Following a two-day trial, Yusef Phillips, of Benton Harbor, was acquitted of six felony firearm charges by a Berrien County jury on Friday, August 5.
The jury took approximately 45 minutes to return a “not guilty” verdict on each of the six counts stemming from an August 2020 traffic stop where Michigan State Police troopers seized two pistols from a rental car in which Phillips was a passenger, according to a press release from criminal defense firm Springstead, Bartish, Borgula and Lynch .
Prosecutors charged Phillips with three separate felonies for each seized firearm.
Phillips’ attorney Heath Lynch challenged the grounds for the traffic stop, claiming Michigan State Police officers unlawfully stopped the vehicle and impermissibly prolonged what should have been a routine traffic stop simply so they could search the vehicle. The trial court denied Phillips’ motion, and the Court of Appeals affirmed the decision on appeal.
Prior to trial, Phillips denied knowing about either of the firearms seized from the rental car and declined to accept the prosecuting attorney’s plea offer. The jury viewed a video of the traffic stop, as captured by the troopers’ dashboard camera. The driver of the vehicle, who was not the renter or an authorized driver, testified that he and Phillips briefly borrowed the vehicle from the renter and were unaware of the two firearms that had been concealed in the passenger compartment.
“There were two real problems with this case,” Lynch said. “The first was the credibility of the officers, whose accounts of the traffic stop changed dramatically during the course of the case. An officer can stop a moving vehicle for any number of reasons, but the reasons at least need to remain consistent over time. … The other problem was that officers failed to even look for any corroborating evidence, such as fingerprints or DNA on the firearms. They just expected the jury to convict based on proximity alone, and the jury clearly was unwilling to do so.”
