Inmate who solicited hit man in Montcalm Co. wins appeal

GRAND RAPIDS - A man who asked a Montcalm County cellmate to kill his ex-girlfriend qualifies for less prison time because "run-of-the-mill planning'' does not constitute predatory behavior, the Michigan Court of Appeals determined in a ruling released today.

Even though Ronald Earl Cooper II gave another inmate information about where to find his ex-girlfriend, the information alone did not make the woman susceptible to criminal exploitation or transform her into a "potentially vulnerable victim,'' the three-judge panel ruled.

The upshot? Cooper could see his minimum sentence cut in half.

Cooper, 39, was arrested in June 2012 and charged with solicitation of murder after police say he tried to arrange the killing of his former girlfriend.

He was in the Montcalm County Jail at the time on an aggravated stalking charge involving the same woman. Investigators recorded a telephone conversation with an undercover officer posing as a potential hit man.

Cooper pleaded no contest to assault with intent to commit great bodily harm less than murder and was sentenced in August 2013 to a minimum term of nearly six years. Under the sentence, Cooper would not be eligible for release until May 2019. The sentence was capped at 15 years.

Cooper appealed the sentence -- specifically guidelines that suggested he engaged in predatory conduct rather than "run-of-the-mill planning'' of the hit-man hiring.

He told his cellmate where the ex-girlfriend worked, her work schedule, where she lived, vehicle information and information about her family. Cooper's cellmate did not carry out the hit on Cooper's ex-girlfriend, even though he told Cooper he did. Instead, he reported to police Cooper's desire to have the woman killed, court records show.

A Montcalm County judge found that Cooper's comments to the cellmate constituted "conduct of a predatory nature'. . .akin to lying in wait and stalking.''

The Court of Appeals disagreed. The sentencing judge assumed Cooper got information about his ex-girlfriend through prior stalking activities, but evidence is simply "too sparse'' to support a harsher sentence, justices wrote.

He'll return to the Stanton courthouse for resentencing using revised guidelines that call for a minimum term of between 1 ½ to 4 years rather than 2 ½ to nearly 6 years.

The decision comes a day after the Michigan Supreme Court ruled sentencing guidelines that mandate prison terms are unconstitutional, and that judges should use them only in an advisory capacity.

Citing a recently decided U.S. Supreme Court case, the Michigan Supreme Court agreed, in a 5-2 decision, saying the state's sentencing guidelines were an unconstitutional restraint on judicial discretion.