LOCAL

Lansing man's bid for hearing to overturn '81 murder conviction stopped

Lansing State Journal

LANSING - A Lansing's man effort to reverse his murder and sexual assault convictions from the early 1980s ended Tuesday during a hearing in Ingham County Circuit Court.

Michael Harris, 54, is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole in the 1981 killing of Ula Curdy, 77, of Lansing. She was found dead in her home.

A judge denied a motion for a hearing that could have led to a new trial for 54-year-old Michael Harris.

In addition to the sentence in Curdy's death, Harris is serving life sentences for murdering three other women in 1981 and 1982 in Lansing, Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti. He has said he's innocent of all four crimes and accused the Michigan State Crime lab of falsifying DNA evidence.

A 2015 order for DNA testing — which was not available in 1983 — found DNA on Curdy's girdle that did not match Harris, but did match someone whose DNA was in an FBI database. That new evidence started a process that could have led to a new trial for Harris. A decision was expected to come during an evidentiary hearing scheduled for next month.

However, additional recent testing on DNA found at the crime scene did match to Harris, prosecutors said during Tuesday's hearing, which required Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Rosemarie Aquilina to deny the request for an evidentiary hearing.

Harris, who represented himself, told Aquilina that the hearing should be held so he can question the MSP crime lab technicians who worked the case. The DNA samples that were tested could have been contaminated or falsified, Harris said.

He added that prosecutors now asking Aquilina to deny his request for an evidentiary hearing, after previously agreeing to it, was a "break of public trust."

When it came to evidence connecting others to the scene or Harris' request for an evidentiary hearing, Aquilina said the statute prevented her from allowing the procedure to move forward.

She added that based on the evidence placing Harris at the scene, "The jury got it right."

Contact Matt Mencarini at (517) 267-1347 or mmencarini@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattMencarini.