If this opinion indicates that it is “FOR PUBLICATION,” it is subject to 

revision until final publication in the Michigan Appeals Reports.

-1-

S T A T E O F M I C H I G A N

C O U R T O F A P P E A L S

PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

UNPUBLISHED

June 22, 2023

v No. 360425

Kent Circuit Court

JORDAN SCOTT LOOMIS, LC No. 20-000322-FC

Defendant-Appellant.

Before: CAMERON, P.J., and MURRAY and GADOLA, JJ.

PER CURIAM.

Defendant, Jordan Scott Loomis, appeals as of right his jury trial conviction of first-degree 

felony murder, MCL 750.316(1)(b). The trial court sentenced defendant to serve life in prison, 

without the possibility of parole. We affirm.

This case arises out of the fatal stabbing of James Robertson. Defendant contacted 

Robertson to buy crack cocaine. Robertson drove defendant to an ATM to withdraw money for 

the drugs, but defendant’s card was declined due to insufficient funds. Robertson then drove 

defendant to a second ATM to try a different debit card. When they arrived in the parking lot, 

defendant reached over and stabbed Robertson multiple times in the chest and neck. Robertson 

offered defendant $50 to “just let him go,” but defendant declined. Defendant then drove 

Robertson’s car around the area until Robertson died from his injuries. Defendant then purchased

drugs from another individual with Robertson’s money. The victim’s body was found partially 

submerged along the Grand River in Ottawa County with eight sharp-force injuries, including both 

stab wounds and incised wounds. At trial, defendant claimed self-defense. 

Defendant raises two issues on appeal. First, defendant argues that the trial court erred by 

admitting evidence from the search of the victim’s car and the search of defendant’s cell phone. 

Second, defendant claims he was denied his constitutional right to a speedy trial. 

I. ADMISSIBILITY OF EVIDENCE

We first address defendant’s argument that the trial court erred in admitting evidence from 

the victim’s car and defendant’s cell phone. We review for an abuse of discretion the trial court’s 
-2-

decision to admit or exclude evidence. People v Houston, 261 Mich App 463, 465; 683 NW2d 

192 (2004). “A trial court abuses its discretion when it fails to select a principled outcome from a 

range of reasonable and principled outcomes.” People v Kahley, 277 Mich App 182, 184; 744 

NW2d 194 (2007). 

To preserve an evidentiary issue for review, a defendant must object to the admission of 

the evidence at trial and specify the same ground for objection that it asserts on appeal. People v 

Thorpe, 504 Mich 230, 252; 934 NW2d 693 (2019). If the defendant fails to object, the issue is 

unpreserved. People v Snider, 239 Mich App 393, 420; 608 NW2d 502 (2000). This Court 

reviews unpreserved claims of error for plain error that affected substantial rights. Id. To establish 

that the plain error affected his substantial rights, the defendant must show that the error “affected 

the outcome of the lower court proceedings.” People v Carines, 460 Mich 750, 763; 597 NW2d 

130 (1999). “The reviewing court should reverse only when the defendant is actually innocent or 

the error seriously affected the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” 

Thorpe, 504 Mich at 252-253.

A. VICTIM’S CAR

Defendant preserved his evidentiary claim relating to the search of the victim’s car by 

raising a chain-of-custody argument in the trial court. See Thorpe, 504 Mich at 252. Defendant 

asserts that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress evidence uncovered in the 

victim’s car because the police failed to immediately seize the vehicle and preserve evidence 

before it was tampered with by a third party, thereby breaking the chain of custody. Defendant 

also asserts that exculpatory evidence could have been removed the car. We disagree with 

defendant’s claims of error.

“In order to obtain the admission of real evidence, a prosecutor must lay a foundation 

identifying the items as what they are purported to be and displaying that the items are connected 

with the accused or the crime.” People v Jennings, 118 Mich App 318, 322; 324 NW2d 625 

(1982). See also MRE 901(a). When determining if an object should be admitted, the trial court 

should consider the nature of the article, the circumstances surrounding the preservation and 

custody of it, and the possibility of intermeddlers tampering with it. People v Muhammad, 326 

Mich App 40, 59; 931 NW2d 20 (2018). Admission of evidence “does not require a perfect chain 

of custody,” and “any deficiency in the chain of custody goes to the weight of the evidence rather 

than its admissibility once the proffered evidence is shown to a reasonable degree of certainty to 

be what its proponent claims.” People v White, 208 Mich App 126, 130-131; 527 NW2d 34 (1994). 

Police officers located the victim’s car in Huff Park on November 27, 2019, amidst a 

missing person investigation. Officers noticed the car was unlocked so they opened the door and 

found the keys on the driver’s seat. They opened the trunk and saw it was full of miscellaneous

items. They closed the trunk and began searching for Robertson. The officers performed an 

extensive search of Huff Park, but they did not find anything or anyone suspicious. The officers 

reported there was no crime involved that they were aware of, and they were advised to leave the 

car at the park. Sometime soon after the vehicle was located, representatives from Express Auto

repossessed the vehicle and moved it to Express Auto’s location in Wyoming, Michigan. 
-3-

On November 29, 2019, the victim’s friend, Carolyn Stewart, who had been looking for

the victim, went to Express Auto to take the victim’s belongings out of the car. In doing so Stewart 

testified that she tried to be as careful as she could and even put on gloves when she was allowed 

in the car so as not to disturb potential evidence of a crime. Ms. Stewart also took photos before 

she touched anything. Ms. Stewart then took the victim’s belongings out of the car, including 

some clothes and an old cell phone. Later that afternoon the police took possession of the car and 

asked Ms. Stewart to come to the police station with the items she had retrieved from the car. Ms. 

Stewart gave everything she took to the police. 

That same day, a crime scene technician with the Grand Rapids Police Department 

examined the car once it was taken into police custody. The technician found blood stains on the 

backseat and the front passenger interior door. The stained areas as well as the steering wheel 

were preserved and swabbed for DNA analysis. On December 4, 2019, police discovered the 

victim’s body partially submerged in the Grand River. DNA was collected from the victim and 

analysis revealed that the victim’s DNA matched that of the blood stains found in the car. 

There is a possibility that the victim’s friend could have, either inadvertently or 

purposefully, tampered with the car and evidence within it before the police seized it. It is 

undisputed that she took items from the car. However, it is also undisputed that the car the police 

seized was in fact the victim’s car that was involved in his murder. Therefore, the evidence from 

the victim’s car, which was limited to the DNA evidence derived from the blood stains on the 

vehicle’s interior along with defendant’s own DNA from the steering wheel, is admissible. Any 

deficiency in the chain of custody went to the weight of this evidence, and defendant was able to 

argue its weight at trial. See White, 208 Mich App at 130-131. Accordingly, the trial court did 

not abuse its discretion by denying defendant’s motion to suppress evidence obtained from the 

victim’s car.1

B. DEFENDANT’S CELL PHONE

Turning to defendant’s arguments related to the cell phone, although defendant initially 

moved to suppress the cell-phone evidence on Fourth Amendment grounds, he withdrew his 

motion before the trial court held an evidentiary hearing or ruled on the motion. This issue is, at 

best, unpreserved. See Snider, 239 Mich App at 406. This Court reviews unpreserved claims of 

error for plain error that affected substantial rights. Id. at 420. Indeed, given that defendant 

withdrew his motion to suppress we could consider the issue waived. See People v Adams, 245 

Mich App 226, 239-240; 627 NW2d 623 (2001).

Police officers must generally secure a warrant before conducting a search of a cell phone. 

Riley v California, 573 US 373, 386; 134 S Ct 2473; 189 L Ed 2d 430 (2014); People v Hughes, 

 

1 Defendant also makes the cursory assertion that the police violated due process by failing to 

preserve exculpatory evidence that might have been found in the car. This argument is unpreserved 

and without merit. Defendant admitted that he stabbed the victim, and he has not even attempted 

to demonstrate that the police failed to preserve anything potentially exculpatory from the car. See 

People v Heft, 299 Mich App 69, 79; 829 NW2d 266 (2012).
-4-

506 Mich 512, 527; 958 NW2d 98 (2020). A search and seizure conducted without a warrant is 

unreasonable unless it falls within a recognized exception to the warrant requirement. People v 

Rodriquez, 327 Mich App 573, 583; 935 NW2d 51 (2019). Voluntary consent is one such 

exception. Id. “Consent permits a warrantless search so long as it is unequivocal, specific, and 

freely and intelligently given.” Id. at 584. Whether consent is voluntary depends on the totality 

of the circumstances. Id. Consent to search must come from someone who has authority to give 

it, meaning either the property’s owner or someone “who shares common authority over the 

property.” People v Mead, 503 Mich 205, 217; 931 NW2d 557 (2019).

Defendant argues that the record is unclear as to whether the police officers obtained his 

phone from the mother of his child, Emma Fox, before they obtained it during his interview with 

police on December 1, 2019. Defendant also argues that he did not “voluntarily consent” because 

he was led to believe that the police had already looked through his phone in some way, and he 

“likely thought that he had no choice except to consent to a search of his phone.” Defendant further 

argues that Fox would not have had authority to consent to a search of defendant’s phone as there 

is no record evidence that Fox had common authority over the phone. These assertions are not, 

however, supported by the record in this case.

At trial, Grand Rapids Police Detective Tim DeVries testified that defendant turned over 

his phone to police during his interview. In defendant’s motion to suppress the cell-phone 

evidence, defendant conceded that he “was asked for and gave consent to search his cell phone.” 

He maintained, however, that before he gave his consent police officers went to the apartment that 

defendant and Fox shared, and Fox gave the officers defendant’s phone. He further asserted that 

at his December 1, 2019 police interview, despite being told that he was not under arrest, he “had 

no other choice than to allow officers to search his phone.” Because defense counsel withdrew 

the cell-phone portion of the motion to suppress before the trial court issued a decision, a record 

was never developed to support defendant’s assertions that Fox gave the phone to police or that he 

had “no other choice” than to give his phone to police during his interview. As the appellant, it is 

defendant’s burden to furnish this Court “with a record to verify the factual basis of any 

argument....” People v Elston, 462 Mich 751, 762; 614 NW2d 595 (2000). Defendant has failed 

to provide this Court with a record to support his claims that the police illegally searched his phone 

at any point, and he has not shown error on this basis.

Moreover, in his closing argument, defense counsel used the cell-phone data from the 

victim’s and defendant’s phones to support defendant’s testimony about the timeline of his selfdefense claim. Having withdrawn his motion to suppress this evidence, and having endeavored to 

use it for his benefit during trial, defendant should not be heard to complain on appeal that the 

admission of this evidence constituted plain error. See People v Witherspoon, 257 Mich App 329, 

333; 670 NW2d 434 (2003) (“[A]n appellant may not benefit from an alleged error that the 

appellant contributed to by plan or negligence.”). Defendant has not shown that an error, let alone 

a plain error, has occurred from the admission of defendant’s cell-phone evidence.

Furthermore, even if defendant had shown that an error occurred, defendant’s substantial 

rights were not affected by the admission of the cell-phone evidence because the outcome of the 

trial would have been the same regardless of whether the cell-phone evidence was admitted. The 

cell-phone evidence was not the only substantial evidence admitted at trial. There was evidence 

of defendant’s DNA on the steering wheel of the victim’s car; the victim’s blood in the backseat 
-5-

of the car; the testimony of two separate jail inmates detailing defendant’s admissions to the 

murder; defendant’s letters to one of the inmates; and the discovery of the murder weapon, a knife

buried at defendant’s home, that was consistent with the victim’s wounds. There was more than 

sufficient evidence of defendant’s guilt even if the cell-phone evidence was excluded from the 

trial. Therefore, defendant’s substantial rights were not affected by the admission of the cell-phone 

evidence.

II. SPEEDY TRIAL

Defendant further argues that he was denied his constitutional right to a speedy trial. We 

disagree.

The right to a speedy trial is guaranteed to criminal defendants by the United States 

Constitution and the Michigan Constitution, as well as by statute and court rule. US Const, Am VI; 

Const 1963, art 1, § 20; MCL 768.1; MCR 6.004(A); People v Williams, 475 Mich 245, 261; 716 

NW2d 208 (2006). We review de novo whether defendant was denied his right to a speedy trial, 

and this Court reviews the trial court’s factual findings for clear error. Williams, 475 Mich at 250. 

Additionally, “this Court must determine whether any error was harmless beyond a reasonable 

doubt.” People v Waclawski, 286 Mich App 634, 664; 780 NW2d 321 (2009). “Violation of the

constitutional right to a speedy trial requires dismissal of the charge with prejudice.” Id. at 664-

665; MCR 6.004(A). 

When determining whether a defendant has been denied the right to a speedy trial, the 

length of delay is not solely determinative. People v Cain, 238 Mich App 95, 112-113; 605 NW2d 

28 (1999). The court applies a four-part balancing test that includes: “(1) the length of delay, (2) 

the reason for delay, (3) the defendant’s assertion of the right, and (4) the prejudice to the 

defendant.” Williams, 475 Mich at 261-262. The delay period commences at defendant’s arrest. 

Id. at 261. If the total delay from arrest to trial is under 18 months, then the burden is on the 

defendant to show that he suffered prejudice. Waclawski, 286 Mich App at 665. But if the delay 

is over 18 months, prejudice is presumed and the burden is on the prosecution to rebut the 

presumption. Id. Scheduling delays and delays caused by the court are attributed to the prosecutor 

but should be “given a neutral tint and are assigned only minimal weight in determining whether 

a defendant was denied a speedy trial.” Id. at 666. A defendant can experience two types of 

prejudice while awaiting trial—prejudice to his person and prejudice to the defense. Id. at 668. 

Prejudice to the defense is the more serious prejudice to consider because a defendant’s inability 

to adequately prepare his defense “skews the fairness of the entire system.” Id. 

As to the first factor in this case, the length of the delay—defendant was incarcerated on 

December 1, 2019, and the trial began on December 13, 2021. Defendant had to wait 24 months 

from the time of his incarceration to the time of his trial. Because this wait was longer than 18 

months, prejudice is presumed, and the burden shifts to the prosecution to show that there was no 

injury. 

As to the second factor in this case, reason for the delay—this case was first set for trial on 

May 4, 2020; however, it was “adjourned due to other reasons.” Defendant’s next trial date was 

scheduled for August 17, 2020, and it was also “adjourned due to other reasons.” The delay in this 

case was due to the Covid-19 pandemic shutting down the jury trial system in March 2020. This 
-6-

Court has concluded that delay primarily resulting from the Supreme Court’s decision to suspend 

jury trials in response to the Covid-19 pandemic is not attributable to either party. In re Sanborn, 

337 Mich App 252, 270; 976 NW2d 44 (2021). 

As to the third factor in this case, defendant’s assertion of the right—defendant twice 

moved to dismiss for failure to receive a speedy trial. Defendant first moved to dismiss on 

January 19, 2021, and the trial court denied the motion on January 29, 2021. Later, defendant filed 

a second motion to dismiss on August 17, 2021, and the trial court denied the motion on August 27, 

2021. Therefore, defendant clearly asserted the right to a speedy trial. 

As to the fourth factor in this case, prejudice to defendant is presumed because the delay 

was longer than 18 months; however, there is no indication of actual prejudice to the defense. 

Defendant has not asserted that he was unable to secure witnesses or evidence for trial due to the 

delay, and the evidence of defendant’s guilt was overwhelming. We conclude that defendant has 

failed to demonstrate prejudice to his defense as a result of the delay. 

Accordingly, defendant’s speedy trial claim lacks merit, and we deny relief on this issue.

Affirmed.

/s/ Thomas C. Cameron 

/s/ Christopher M. Murray 

/s/ Michael F. Gadola