‘Hannibal Lecters’ About to Be Unleashed on Public: Sheriff

PONTIAC, MI — To comply with a pair of U.S. Supreme Court rulings, federal judges in Detroit and across the country are set to release “Hannibal Lecters” and others who created heinous murders, Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said at a news conference Wednesday. Scores of juvenile lifers are expected to be released or resentenced after high court rulings held their mandatory life-without-parole sentences violated Eighth Amendment prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment.

“I looked at a sample of these individuals and they are Hannibal Lecters who committed very heinous murders — often, multiple murders — and then they've continued to display very assaultive behavior in prison and show no remorse," Bouchard said at a news conference at the sheriff’s office headquarters in Pontiac, according to media reports.

To be clear, the terrifying cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter is fictitious character from the imagination of novelist Thomas Harris in “Red Dragon” and its sequels, including “The Silence of the Lambs,” which became a major motion picture starring Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster.

But Bouchard said there is nothing fictional about the terror the inmates could unleash if released.

In his county, 49 inmates who were juveniles when they were sentenced could be released. “When you carry that across the state, we're looking at an unparalleled deadly crime spree should that occur,” Bouchard said.

Oakland County Prosecutor Jessica R. Cooper has filed paperwork asking that 44 of them remain in prison for life without the possibility of parole. “And we’re here to say we support her in that determination,” Bouchard said at the news conference.

• Wayne Prosecutor Files Motions on 145 Juvenile Lifers to Comply with High Court

“These are not innocent children who were joyriding or doing something minor,” Bouchard said, recalling some of the most heinous cases.

Among them is Michael Kvam, now 49, who sexually assaulted and stabbed JoAnn Bray, 27, in her Avon Township (now Rochester Hills) home in 1984. He then sexually assaulted and killed Bray’s 15-year-old niece and stabbed Bray’s 9-year-old daughter 27 times as she pleaded for her life.

“Just let that sink in for a second and imagine that that person gets out,” Bouchard said.

The process for review of the cases was murky until last week, when the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled, 3-4, that a judge, not a jury, will decide which cases to review.

The reviews were prompted by a 2012 Supreme Court ruling in Miller v. Alabama that said life sentences without possibility of parole are a violation of the Eighth Amendment. A 2016 ruling in Montgomery v. Louisiana made the decision retroactive, meaning anyone sentenced to mandatory life for murder when they were younger than 18 must have their sentences reviewed. Some of the cases are more than 50 years old.

Last week, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said her office will ask to keep 63 juvenile lifers behind bars, and seek sentences of 25 years or more for 81 others.

Macomb County has about a dozen cases of juvenile lifers who “absolutely should not be released,” Bouchard said. A review by MLive found that 367 Michigan inmates sentenced to mandatory life sentences for murder while they were minors are still alive.

Bouchard said he’s dismayed the sentences are set for review and the public seems to know little about it. Bouchard, the vice president of government relations for the Major County Sheriff’s Association, said the sheriffs across the country are “all very concerned, nationwide, about this process” that could result in the wholesale release of inmates who received life sentences as juveniles.

He said he was speaking out about the process because the public didn’t seem to know much about it.

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