JUDGE BLOUNT’S SEPT. 25 DENIAL OF RECONSIDERATION ON RIMMER’S MOTIONS FOR NEW TRIAL, EVIDENTIARY HEARING JUST SURFACED
DENIAL FILED AFTER PROTESTS SEPT. 10/SEPT. 24; GETS CASE OUT OF LIMBO, RIMMER CAN NOW PROCEED TO COURT OF APPEALS
JUDGE BLOUNT DELIBERATEY IGNORED RULINGS BY STATE APPELLATE COURTS, SCOTUS IN RULING ON RIMMER’S RECONSIDERATION MOTION
By Diane Bukowski
January 20, 2025
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DETROIT--The case of Ricky Rimmer, a Michigan lifer acclaimed by hundreds who served time with him as a peacemaker, teacher, and leader, is moving forward to the Court of Appeals at last.
James Harris and Leo Haidys, two criminally corrupt Detroit cops, engineered his wrongful 1975 conviction for the murder of a local car dealer.
On Sept. 25, 2024, Third (Wayne) Circuit Court Judge Christopher Blount finally denied Rimmer’s motion for reconsideration of his Feb. 9 ruling denying Rimmer’s motion for a new trial and evidentiary hearing. Dozens of Rimmer’s supporters had just rallied outside the new Criminal Justice Center Sept. 10 and Sept. 20, 2024. (The new ruling was belatedly posted on Rimmer’s Register of Actions.)
Blount’s father Michael Blount worked with Harris on the notorious killer cop unit S.T.R.E.S.S. and afterwards on Detroit Mayor Coleman Young’s security team.
Judge Blount has not denied knowing Harris as a family friend, and refused comment to VOD on his relationship to Harris.
VOD recently witnessed a hearing in Judge Blount’s courtroom, during which he mercilessly berated an older Black woman who had been locked up in the Wayne County Jail for months. She tearfully begged him for release on bond because the state was planning to take her child away from her if she didn’t return home shortly. Blount sent her crying out “Somebody please help me” back to the jail.
Protests at the Wayne County Criminal “Justice” Center where the jail is located were held in September to call for freedom for Ricky Rimmer (video at top of story from Sept. 10), and on Sept. 20 to condemn conditions at the new jail, where there had been two suicides since it opened. (Facebook videos below.)
The ruling still violates previous state appellate court rulings that “newly-discovered evidence” presented under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963) – Justia US … a U.S. Supreme Court opinion that has been expanded with multiple subsequent orders, cannot be dealt with using the restrictive State of Michigan standards of People v. Cress, 664 N.W.2d 174, 468 Mich. 678 – CourtListener.
It also refuses to hold an evidentiary hearing during which two witnesses will testify to their affidavits which expose James Harris’ criminal conspiracy to convict Rimmer by ordering witnesses who were under arrest to “get their stories together.”
(Affidavit excerpt) “That later that evening, myself, [and two others], and Sgt. James Harris were in a room together and Sgt. Harris told us to get our stories together on Ricky Rimmer because Rimmer was the person he wanted us to say was the one who shot the car salesman.
“That myself, [and two others] had conversations in that room at police headquarters, during which we agreed to say that Ricky Rimmer killed the car salesman.
“That I did not see Ricky Rimmer shoot and rob the car salesman on August 7, 1975, nor was Ricky Rimmer present during the planning of the robbery.”
Complete ruling at: http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/Ricky-Rimmer-Opinion-and-Order-From-Judge-Blount-9-25-24-2.pdf
Ricky Rimmer’s attorney is currently preparing his appeal to the Michigan Court of Appeals, which must be filed within six months after the date of Blount’s ruling.
“FREE RICKY RIMMER NOW!” PROTESTS AT JAIL SEPT. 10, SEPT 20, 2024
(Below) Demetris Knuckles-El, Travis Herndon decry conditions at jail on 9/20/2024, during an event called by Knuckles-El.
(Below) Travis Herndon speaks on Ricky Rimmer’s case outside jail 9/20/2024: “Did your father ever bring James Harris over for dinner—did you ever meet James Harris—was this a friend of the family—do you have a relationship with him? You are giving off the appearance of bias.”
(Below, Demetris Knuckles-El and Larry D. Smith advocate for Rimmer’s release during the Sept. 10, 2024 protest in his support at the jail.
Rimmer himself spoke Sept. 20 at the second of two protests held outside Detroit’s Criminal Justice Center (WCCJC) that month. Demetrius Knuckles-El of Michigan Liberation, who called the event, held a mike to his phone as Rimmer’s words boomed out loud and clear from Michigan’s Chippewa Correctional Facility in the state’s Upper Peninsula.
“I’m still fighting the good fight, staying out of trouble and trying to get up out of here,” he told a gathering of advocates protesting the abominable conditions at the newly-opened prison, dubbed Detroit’s “Guantanamo Bay.”
“I’ve been locked up almost 50 years, and I’m still waiting for Judge Christopher Blount to rule on my motion for reconsideration of his denial of an evidentiary hearing,” Rimmer said then. “The reason why this judge is so important, his father Michael Blount was an officer on STRESS with James Harris. When Coleman Young got rid of STRESS, he put Harris and Blount on his security squad for years.”
“The judge copied the prosecutor’s brief to deny me—but everything the prosecutor put in that brief was wrong. Both police in my case were crooked, they testified falsely and coerced others to testify falsely. James Harris served 20 years in federal prison for protecting drug shipments into Detroit, and Leo Haidys was charged for his role in beating Black youth at a church event calling them n——s, and threatening them with a gun.”
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CASH APP 313-825-6126 MDianeBukowski
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