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Problems in the courtroom
Pouncy went to trial in Genesee County Circuit in early 2006. His attorney, Michael Breczinski, was dramatically unprepared, court records show. (Breczinski has since moved to Taiwan. He said by e-mail he couldn’t comment because the appeals process is ongoing.)
On the first day of trial, Breczinski made clear that he didn’t have key documents he needed to defend Pouncy. He told Judge Archie Hayman that the trial “was our first time really talking.”
Breczinski miscalculated how long Pouncy would have to serve if found guilty in the first of his two trials. Instead of the 11 years, he told Pouncy the minimum was 19 years — and likely much longer.
Pouncy asked for a new attorney. According to court filings, Hayman responded: “(It’s) too late for that.” He added: “We got a jury downstairs that’s ready to go.”
The judge essentially gave Pouncy a choice: Either he would have his current lawyer represent him, or he would have to represent himself. And if he wanted to be in court for his own trial, he would have to “keep (his) mouth shut,” the judge said.
Hayman declined to comment for this story, but Genesee County Prosecuting Attorney David Leyton remembered Pouncy as “disruptive” and “extremely difficult,” and said he had plenty of time to ask for a new lawyer. Leyton added that requests for new representation on the day of trial are “not uncommon” and are usually denied because they are a “delay tactic.”
“My recollection of Pouncy is that nobody steamrolled Mr. Pouncy,” Leyton said, adding that he didn't work on the case directly. “Mr. Pouncy was attempting to steamroll the criminal justice system, and Judge Hayman wasn’t going to let him get away with it.”
Pouncy eventually decided to argue for himself anyway. He said he didn’t know the meaning of the words “interrogation” or “adjourned.” He couldn’t take advantage of the flaws in the case against him.
For example, two witnesses identified someone else, court filings show. A third couldn’t identify any suspect in a lineup. A fourth told police: “It was hard for me to tell black people apart from one another.” (Pouncy is black, and all of those witnesses were white.)
It also may not have helped that, according to Pouncy’s court arguments the judge treated him “like a child.” At one point during the trial, Hayman interrupted him: “Don’t talk when other people are talking, OK?" A moment later, Hayman added: “Haven’t you been told you don’t talk when grown folks are talkin’?”
By the time it was all over, Pouncy’s sentence was 87 to 141 years in prison. He was 18 years old.
When things began to change
The case could have ended there. But at a prison in Jackson, Pouncy said, he forfeited his recreation time and read for roughly 16 hours a day, every day. He accumulated six duffel bags full of legal documents, which are piled in his prison cell and have, at times, sparked criticism from the guards.
Using this new knowledge, he was able to explain what happened to a court-appointed attorney and get some of his charges dismissed. But he still spent years filing more than six appeals through various attorneys, all to no avail.
Then in December 2012, after he’d been in prison almost seven years, he read a Free Press article that mentioned Moffitt and decided to call him. Moffitt said he gets countless calls from prisoners, but Pouncy could name the flaws in his case with extremely precise legal language.
“When he explained to me what he thought he had,” Moffitt said, “and was able to do it on my own terms, I said, 'Oh yeah, we got something here.’”
The two of them began filing a barrage of motions and appeals totaling thousands of pages. They say their authorship soon blended. No motion was written solely by one or the other.
Moffitt has worked on the case without payment virtually from the start, and Pouncy estimated his own legal fees have exceeded $250,000. Moffitt said he still expects to be paid at some point, perhaps from a civil lawsuit for wrongful imprisonment.
As their efforts gained momentum, Pouncy fashioned a life for himself as a successful appeals lawyer in prison. He estimated that he has filed at least 30 motions for other prisoners, at times ghostwriting other attorneys’ briefs.
Corrections officials argue that Pouncy was not just studying the law — he has received about 50 reprimands through his time in prison, mostly minor, but a few involved carrying a knife to engaging in fights and threatening violence against corrections officers. He has been transferred to 19 prisons, with most of those transfers stemming from problems “he created for himself,” said Chris Gautz, a spokesman with the Michigan Department of Corrections.
Moffitt called those claims “absurd” and added, “This is just the kind of character assassination I expect.”
In the last seven months, Pouncy has been transferred to at least five prisons. Moffitt said he feels his client has “been suffering for his legal activism.” But Gautz, the spokesman for the Michigan Department of Corrections, said the moves were mainly administrative in nature, like a fluctuation in prisoners, for example.
New life on the horizon
In June 2015, Pouncy had a breakthrough in his own case: He was allowed to argue in court before a federal judge, along with his lawyer.
It was almost an inversion of his efforts nine years earlier — this time, he knew the law. As he began to speak, he launched into citations of case law at such a rapid pace that Judge Matthew Leitman and the court reporter each had to ask him to slow down.
“I'm just anxious,” Pouncy said, according to the transcript. “I've been in prison 10 years. I'm trying to get it all out.”
Months later, in November, when he appeared in court again, Leitman made his own feelings clear.
“I have a picture in my mind of an 18-year-old kid … who is asking for his own lawyer and doesn't get it,” Leitman said, referring to Pouncy's original trial. “He steps in and he says, ‘I don't know what I'm doing, but this is my life.’ … How is that OK? Let's, let's not be lawyers ... anymore. How is that OK?"
On Jan. 8, Leitman ruled in Pouncy’s favor.
Pouncy said he’s hopeful that he’ll be out soon. He has detailed plans for his release: going to college, starting a family, taking a bath instead of a shower for the first time in a decade — and joining Moffitt, his lawyer, as a paralegal.
“If we get him out, I expect him to be reporting for work,” Moffitt said. “We’re going to set him up in a life, and be the dream team.”
As for the more than a decade he’s spent in prison, Pouncy said he’s not bitter.
“I feel like (prison) saved my life,” he said. “I probably still would have been out there selling dope. Or dead. … This is a like a blessing in disguise.”
Pouncy went to trial in Genesee County Circuit in early 2006. His attorney, Michael Breczinski, was dramatically unprepared, court records show. (Breczinski has since moved to Taiwan. He said by e-mail he couldn’t comment because the appeals process is ongoing.)
On the first day of trial, Breczinski made clear that he didn’t have key documents he needed to defend Pouncy. He told Judge Archie Hayman that the trial “was our first time really talking.”
Breczinski miscalculated how long Pouncy would have to serve if found guilty in the first of his two trials. Instead of the 11 years, he told Pouncy the minimum was 19 years — and likely much longer.
Pouncy asked for a new attorney. According to court filings, Hayman responded: “(It’s) too late for that.” He added: “We got a jury downstairs that’s ready to go.”
The judge essentially gave Pouncy a choice: Either he would have his current lawyer represent him, or he would have to represent himself. And if he wanted to be in court for his own trial, he would have to “keep (his) mouth shut,” the judge said.
Hayman declined to comment for this story, but Genesee County Prosecuting Attorney David Leyton remembered Pouncy as “disruptive” and “extremely difficult,” and said he had plenty of time to ask for a new lawyer. Leyton added that requests for new representation on the day of trial are “not uncommon” and are usually denied because they are a “delay tactic.”
“My recollection of Pouncy is that nobody steamrolled Mr. Pouncy,” Leyton said, adding that he didn't work on the case directly. “Mr. Pouncy was attempting to steamroll the criminal justice system, and Judge Hayman wasn’t going to let him get away with it.”
Pouncy eventually decided to argue for himself anyway. He said he didn’t know the meaning of the words “interrogation” or “adjourned.” He couldn’t take advantage of the flaws in the case against him.
For example, two witnesses identified someone else, court filings show. A third couldn’t identify any suspect in a lineup. A fourth told police: “It was hard for me to tell black people apart from one another.” (Pouncy is black, and all of those witnesses were white.)
It also may not have helped that, according to Pouncy’s court arguments the judge treated him “like a child.” At one point during the trial, Hayman interrupted him: “Don’t talk when other people are talking, OK?" A moment later, Hayman added: “Haven’t you been told you don’t talk when grown folks are talkin’?”
By the time it was all over, Pouncy’s sentence was 87 to 141 years in prison. He was 18 years old.
When things began to change
The case could have ended there. But at a prison in Jackson, Pouncy said, he forfeited his recreation time and read for roughly 16 hours a day, every day. He accumulated six duffel bags full of legal documents, which are piled in his prison cell and have, at times, sparked criticism from the guards.
Using this new knowledge, he was able to explain what happened to a court-appointed attorney and get some of his charges dismissed. But he still spent years filing more than six appeals through various attorneys, all to no avail.
Then in December 2012, after he’d been in prison almost seven years, he read a Free Press article that mentioned Moffitt and decided to call him. Moffitt said he gets countless calls from prisoners, but Pouncy could name the flaws in his case with extremely precise legal language.
“When he explained to me what he thought he had,” Moffitt said, “and was able to do it on my own terms, I said, 'Oh yeah, we got something here.’”
The two of them began filing a barrage of motions and appeals totaling thousands of pages. They say their authorship soon blended. No motion was written solely by one or the other.
Moffitt has worked on the case without payment virtually from the start, and Pouncy estimated his own legal fees have exceeded $250,000. Moffitt said he still expects to be paid at some point, perhaps from a civil lawsuit for wrongful imprisonment.
As their efforts gained momentum, Pouncy fashioned a life for himself as a successful appeals lawyer in prison. He estimated that he has filed at least 30 motions for other prisoners, at times ghostwriting other attorneys’ briefs.
Corrections officials argue that Pouncy was not just studying the law — he has received about 50 reprimands through his time in prison, mostly minor, but a few involved carrying a knife to engaging in fights and threatening violence against corrections officers. He has been transferred to 19 prisons, with most of those transfers stemming from problems “he created for himself,” said Chris Gautz, a spokesman with the Michigan Department of Corrections.
Moffitt called those claims “absurd” and added, “This is just the kind of character assassination I expect.”
In the last seven months, Pouncy has been transferred to at least five prisons. Moffitt said he feels his client has “been suffering for his legal activism.” But Gautz, the spokesman for the Michigan Department of Corrections, said the moves were mainly administrative in nature, like a fluctuation in prisoners, for example.
New life on the horizon
In June 2015, Pouncy had a breakthrough in his own case: He was allowed to argue in court before a federal judge, along with his lawyer.
It was almost an inversion of his efforts nine years earlier — this time, he knew the law. As he began to speak, he launched into citations of case law at such a rapid pace that Judge Matthew Leitman and the court reporter each had to ask him to slow down.
“I'm just anxious,” Pouncy said, according to the transcript. “I've been in prison 10 years. I'm trying to get it all out.”
Months later, in November, when he appeared in court again, Leitman made his own feelings clear.
“I have a picture in my mind of an 18-year-old kid … who is asking for his own lawyer and doesn't get it,” Leitman said, referring to Pouncy's original trial. “He steps in and he says, ‘I don't know what I'm doing, but this is my life.’ … How is that OK? Let's, let's not be lawyers ... anymore. How is that OK?"
On Jan. 8, Leitman ruled in Pouncy’s favor.
Pouncy said he’s hopeful that he’ll be out soon. He has detailed plans for his release: going to college, starting a family, taking a bath instead of a shower for the first time in a decade — and joining Moffitt, his lawyer, as a paralegal.
“If we get him out, I expect him to be reporting for work,” Moffitt said. “We’re going to set him up in a life, and be the dream team.”
As for the more than a decade he’s spent in prison, Pouncy said he’s not bitter.
“I feel like (prison) saved my life,” he said. “I probably still would have been out there selling dope. Or dead. … This is a like a blessing in disguise.”
