Michigan Man Unhappy With Conviction Seeks Overturn and Loses
Christopher Farrsiar and his girlfriend were arrested for meth possession and production in 2013. Farrsiar’s girlfriend, Tammy Korpela, accepted a plea bargain which gave her reduced charges in return for her testimony against Farrsiar. As a result of her testimony, among other things, Farrsiar was convicted on three meth charges, and sentenced to prison.
But Farrsiar wasn’t happy. He believed that the trial was a farce and he was wrongly convicted. And so he took his conviction back to court in the hopes that he could have it overturned. The Michigan Court of Appeals, as it turns out, doesn’t agree, and chose to uphold the conviction.
According to Farrsiar, his conviction was flawed first and foremost, because his girlfriend was not a credible witness. In her testimony she had told the court that during the time she and Farrsiar dated, they both produced and used methamphetamines. But Farrsiar felt that she could not be considered a reliable source of information.
After all, he pointed out, Korpela suffered from a mental illness which affects her thought process. How could a mentally ill person provide valid testimony he argued. But Korpela’s mental illness had in fact been mentioned in court, so the jury wasn’t unaware of it. And they still chose to accept her testimony.
He also argued that she had changed her story after accepting the plea bargain, which Farrsiar believes makes everything she says suspect. But the Michigan Court of Appeals disagreed. Even without her testimony, they said, there was enough other evidence to prove his guilt. Like the store video footage of him purchasing meth making components, and pharmacy logs containing his signature from times when he purchased meth ingredients.
Another one of Farrsiar’s arguments was the fact that he had submitted a sample of his hair to a lab in Ohio named Omega Laboratories. According to their test results, his hair tested negative for meth for approximately 12 months. But again the Court of Appeals overruled.
According to the court, Omega Laboratories own website claims that hair sample testing is not a reliable way to determine time frames for drug exposure. Apparently this is due to the variability of body hair. As the website explains, “the approximate time period cannot be identified due to the high variability of growth rates.”
And finally, Farrsiar claimed that certain evidence collected by police came from his cell phone, which he claimed the search warrant did not cover. In his argument he explains that the warrant allows officers to collect cell phones, but not view their contents.
Once again, the Appeals Court disagreed. The warrant, they said, was for the collection of all “computer generated data”, which included cell phone data. After reviewing the entire case, the Michigan Court of Appeals denied Farrsair’s claims, and upheld the conviction.