Parish & Cooper
Elkhart
County, Indiana
Date of Alleged Crime: October 29, 1996
Christopher Parish and Keith Cooper were charged with
robbery and attempted murder. Two intruders allegedly shot and robbed
Michael Kershner in apartment F on the third floor of an apartment building
located at 729 Monroe Street in Elkhart. At the time of the shooting
five other people were reportedly in the apartment with Kershner. However, despite testimony that Kershner bled profusely in the car which
took him to the hospital, investigating officers found no evidence the
apartment was the scene of a crime. Cooper, identified as the alleged
shooter, was acquitted of the attempted murder, but convicted of the robbery
and sentenced to 40 years in prison. Parish was convicted of both
charges and sentenced to 30 years in prison.
The trial presented a conflict between identification witnesses and alibi
witnesses. There were problems with the identifications. Prior
to getting Kershner's initial identification, police got two non-critical
witnesses to identify Parish. Although Parish was 20 at the time of
the crime, Kershner identified him from an array of six photos in which
Parish's photo as a 13-year-old was placed alongside photos of much older
men in their 20's and 30's. This lineup suggests that police believed
the shooter was especially young and that were deliberately trying to get
Kershner to identify Parish. By the time of trial, the prosecution
lost the photo array and a supplemental report written about Kershner's
identification. That it “lost” these items suggests Kershner's initial
identification was dubious.
Eddie Love, a reported apartment occupant at the time of the crime and an
initial target of the shooter, identified Cooper at his trial, but refused
to testify at Parish's trial. Instead Detective Steve Rezutko gave a
hearsay account of Love's supposed identification of Parish. When
interviewed later by defense investigators, Love, who was 15 at the time of
the crime, said Rezutko had intimidated and coerced him into signing a
statement identifying Parish as well as falsely identifying Cooper as one of
the assailants at Cooper's trial.
The assailant who was the shooter reportedly left behind behind a hat. This hat was identified as belonging to Cooper. The prosecution
performed DNA tests on the hat which excluded it from belonging to Cooper. Nevertheless, the prosecution withheld the DNA test results from the
defense.
During trial, a prosecution witness, Jermaine Bradley, pulled a stunt that
was possibly suggested to him by an experienced member of the prosecution. Bradley claimed on the witness stand that Parish verbally threatened him in
the courtroom prior to his testimony. The claim was dubious because: (1) Bradley did not report it until he resumed testimony the following day. (2) The prosecution witnesses were kept segregated and were not milling
about in the courtroom. (3) No one else in the courtroom heard the
alleged threat. The claim served to prejudice the jury that Parish was
a violent person. It was cited by the prosecutor during his closing
argument and by the judge at Parish's sentencing. A defense
investigator later found two courtroom witnesses who escorted Bradley to the
witness stand on the day of the alleged threat. The two stated under
oath that Parish did not say anything to Bradley.
Parish had twelve alibi witnesses who could testify that he, his wife, and
children were 110 miles away, visiting relatives in Chicago, during the
hours surrounding the shooting. Most, but not all were family members. However, Parish's lawyer, Mark Doty, only produced seven of these witnesses
at trial, all family members, and subjected them to unnecessary
cross-examination by failing to tell them to report the alibi to the police
right away. Doty publicly admitted fault for this negligence. Doty also failed to use available evidence to challenge that a crime had
even occurred at the victim's apartment.
There is some evidence that Kershner and his friends fabricated the location
of the shooting. Two witnesses later said that Kershner was shot in a
laundromat parking lot across from the apartment complex. Eddie Love,
also, corroborated their account. Parish presumably did not know
the reason for the deception, if true, when he wrote the Justice: Denied
article referenced below. In its support, Kershner was on home
detention at the time of the shooting and presumably did not want the police
to know that he was outside his apartment. However, Kershner's family
who moved away in 1999 were unaware of case developments until 2008 when
contacted by a law clerk handling a civil case against the city of Elkhart. According to Kershner's sister, Chris Smallwood, their family strongly
denies the location was fabricated.
In 2005, an appeals court overturned Parish's conviction was and granted him
a new trial. In 2006, Cooper was given early release from prison. Also in 2006, prosecutors dropped charges against Parish citing evidence
that its witnesses lied at the first trial, making a second trial
problematic. [8/08]
________________________________
References:
Justice: Denied,
2005 Appeal,
Elkhart
Truth
Posted in:
Victims of the State,
Indiana Cases
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