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Kent County Prosecuting Attorney's Office administrator Nadine Schut demonstrates the computer program used to assign cases to Kent C0unty Circuit Court Judges on March 13, 2013.

(Barton Deiters | MLive.com)

The computer software used to assign cases to Kent County Circuit Court judges.

GRAND RAPIDS, MI – Frank Stanley specializes in defending people accused of sex crimes. Some of his cases have garnered significant attention - including that of Chad Servis, who was sentenced by Judge Mark Trusock to three years in prison for accosting children for immoral purposes.

Trusock was also the Kent County Circuit Court judge who sentenced Stanley’s client Richard Schmeling to three to 10 years in prison for using a camera-phone to peep into a dance studio changing room used by young girls.

The fact that both these high-profile cases ended up before the same judge led Stanley, a 35-year veteran attorney, to question how judges were being picked for Kent County cases.

“My interest in the issue was triggered by my own experiences where an unusually high percentage of my (criminal sexual conduct) cases were assigned to Judge Trusock,” Stanley wrote in an Oct. 16 memo. “That did not seem statistically possible.”

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Stanley demanded information from the Kent County Prosecutor’s Office regarding how judges are picked.

He went to great lengths to state that he was not alleging any impropriety by the prosecution or Trusock.

“My suspicion was that perhaps one or more clerks might have recognized a high-profile case and may have decided to assign that case to a particular judge rather than using the random draw,” Stanley wrote.

Registered sex offender Chad Eric Servis appears in Wyoming District Court in Wyoming, Mich. Wednesday, July 10, 2013. At right is his attorney Frank Stanley and at left is Kent County prosecutor Chris Becker.

Kent County Prosecutor William Forsyth was not assuaged by Stanley’s assertion.

“I find it offensive because it implies we’re judge-shopping and that is just not happening,” Forsyth said.

The current system for assigning judges is housed in the Prosecutor’s Office at 82 Ionia Ave. NW. It was designed by Steve Watson of the county information technology department in 2008.

The Prosecutor’s Office administrator, Nadine Schut, is one of the people who enters the cases into the computer program, which randomly selects judges.

However, the judge selection system has an override function.

Judge selection could be manually overridden in order to make sure the defendant has the same judge, even if they have multiple cases, as well as making sure co-defendants are tried in front of the same judge.

Included among the listed reasons that a judge selection could be overridden was the miscellaneous category labeled as “other.”

Stanley focused on the “other” button, saying its non-specific nature gave at least the appearance of limiting the random nature of the judge selection.

But Forsyth explains that even when the “other” option is used, the clerk must provide a rationale for it.

Fosyth said as a result of Stanley’s objections, more categories have been added, but the “other” option remains necessary.

“You can’t have a category that covers every possible eventuality,” Forsyth said.

For example, Forsyth cited a case involving a judge who was a neighbor of one of the alleged victims. That judge had to recuse himself from a case.

“You can’t just say ‘I’m going to assign it to Judge Trusock because it’s Frank Stanley’s case. You have to have a legitimate reason for doing it.”

Forsyth said Stanley is the only attorney he is aware of who filed a formal motion questioning the selection system, although other attorneys have had informal questions.

Richard Hillary, director of the Kent County Office of the Defender - which provides appointed attorneys for more than 2,000 cases each year - said his office recently did a study of how judges were appointed.

Kent County Prosecutor William Forsyth

Hillary said he looked at 50 of the most recent homicide cases, as well as numerous criminal sexual conduct cases, and found there was balance of assignment between the six criminal felony court judges.

Among 33 Kent County Circuit Court cases with Stanley acting as attorney in 2012-13: seven went to Trusock, nine went to Judge Donald Johnston, five went to judges George Buth and Paul Sullivan, four went to Judge Dennis Leiber and three went to Judge James Robert Redford.

“If we felt one judge was getting major cases more than the others, we would have said something long ago,” Hillary said.

But Hillary said he understands why Stanley might question the system, seeing as how it is run out of the Prosecutor's Office.

“From (Stanley’s) point of view, it’s kind of like the fox watching the hen house,” Hillary said.

Hillary said his office was part of the process six years ago and signed off on the system used now.

The current judge selection process replaced a system where the judges were assigned by the Kent County Circuit Court staff, and was done only when the case moved from the district courts - where defendants are arraigned and have a probable cause hearing.

Lawyers for both the defense and prosecution wanted a system where the circuit court judge was decided earlier because that could impact early plea negotiations.

The vast majority of cases never make it to trial but are resolved through negotiation. But whom the sentencing judge might be can be a significant factor in whether a defendant makes a plea.

While making sure to state that he is accusing no one in the Prosecutor’s Office of any purposeful wrongdoing, Stanley says he is still not 100 percent satisfied with the answers he's received. But he is vague about what he thinks the exact problem may be.

“I have my concerns,” is all Stanley will say.

E-mail Barton Deiters: bdeiters@mlive.com and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/GRPBarton or Facebook at facebook.com/bartondeiters.5