After more than a year of waiting, the Livingston County Court System will resume jury trials starting June 14.
That trial, a drunken driving case, will take place in Livingston County Chief Judge Michael Hatty s courtroom.
He said he chose to do a drunken driving case as the first case back because those cases typically require fewer potential jurors, allowing for the court to work through any glitches in the jury selection process. I won t have to have more than 50 jurors in the jury pool, Hatty said. If it were a capital case, I would have to have 100 potential jurors.
Once selected, jurors will be seated on one side of the courtroom gallery facing the bench rather than in the designated juror box. This will allow for additional spacing, Hatty said.
One year after a jury convicted Zachary Lally of rape, Livingston County Chief Judge Michael Hatty granted him a new trial.
On March 11, 2020, Lally, 22, of Greek Oak Township was found guilty of three counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct causing personal injury and one count each of second-degree criminal sexual conduct causing injury and assault with intent to commit sexual penetration.
The victim in the case testified Lally raped her multiple times in the fall of 2018 in Green Oak Township.
Tom Kizer, one of Lally s attorneys, filed a motion in June asking for a new trial, claiming former Livingston County Chief Assistant Prosecutor Pamela Maas committed several instances of misconduct.