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NILES — The Mishawaka man who attacked a Michigan State Police trooper in 2017 has had part of his conviction and sentence vacated by the Michigan Court of Appeals.

In an opinion released late last week, the Court of Appeals ruled that Michael Scott Barber could not be convicted and sentenced for both assault by strangulation and assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder. The court ruled that constituted double jeopardy.

They vacated the great bodily harm conviction and sentence and remanded the case back to Berrien County Trial Court for resentencing. Berrien County Prosecutor Michael Sepic said his office is looking at the ruling to decide if they will make an appeal.

Barber, now 23, was convicted by a Berrien County Trial Court jury in 2017 of six counts including assault by strangulation, assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder and resisting and obstructing police causing injury as habitual offender.

He was sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison for the two assault counts, five to seven and a half years for receiving, concealing and possession of stolen property as well as for third degree fleeing police and two to three years for attempting to disarm a police officer. He received a consecutive prison sentence of four to six years for resisting and obstructing police causing injury.

Barber’s convictions stemmed from a Feb. 20, 2017, incident that began when Trooper Garry Guild attempted to pull Barber over on the U.S. 31 freeway between Buchanan and Berrien Springs on what turned out to be a stolen motorcycle.

Barber ended up crashing the bike and then started attacking Guild. He was helped by his half-brother, Trevor Wise, who got out of a car trailing them and started choking Guild.

Guild was assisted by two Good Samaritans, Jerry Burnham, of Berrien Springs, and Keith Pepple, of Plainwell, who helped the officer regain control of the situation before other police arrived.

The Court of Appeals ruling comes after the Michigan Supreme Court remanded back to them the double jeopardy question of being sentenced for both assault by strangulation and assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder.

The Michigan Supreme Court stated in December that the Court of Appeals failed to address Barber’s argument that the legislature did not intend for a single act to result in convictions for both assault by strangulation and assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder.

The court noted that the legislature did not intend to allow for multiple convictions and punishments for multiple offenses arising from the same conduct except when explicitly authorized. It further noted that a concurrent sentence does not necessarily eliminate collateral consequences for being convicted of two charges from the same offense.

In their ruling last week, the Court of Appeals stated that state law does not permit a trial court to punish a person for both of the two assault offenses mentioned above which are defined in the same statute.

“Therefore, defendant’s convictions of assault by strangulation and AWIGBH for the same conduct violated the double jeopardy prohibition,” the court stated.

The Court of Appeals noted that in most cases the charge carrying the higher penalty would be kept and the other vacated. In this instance, the two charges carry the same penalty and received the same sentence. Barber’s attorney asked that the assault by strangulation conviction remain, as it was more descriptive of what happened.