Heather Lynn Peters | Muskegon ChronicleSean Michael Phillips and his attorney, Annette Smedley, were in Mason County 51st Circuit Court at a hearing Wednesday on a motion to dismiss the kidnapping charge against Phillips. He was charged in the disappearance of 5-month-old Katherine Shelbie-Elizabeth Phillips of Ludington, who has been missing since June 29.
The attorney for Sean Michael Phillips, charged with kidnapping a 5-month-old Ludington baby in June, argued during a court hearing Wednesday that it’s a “legal impossibility” for a jury or judge to find her client guilty of that charge based on state law.
Annette Smedley, a Muskegon attorney appointed to represent Phillips, told Mason County 51st Circuit Court Judge Richard I. Cooper that her client’s case should be thrown out.
“It’s legally impossible to convict him. It must be dismissed,” Smedley said, citing Michigan law under Section 350, which states: “An adoptive or natural parent of the child shall not be charged with and convicted for a violation of this section.” The charge carries a maximum penalty of imprisonment for life or any term of years.
Phillips, 21, a member of the Michigan Army National Guard’s 125th Infantry Battalion based in Flint, is charged with kidnapping a child under the age of 14 in connection with the alleged abduction of his infant daughter, Katherine Shelbie-Elizabeth Phillips. The baby has been missing since June 29.
Phillips, wearing a bullet-proof vest and an orange jail inmate jumpsuit, sat at the defense table showing little emotion, staring directly ahead while his attorney presented his case. His family sat in the courtroom on a bench behind him, across from the family of the baby’s mother, Ariel Courtland.
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The hearing began at 1:30 p.m. As of 2 p.m., Spaniola had not yet presented his argument to Cooper.
Spaniola’s argument filed in a motion indicated that the charge of kidnapping is valid because on the day the infant went missing, Phillips had not yet been determined by DNA tests that he was the biological father.
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Meanwhile, the infant has not yet been located, despite expansive searches by authorities and volunteers in the Mason County area. Authorities have said she was last seen in the back seat of Phillips’ vehicle. She was nearly 5 months old at the time.
Phillips already has served nearly 2 1/2 months in the Mason County Jail, where he has been lodged since the child’s disappearance. Authorities say he has refused to tell anyone about the whereabouts of the baby.
Authorities caught up with Phillips at his parents’ home in Mason County’s Victory Township, near Scottville, the same day the infant went missing — a couple hours after the baby’s mother, Ariel Courtland, called 911.
Authorities have ruled Courtland out as a suspect.
The baby’s clothing was found in Phillips’ pants pockets by authorities who questioned him outside his parents’ home. Her car seat and diaper bag were found in the trunk of Phillips’ vehicle, but he denied knowing what had happened to the baby, police said.
Courtland testified earlier this month at Phillips’ preliminary examination that the couple had discussed giving the baby up for adoption, but in the end, she didn’t want to do that, which angered Phillips.
The couple argued in the parking lot of her Ludington apartment complex about the baby, and when she went to retrieve a stroller from her apartment, Phillips drove off with the baby, and that’s the last time she saw her, Courtland testified.
Phillips — already jointly raising the couple’s 3 1/2-year-old daughter, Haley, and preparing to be deployed to Afghanistan in August — also didn’t want to tell his parents about the new baby, Courtland said.
