Lorinda Swain wasn't worried Wednesday afternoon.
Despite still wearing a GPS monitor strapped to her right ankle and knowing with an unfavorable ruling from the Michigan Supreme Court she might be returned to prison to complete a 25- to 50-year sentence, she still managed a smile Wednesday.
"I am encouraged," said Swain, 55, of rural Marshall. "I am not worried. There will be times until there is a ruling that I will worry, but on a scale of 1 to 10 I think today was at least a 9½. In my mind I think they are going to rule for me."
Swain sat with family and friends as lawyers from the Michigan Innocence Clinic and the Calhoun County Prosecutor's Office argued both sides of her case to the six justices. (Justice Bridget Mary McCormack is recused because she is a former attorney for the Innocence Clinic who worked on the Swain case. She did not attend the session.) They debated whether there was enough evidence to grant a new trial for Swain, 14 years after she was convicted by a Calhoun County Circuit Court jury of four counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct. She was charged with repeatedly performing oral sex on her young adopted son between 1992 and 1996 in Burlington.
Swain has maintained her innocence and the boy, Ronald Swain, has recanted his testimony. She has won rulings for a new trial from now-retired Circuit Judge Conrad Sindt. But those have been overturned by appeals courts and on Wednesday her attorneys were arguing to the Supreme Court that it should reverse a lower court decision and grant her a second trial.
Attorneys from the Michigan Innocence Clinic at the University of Michigan Law School have argued that Swain is entitled to a new trial because prosecutors withheld information about her former boyfriend, Dennis Book.
David Moran, director of the clinic, told the justices that a detective interviewed Book, who said he lived with Swain and her two sons during the time the allegations of abuse were made and never saw any of it.
Book and Swain bitterly ended their relationship before she was charged and Moran said when she and her trial attorney attempted to speak to Book about being a witness for her, he angrily rejected them.
Moran said Book spoke with a detective and provided statements that would have helped her defense, but the interview was never revealed.
Prosecutors have denied Book and the detective had a conversation, but Judge Sindt ruled in a hearing it did occur and because the defense was not told, the evidence was newly discovered and enough reason to grant her a new trial.
In her argument to the justices Wednesday, Assistant Calhoun County Prosecutor Jennifer Clark said the interview, if it happened, was not newly discovered because Swain and the defense attorney at least knew that Dennis Book could have evidence for their case.
Several justices challenged Moran about his argument that testimony from Book should be considered new.
"It's newly discovered," Moran replied, "because nobody would have known at the time how Book would testify."
Moran said the defense only learned in 2011 that "Book dislikes the defendant but would have come in and said it didn't happen."
Moran and the defense have argued that not only should the evidence be presented at a new trial because it is newly discovered, but also because it was withheld from the defense before the original trial.
Clark said the defense could have sought the statements from Book and it was not critical because another boyfriend testified similarly and that some of the allegations of sexual assault were during a different time and place than when Book was living with Swain.
"It was not newly discovered because he was known and was not called," Clark told the justices.
Justice Richard Bernstein challenged Clark, saying, "they had knowledge of him, but not what he would say."
Swain was sentenced to 25 to 50 years and served seven years before she was released on bond by Sindt.
Neither Clark nor Moran said they believed any ruling in the Swain case would have far-reaching implications for others.
"We want a narrow ruling that Lorinda Swain is entitled to a new trial and I don't think there will be any effect," Moran said.
Clark said she believes the justices are "working on the framework about how defendants can present claims to the court and when they are precluded from doing so."
She said Swain has had several appeals and "they are trying to determine what are the proper standards. They are attempting to clarify the parameters of the law that we have now and how does it work procedurally."
Swain said she now must wait and hope.
She likened the last 15 years to an Olympic race when she has felt both in front and far behind.
"I feel like the race is over today and I feel like we are in front," Swain said. "I have felt I was in the very back and no way I could win in the back.
"Seven years ago I felt I was right at the top and going to win the race when I got out. But through the seven years I have been at the back and thought there was no way I could win. But somehow because of hanging in there and because of the U of M and the fact that I am innocent I have stayed in the race and I felt like today I was right there at the finish line and the race is finishing.
"There is no medal yet around my neck and I don't feel like the Olympic athlete who got their medal yet and I am not positive like the athlete is when he is first.
"I just wait and hope but I have faith."
A decision is expected before the court term ends July 31.
Contact Trace Christenson at 966-0685 or tchrist@battlecreekenquirer.com. Follow him on Twitter: @TSChristenson
