A Harford man who pleaded guilty in April to second-degree murder for killing a man in a fit of road rage is now trying to withdraw his plea and get a new trial.
Michael Razzio Simmons, 20, was sentenced to 30 years in prison for stabbing Patrick Walker, 23, in the parking lot behind the Harford County Health Department in May 2006.
“He and his family have convinced themselves he should only have pleaded guilty to manslaughter,” a lesser charge, said Assistant State?s Attorney Vernon Gentile.
Simmons? new attorney, Kenneth Ravenell, did not return calls for comment.
Gentile said he will argue that the conditions for granting a new trial ? that Simmons was misinformed by his attorney or that his plea “wasn?t a voluntary and knowing decision” ? have not been met.
“The state will argue that he fully knew what he was pleading to,” Gentile said.
Witnesses, attorneys and police officers will return to the courtroom Sept. 5, when testimony will begin in Simmons? motion for a new trial, in an effort to prove that Simmons? then-lawyer David Henninger failed to adequately educate Simmons as to his possible legal options.
Simmons had maintained that Walker exited his vehicle and confronted him in the parking lot after Walker cut him off on the road. He claimed Walker fell onto the knife that Simmons carried for protection.
But employees of the health department and one of Simmons? passengers told police Walker never left the car; Simmons had leaned in the window and apparently stabbed him in the neck, witnesses said.
In March, Henninger had sought to throw out evidence, including a printout of an online chat between “Mikerazzio” and another person that referenced violent song lyrics.
According to court records, the chat text speaks of putting a knife through someone?s chest, decapitation and leaving a body to rot in a ditch.
Gentile argued the text could have shown Simmons? mindset prior to the confrontation and hinted at premeditation ? the difference between second- and first-degree murder.
