MUSKEGON, Mich. — An inmate who placed his genitals in a jail hatch used to transfer medication, and then “was dancing and wagging his penis back and forth,’’ has lost a bid to have his indecent exposure conviction overturned.
Jivonnie Ramone Jones was being held at the Muskegon County Jail in August of 2017, awaiting trial for rape, when he exposed himself to a deputy and a jail nurse, court records show.
A Muskegon County jury convicted him of indecent exposure; Jones was sentenced to 252 days’ imprisonment. It was a drop in the bucket compared to the 62-year sentence he got in the rape case.
In his appeal, Jones says the indecent exposure conviction “was against the great weight of evidence because the jury relied on inconsistent testimony’’ from the deputy and nurse.
In a three-page ruling issued this week, the appeals court disagreed. Justices called discrepancies in the trial testimony “trivial.’’
Jones, 33, earned a reputation for bizarre antics in the courtroom and the jail after he was charged in the brutal Feb. 2017 rape of an acquaintance in Muskegon Heights.
Jones launched into an obscenity-laced tirade against a district court judge and a bailiff. He cursed witnesses.
While awaiting trial, he threw a cup of what appeared to be urine at a Muskegon County corrections officer. The incident that reached the court of appeals occurred about a month later, in August of 2017.
It happened while a nurse, accompanied by a deputy, handed out medications to inmates. When the nurse opened a cell door hatch to deliver medication to Jones, Jones put his penis in the open hatch.
The nurse and deputy scolded Jones for his actions. Jones climbed onto a table in his cell, grabbed his exposed penis, shook it and suggested that a sex act be performed on him.
“He was dancing and wagging his penis back and forth some more,’’ the jail nurse testified at trial.
While employment in a corrections institution occasionally requires staff to view inmates’ genitalia, the defendant’s conduct was “unexpected and out of the ordinary,’’ the nurse and deputy testified.
The appeals court agreed.
“A reasonable juror could conclude that defendant openly exposed his genitalia under circumstances that created a substantial risk of offending someone,’’ justices wrote.
Jones has multiple convictions for assaultive crimes dating back to 2006. He is being held at a state prison in Adrian and will not be eligible for parole until his is 93 years old.
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