CASSOPOLIS — A Niles man convicted of felonious assault for stabbing three men at a Cass County bar was sentenced to prison Friday in Cass County Circuit Court.
James Carter, 30, was sentenced to three to fifteen years in prison with credit for 59 days already served.
According to Judge Michael Dodge, the incident took place at Hide-A-Way Lounge in Niles, where Carter, who was on parole for a conviction in Indiana, began drinking. He got involved in an altercation with three men and pulled a knife, stabbing all three of them.
One of the men was stabbed in the chest near the heart.
“He’s lucky more harm didn’t happen to the men that he stabbed,” said Assistant Prosecutor Diab Rizk.
Dodge said Carter has a lengthy violent criminal history in Michigan and Indiana, including convictions of assaulting a police officer, battery, battery on a child and intimidation with a deadly weapon.
Defense attorney Andrew Burch said his client is a “bit of a mystery.” While letters in support of Carter paint him as a hard worker and family man, he has a violent side.
“He has many good qualities. He works hard… He cares for his children,” Burch said.
Dodge agreed.
“It’s completely opposite of the person described in these letters. It doesn’t even sound like the same person,” he said.
Burch also argued that the stabbings were not pre-meditated but an “impulse-motivated crime.”
Dodge said Carter had advised he was acting in self-defense, but Dodge said: “you were the only one with a knife.”
“This never needed to develop,” Dodge said. “You were on parole and had no business being in a bar drinking.”