4/3/13 - Less than a month after being sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison, an appeal has been filed for the man convicted in a 2008 double-homicide. A motion to reconsider the conviction and sentence of 66-year-old Jerome Kowalski was filed last week with the Michigan Court of Appeals. The Warren man was convicted in January of two counts of first-degree premeditated murder and two felony weapons charges for the shooting deaths of Richard and Brenda Kowalski in their Oceola Township home in 2008. Prosecutors said Kowalski was disgruntled about his relationship with his more successful brother and the two had disagreed about how to handle the estate of their mother. During the two-week trial in January, prosecutors played the videotaped interrogation of Kowalski by State Police, including a portion where he seemingly confessed. His defense attorney, Walter Piszczatowski, unsuccessfully tried to undermine that with an expert who testified that he evaluated Kowalski to be a depressed, passive-aggressive individual with alcohol dependence and a tendency to try and please authority. Following the juryâs conviction, Piszczatowski said he thought the jury was unable to understand how someone could give a false confession, which he had wanted to be a key point in his case. An earlier ruling by Judge Theresa Brennan barred the defense testimony of another expert on false confessions, which is likely to form the basis of the appeal. (JK)
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