Judge dismisses charges for Winston
His first lawyer failed him, but Michael Winston and his friends had hugs and congratulations for his last one.
The celebration followed a judge’s decision Monday to dismiss robbery, kidnapping and attempted homicide charges for which Winston has already served six years in prison. Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Christopher Dee earlier had granted Winston a new trial based on ineffective assistance of counsel at his original trial.
But after a prosecutor said police still haven’t found a key witness — the victim — and weren’t like to do so any time soon, Winston’s attorney Michael Plaisted moved to dismiss the charges and Dee granted the motion.
“It’s imperative for people who do what I do to get it right the first time,” Plaisted said after the brief hearing. “Because in these situations, there’s no guarantee anyone will get a new trial.”
“We’re very gratified Judge Dee gave us a chance, and we’re confident that if this had gone to trial, we would have prevailed.”
Winston, 36, was so confident about the dismissal, he didn’t dress for trial; he appeared in light blue shorts and a white T-shirt. He had been free on a signature bond and GPS monitoring since Dee granted a new trial, and the state wasn’t ready for the first date, in June.
At a trial in 2013, Winston and another man were convicted of the 2012 crime. A third co-defendant was acquitted and a fourth had pleaded guilty to part of the offense and testified for the state — but said Winston was not present.
Winston always denied involvement and said he was with his girlfriend, Natasha Rodefer, at the time of the offense. But the day of trial, his attorney, Diane Caspari, said Rodefer had called that morning to say she wasn’t coming. Caspari didn’t mention that until a jury was picked, and didn’t ask for a delay or a court order to produce the witness.
Caspari was suspended from practice for six months in 2016, in part for her initial handling of Winston’s post-
conviction motions, but not for her decision to proceed at trial without the Rodefer’s testimony.
Winston was sentenced to 23 years in prison and began filing post-conviction motions. Plaisted was appointed to assist him last year, and in November, Dee vacated Stinson’s conviction and granted a new trial after finding that the alibi witness might have changed the outcome at trial.
Complicating matters, Rodefer had died in September. But Dee later ruled that in light of that, at a new trial Winston could introduce a detailed report an investigator made of his interview with Rodeker before the first trial.
Last month, prosecutors charged Winston with bail jumping, after an intern at the District Attorney’s office found a photo of him on Facebook with his brothers at a funeral. One of his conditions of release was to not have contact with them, because of their connections to the original case.
Assistant District Attorney Dennis Stingl on Monday asked Dee to also dismiss that charge.
Plaisted said Stingl “did the right thing” by dropping that case in light of Dee’s decision to dismiss the 2012 case.
“It was weak and petty to begin with,” he said.