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HARRISVILLE -- In an opinion released Friday, the Michigan Court of Appeals (COA) affirmed the the trial court's conviction and sentencing of Aaron Trout for second-degree murder and first-degree child abuse after he appealed the decisions.
A jury in January 2024 convicted Trout of second-degree murder and first-degree child abuse in the July 2022 death of 2-year-old Jayde McDonnell, the child of Trout’s then-girlfriend, Adrienne Pavelka. Alcona County Circuit Court Judge Laura Frawley sentenced Trout to 55 to 90 years in prison for the second-degree murder charge and 30 to 60 years for the first-degree child abuse charge.
Pavelka separately pleaded guilty to first-degree child abuse and received a 15 to 40 year sentence.
Trout appealed his convictions and sentences for murder and child abuse, primarily contending the trial court erroneously admitted hearsay evidence against him through the excited-utterance exception. He also raised issues concerning juror impartiality and the reasonableness of his sentences, according to the COA's opinion.
EXCITED-UTTERANCE EXCEPTION
The excited utterance exception means that a witness can testify about what someone else said, which under normal circumstances would be hearsay and not permitted, if that person is under stress or shock from a startling event leaving them without the capacity for fabrication.
In the appeal, The defendant claimed the trial court erroneously permitted a hospital technician to testify regarding what Pavelka said to her shortly after walking into the MyMichigan Medical Center in Alpena holding McDonnell's lifeless body as excited utterances.
The COA opinion stated that the prosecution amply satisfied the excited-utterance exception and disagreed with the defendant that the trial court's admission of Pavelka's statements as excited utterances represented an abuse of discretion meriting reversal.
The defendant argued that the three days that elapsed between the child receiving the blunt force injuries and arriving at the hospital would be enough time for consideration of self-interest, and therefore anything said to the hospital staff member could have been fabricated.
The COA argued that the record makes clear Pavelka's upheaval at the hospital was a culmination of the three-day period.
"One can easily conclude those traumatic events were not isolated incidents allowing for 'the possibility for conscious reflection' thereafter, but rather were a series of related happenings built on top of each other. Put differently, they support an inference that Pavelka's statements were made out of a continuing state of emotional shock precipitated by the 72 hours of startling events."
JUROR IMPARITIALITY
Defendant's other conviction-based challenge concerns two separate interactions a juror had with members of the public during trial. Defendant claims the trial court erred in not conducting an evidentiary hearing regarding those interactions, and that his trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance of counsel by not moving for a mistrial or for an evidentiary hearing.
He faults his trial counsel for not asking any "questions of any of the three individuals involved," requesting an evidentiary hearing, or inquiring of other jurors, but does not offer specifics on why the trial court's inquisitions were not enough and what more needed to be asked.
After reviewing the trial court's questioning, The COA stated that there was nothing more counsel could or should have done concerning any "real and substantial possibility that [the extraneous influences] could have affected the jury's verdict.
UNREASONABLE SENTENCES
The COA last addresses the defendant's contention that the trial court imposed unreasonable sentences, 55 to 90 years for second-degree murder and 30 to 60 years for first-degree child abuse. Both sentences represented significant upward departures from the sentencing guidelines, which were 22.5 to 37.5 years for second-degree murder and 14.25 to 23.75 years for first-degree child abuse.
The COA argued that the defendant's sentences are reasonable.
"Courts must impose reasonable sentences," the opinion states. "A sentence is reasonable if it adheres to the 'principle of proportionality.' That means it is "proportionate to the seriousness of the circumstances surrounding the offense and the offender."
Judges base their sentences on an offender's sentencing guidelines, which are determined through the scoring of offense variables that measure the seriousness of a crime.
Although advisory, the sentencing guidelines are "a highly relevant consideration in a trial court's exercise of sentencing discretion," and courts must therefore consult and take them into account. Here, the trial court did so and concluded that a departure sentence for each conviction was more proportionate than a within-guidelines sentence, the COA opinion states.
The trial court's sentences more than adequately complied with those principles and took thorough, deliberate, and reflective care in imposing the defendant’s sentences.
For his part, the defendant largely does not disagree. He makes no effort to dispute the severity of crimes and nor is there a way to do so.
Defendant's only other sentencing pushback is his accusation that the trial court was determined to give him a life-without-the-possibility-of-parole sentence, which it could not do because the jury only convicted him of second-degree murder, the COA opinion states. According to the defendant, the trial court departed upwards 17.5 years because doing so "virtually guarantee[s] the same result" as life without the possibility of parole, given he will be 86 years old when he is first eligible for parole. But "he received a term-of-years sentence," and his age at parole eligibility alone is insufficient to overcome the presumption of proportionality.