North Dakota v. Michel
Annotate this CaseKevin Michel was convicted by jury of knowingly receiving stolen property. Jamestown Police began investigating theft of tires from Northwest Tire in October 2017. About ten months later, Thomas Melland and Andrew Heckelsmiller became suspects in the investigation. Heckelsmiller told police he had sold stolen tires to Michel. In August 2018, Detective LeRoy Gross spoke with Michel about the stolen tires. Michel acknowledged he had bought tires from Heckelsmiller and Melland. Michel also told Detective Gross he stopped buying tires from Heckelsmiller and Melland after seeing a Facebook post from Northwest Tire offering a $500 reward for information regarding stolen tires. Detective Gross told Michel, “There’s going to be a lot of restitution these two boys are going to have to come up with unless we can get some tires back.” Michel said he had sold several of the tires but still had some of them. Michel turned over seven new tires to Detective Gross. Representatives from Northwest Tire and J&L Service identified the tires as some of those stolen from their shops. During the jury’s deliberations, the jury submitted a note with written questions to the court. Michel argued on appeal the district court erred by not specifically answering the jury’s questions and instead referring them to the existing jury instructions. After review, the North Dakota Supreme Court affirmed the criminal judgment, except as to the award of restitution. The award was reversed because the district court awarded more than what was required to make the victims whole. The matter was remanded for a redetermination of restitution.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.