Jessica Mathews / news@whmi.com


A man serving prison time for slitting his roommate’s throat has had his murder conviction upheld by the Michigan Court of Appeals.

50-year-old Joseph Robert Birckelbaw appealed his 2nd degree murder conviction and 16-to-40-year sentence handed down in 2024 in Oakland County Circuit Court. The Appeals Court upheld the ruling in an unpublished opinion issued earlier this month.

The Oakland Press first reported this story.

Birckelbaw was convicted in the murder of 50-year-old Todd Hall the evening of December 30th, 2020. It happened at Hall’s condo in Walled Lake. Birckelbaw and Raymond Champe were his roommates. Birckelbaw had maintained Hall attacked him with a knife, and that he was acting in self-defense. Hall subsequently died of his injuries at a hospital.

An autopsy conducted noted the cause of death as sharp-force trauma to the neck, and the manner of death as homicide.

The primary issue at trial concerned whether Birckelbaw was acting in self-defense. Following a five-day jury trial, Birckelbaw was convicted and sentenced, and the current appeal ensued.

Birckelbaw argued that there was insufficient evidence to support his second-degree murder conviction because the prosecution failed to disprove self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt. The Court of Appeals disagreed.

Birckelbaw further argued that several of the prosecution’s statements during closing argument constituted prosecutorial misconduct, to which the justices also disagreed.

Birckelbaw is incarcerated at the Muskegon Correctional Facility, security level II. His earliest release date is December 29th, 2036.

The full unpublished opinion is available in the provided link.