“I’m interested in receiving the actual facts as the government perceives them, and many of the lab results and other testing, they don’t even have those reports back yet,” said attorney L. Patrick Mulligan of Moermond & Mulligan law firm, who is representing Flynn.
A preliminary hearing initially was scheduled for Feb. 26 to determine whether there is enough evidence, or probable cause, for the case to proceed to trial. If so, it would be bound over to a county grand jury for review.
However, Flynn’s defense team on Tuesday filed a waiver for time requirements of a preliminary hearing, which otherwise must be held within 10 days of the filing of felony charges. In addition, the defense filed a time waiver concerning his right to a speedy trial, court documents show.
“It was done at my request, but it’s the appropriate thing to do,” Mulligan said. “I wanted to actually get hard copies of actual police reports and review them before we go to the next step and I always thought things were going a little too fast.”
Flynn was arrested within 82 hours of his wife’s death.
While the preliminary hearing has been rescheduled to March 26, the prosecution could take the case before a Miami County Common Pleas Court grand jury before then.
The standard for issuing an indictment is a probable cause standard, which Mulligan said he defines as “a little more than a hunch” compared to the standard in trial of beyond a reasonable doubt.
Credit: Miami County Jail
Credit: Miami County Jail
“The ugly legal joke about grand jury is you can indict a ham sandwich for murder if you want to,” Mulligan said. “So the prosecutor can take a case to the one-sided grand jury. And when I say one-sided, it’s one-sided because there’s no judge, there’s no defense lawyer there, there’s no defendant there, there’s no defense witnesses there. So the grand jury is not so grand. And an indictment is simply a charging document that tells you what you’re charged with. When cooler heads prevail, it’s nicer when the grand jury actually is presented with perhaps some facts.”
Mulligan said he has firsthand knowledge of how a grand jury operates because years ago when he worked as a Montgomery County assistant prosecutor, he ran a grand jury for 18 months.
Mulligan said he doesn’t understand why this case is so high-profile, but he attributes it to social media, where “remarkably flawed statements are being made.”
“I think it has to do with the insatiable desire on the part of the public for nonsense on social media,” he said. “And people read Facebook and that other social media stuff like it’s gospel.”
Whether that publicity will make it difficult for his client to receive a fair trial in Miami County remains to be seen, he said.
“A change of venue is always something that the defense is required to review and whether that’s appropriate at that time. It’s part of the standard analysis that we do in any high-profile case,” Mulligan said.
Flynn remains held in the Miami County Jail on a $2 million bond.
Ashley Flynn, 37, a mother of two elementary-aged daughters, coached seventh-grade girls volleyball at Tippecanoe Middle School and worked as a substitute teacher for Tipp City Schools. She also taught for LifeWise Academy in Tipp City, a nonprofit that provides weekly Bible-based lessons to public school students off campus. The Tippecanoe High School graduate also formerly worked as a teacher for Tipp City Schools.
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