Daily Stormer The Most Censored Publication in History
M Live
August 18, 2014
A judge has reinstated torture charges against two people accused of brutally beating a homeless man to death outside of a shuttered Flint middle school.
Genesee Circuit Judge Archie Hayman ruled Tuesday, Aug. 12, that he would reinstate torture charges against Peris Dorsette and Brandon Harris. The two are accused of killing 57-year-old Gary Nagy July 30, 2013, near McKinley Middle School, on the city’s south side.
Hayman made the ruling after Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton’s office filed a motion asking the judge to reverse a ruling made by Flint District Judge Herman Marable during the pair’s preliminary exam.
“We believe the judge made the correct ruling in reinstating the charge of torture,” Leyton said following Hayman’s ruling.
Marable dismissed the torture charge in October 2013 after a lengthy debate between prosecutors and defense attorneys Michael Ewing and Jodi Hemingway.
“It’s not a charge you see very often,” Ewing said.
Ewing, who represents the 21-year-old Dorsette, argued the accusations levied against his client don’t meet the threshold for torture.
“I think that people confuse torture and terrible injury,” Ewing said.
Hemingway, who represents Harris, could not be reached for comment.
Police said Dorsette, Harris and two others were walking to get cigarettes from King’s Lane apartments sometime after midnight July 2013, when Nagy was attacked.
A witness told police the men were walking through the parking lot at the now-closed McKinley School when they heard a noise and saw Nagy sleeping under a dumpster cover, according to police. They allegedly began “taunting and teasing” Nagy about being homeless and asking why he was sleeping under a dumpster.
Words were then exchanged between Nagy and the group, police said.
Dorsette allegedly told his friends he “felt disrespected” and then began to kick Nagy in the head, according to police.
The 15-year-old Harris also joined in, police said. The beating lasted 10 to 15 minutes, according to court testimony.
Ewing said he was not surprised to see the charge reinstated, and he doesn’t believe the addition will greatly change the case against his client since Dorsette was still facing an open murder charge that could land him in prison for the rest of his life.
However, the addition of the torture charge allowed prosecutors to also reinstate a felony murder charge against the pair.
“It allows us to also reinstate the charge of felony murder with torture as the underlying felony,” Leyton said. “So, it’s an important step towards justice for the victim’s family and friends.”
Ewing said the felony murder charge allows prosecutors a second chance to secure a first-degree murder conviction.
An open murder charge allows jurors the opportunity to return a second-degree murder conviction if they don’t find the suspects acted with premeditation. Second-degree murder is punishable by any term of years in prison or up to life with the possibility of parole.
First-degree premeditated and first-degree felony murder are both punishable by mandatory sentences of life in prison without parole.
“(Prosecutors) are using it as their insurance,” Ewing said of the felony murder charge.
However, even if the case goes to trial and jurors return a first-degree murder conviction against both suspects, Harris could still walk away without a life sentence.
Harris, who was 15 at the time of Nagy’s death, would be eligible for a specialized sentencing hearing after a 2012 Supreme Court ruling that deemed it unconstitutional for juveniles to face a mandatory life sentence without parole.
Gov. Rick Snyder, in light of the Supreme Court decision, signed a law in March that gave judges the discretion to sentence teen killers to life in prison or 25 to more than 60 years in prison following the sentencing hearing that often includes testimony on the juvenile’s upbringing, school record and criminal history.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision, four Genesee County teens have been convicted of murder charges that require the specialized sentencing hearing.
Below is a database that outlines each of the four teen’s cases:
