole expert issue to be unusual in my experience.”
WZZM: What are you expecting to see as the day continues?
“For the rest of day four – just the rest of the expert opinions and see how they play out and how far the defense can get with the expert opinion and how far the judge is going to allow them to go on some of the issues that are really critical for self-defense claims,” said Markou. “For the rest of the trial - it's whether or not he's going to be testifying – whether the defendant is going to testify in this case. It’s fascinating, and then my issue is, because I do a lot of appellate work, I really am curious about the final jury instructions. This is going to be absolutely fascinating on some critical issues on self-defense.”
Watch the full panel discussion starting at the 4:12:30 mark: https://bit.ly/44gdJKU
