A possible explanation for a Niles teenager’s apparent lack of remorse in the March 7, 2010, unprovoked shooting death of his sleeping grandfather was offered Thursday in Berrien County Trial Court in Niles.
The question is whether it’ll be enough for the teen, Dakotah Eliason, just 14 when the shooting took place, to obtain a new trial. That question won’t be answered for at least several weeks.
Judge Scott Schofield gave Jonathan Sacks, an attorney for the state appellate defender’s office, and Elizabeth Wild, a lawyer representing the Berrien prosecutor’s office, until March 5 to file closing arguments in the form of briefs. He’ll rule afterward but he didn’t specify a date.
Thursday’s evidentiary hearing, a continuation of a session adjourned Dec. 8, was ordered by the state Court of Appeals based on Dakotah’s appeal that he’d received ineffective representation at trial from his attorney, Lanny Fisher.
Specifically, the argument was that Fisher failed to call to the stand an expert to explain why Dakotah showed no remorse in the aftermath of his shooting of his grandfather, Jesse Miles.
Sacks argued at the Dec. 8 hearing that the teen’s lack of remorse was a strand county Prosecutor Art Cotter presented to the jury throughout Dakotah’s trial.
“The underlying message ... was that he (Dakotah) must be a sociopath. The defense didn’t counter that,’’ Sacks said.
Also on Dec. 8, Fisher agreed with Sacks he had no strategic reason not to call such an expert. But under cross-examination by Wild, he also said he retained an independent expert to evaluate his client’s mental health but decided not to have him testify because his opinion was roughly the same as that rendered by the expert hired by the prosecution.
Also, Fisher said he decided against having Dakotah take the stand because his testimony under cross-examination had the potential of being “a disaster.’’
The result was a guilty verdict of first-degree murder, penalized by life in prison without parole. Had the jury instead accepted defense arguments that the killing wasn’t premeditated, it might have returned a verdict of second-degree murder that at least offers the possibility of parole.
Thursday, James Henry, a mental health expert from Kalamazoo’s Western Michigan University and the director of the Southwest Michigan Children’s Trauma Assessment Center, said an interview he conducted with Dakotah 17 months after the shooting revealed he was still reeling at the time of the crime from his mother’s decision a year and a half earlier to sign off on her parental rights.
Also, his dog — “The most significant relationship he had was with his dog,’’ Henry said — had died five months before, a close friend had just committed suicide, a cousin had just been killed in a car accident and his father had just lost his job, prompting the loss of his home and the decision to relocate the family to Dakotah’s grandparents’ residence. All those factors prompted Dakotah to “disassociate’’ from reality in the moments preceding the shooting, Henry said, adding Dakotah believed his only two options were suicide or homicide.
“He spoke of the events as if he was watching a movie,’’ Henry said.
Asked by Sacks whether his decision to shoot his grandfather and his initial lack of remorse was evidence of someone being a sociopath, Henry said no.
“You have to look at the context,’’ said Henry, who diagnosed Dakotah as suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and disassociation.
But Wild argued Dakotah’s retrieval of his grandfather’s gun as well as a pair of knives was evidence of premeditation. She wondered too why, if Dakotah indeed was so desperate, no one in his family or at Niles High School where he had been an honor student noticed it.
Henry’s final question was asked by Schofield, who wondered aloud if Henry had noticed any “glaring inadequacy’’ in three earlier psychological reports compiled on Dakotah.
“I would want to know why a boy would kill someone he loved,’’ Henry said. “Those reports weren’t able to answer that question.’’
Staff writer Lou Mumford:
lmumford@sbtinfo.com
269-687-3551
