An Oakland County judge has declined to dismiss a murder charge against the man accused in connection to the 2016 disappearance of Danielle Stislicki, but said the Michigan Attorney General’s Office needs to appoint an “untainted” prosecutor to the case.
An attorney for Floyd Galloway, the man accused of killing Stislicki, and AG’s office have been fighting about the use of evidence obtained after a polygraph examiner illegally passed information Galloway told him during a test to police.
Galloway’s attorney, Ellen Michaels, asked Oakland County Circuit Court Judge Phyllis McMillen last month to dismiss his case because they believe prosecutors violated his rights to attorney-client privilege and to a fair trial.
But the AG’s office said they have taken the appropriate measures to limit access to information gained from a polygraph test and argued a dismissal is not appropriate.
McMillen denied Michaels’ motion in a written ruling issued Friday, but said Michaels could refile it if prosecutors do not appoint an untainted prosecutor to handle the case after the parties figure out which evidence should be suppressed for the trial.
“What is missing from the AG’s response is the passing off the file to an untainted prosecutor,” McMillen wrote.
Michaels said McMillen keeps giving the AG’s office chances to follow her orders, despite them not following them the first times.
“They totally screwed it up and she’s giving them another chance,” Michaels said. “They continue to not take seriously the due process violations my client has suffered.”
The Attorney General’s Office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Galloway, who is serving a 16 to 35-year prison sentence on a separate kidnapping conviction in Livonia in 2016, is accused of killing Stislicki in December 2016. Stislicki’s body has never been found, but prosecutors believe Galloway feigned car troubles to get Stislicki to give him a ride, then killed her. He is charged with first-degree murder.
At issue with the case against Galloway in Stislicki’s death is a memo, written by polygraph examiner Jim Hoppe’s attorney about polygraph test results, which came after prosecutors charged the case under the theory of premeditated murder, said Assistant Attorney General Danielle Russo Bennetts. The memorandum, compiled after Hoppe shared the privileged information, is now kept behind an isolation wall at the AG’s office.
Michaels wrote in her motion to dismiss the case that anyone who has read this memo and has the information in their mind is tainted and should not be prosecuting the case. Regardless of whether they intentionally use the information, it can still seep into their case and questioning, she said.
But Russo Bennetts said at a hearing Nov. 6 that the information in the memo contradicts the prosecution’s theory of the case and the evidence they have, she said.
“This current team has not used that memo, is not using that memo and has no plans to use that memo,” Russo Bennetts said.
McMillen questioned Russo Bennetts Nov. 6 on the isolation wall McMillen ordered be set up in 2023, noting that what the AG’s office did appeared to be “exactly the opposite” of what caselaw dictated they do.
The AG’s office should have created a firewall so no one on the case could see the memorandum with the polygraph information on it, McMillen and Michaels said. Instead, they allowed access to everyone on the case.
Russo Bennetts said her understanding of the isolation wall was to stop the memo from being leaked to the public or other staff. She said the AG’s office has not determined if someone who has not read the memo will take over the prosecution.
“That doesn’t make any sense to me under the current caselaw,” McMillen said. “You mitigate the taint by not having people who are tainted engaged in continuing litigation.”
Michaels criticized that the AG’s office has still not sought to prosecute Hoppe for his misdemeanor violation of criminal code for releasing the polygraph information.
“I have never seen anything like this before, honestly,” Michaels said. “It’s going to be very interesting to see what they do at this point, if they take the case to a different prosecuting agency or hire a special prosecutor.”