GRAND RAPIDS, MI - The Michigan Attorney General has decided to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to restore the second-degree murder conviction for a stabbing death in 2000.

Antonio Garcia Dorantes, 37, was convicted in the Oct. 22, 2000, stabbing death of Jose Delores Gomez and wounding of Manual Garcia.

About a month ago, Garcia-Dorantes was released from prison after serving 15-1/2 years of a 15 to 50-year sentence imposed by Kent County Circuit Court Judge Donald Johnston, following a 2001 trial.

Garcia-Dorante's Sept. 10, 2001, conviction fell in a 16-month period in 2001 and 2002 when the court's computer program used to select people for the jury pools failed to send notices to people living in areas predominately populated by minorities.

The problem was allegedly fixed in 2002, but several people convicted at that time appealed their convictions. Garcia-Dorantes is the only successful appeal, so far.

Garcia-Dorantes' appeals were denied in Michigan, but in late 2013, U.S. District Judge David Lawson in Detroit ordered the state to release Garcia-Dorantes or bring him to trial.

The state Attorney General's Office appealed to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati which, in a 2-1 vote in September, affirmed the Detroit court's decision.

Now, the AG's office has decided to ask the nation's highest court to consider the case, according to Garcia-Dorantes' attorney, Brett Stevenson of the Kent County Office of the Defender.

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to decide by early March whether it will hear the case. If SCOTUS refuses to hear the case, it could come back to Kent County for a trial on a charge of second-degree murder.

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a similar case in 2010 saying the defendant failed to demonstrate real harm as a result of the glitch.

Complicating matters further, Garcia-Dorantes was picked by U.S. immigration authorities earlier this month and housed at the St. Clair County Jail, according to court documents. He has since been transferred back to Kent County awaiting a potential retrial.

But a retrial next spring may be a pointless exercise because the 2001 Kent County jury found Garcia-Dorantes not guilty of first-degree murder and if he is again found guilty of second-degree, Garcia-Dorantes will have already served his sentence.

Garcia-Dorantes claimed self-defense in a drunken fight in front of a home where Gomez lived with his brother's family in the early hours of Oct. 22, 2000.

Police said Garcia-Dorantes pulled out a folding knife during a fight with the two victims.Garcia-Dorantes said he thought others were involved in a gang and he was only defending himself.

Lawson, the Detroit Federal Court judge, said Garcia-Dorantes made a credible claim that black and Hispanic jurors from urban areas would more likely have encountered gang violence than whites in the suburbs - and better understood a 4 a.m. confrontation in the street.

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