A former Houghton County attorney entered a no contest plea Monday to second-degree murder in connection with the 2023 shooting death of Theron Duncan.
Evan Dixon appeared before Marquette County Circuit Judge Matthew Wiese in Houghton County’s 12th Circuit Court for the plea hearing. Dixon was arrested in November 2023 following an incident at the Douglass House Saloon.
Houghton County Prosecutor Dan Helmer told the court that Dixon and Duncan had been drinking at the bar before a disagreement escalated.
“Mr. Duncan then went into the bathroom at the Douglass House,” Helmer said. “Mr. Dixon soon followed. Witnesses then heard a gunshot. Mr. Dixon came out of that bathroom, placed the gun on the ground and said, ‘I did it.’ When they went into the bathroom, they found Mr. Duncan deceased on the floor with a gunshot wound to the head. That wound was caused by a weapon not only possessed by Mr. Dixon, but owned by Mr. Dixon.”
Sentencing is scheduled for Aug. 31. Prosecutor Helmer requested the extended timeline to allow Duncan’s family to travel to Houghton County for the hearing. Judge Wiese, based in Marquette, will travel to Houghton County to preside in person. Under the plea agreement, Dixon will serve a minimum of 18 years in prison. The court will determine his maximum sentence at the August hearing. Dixon’s plea agreement will dismiss the first-degree homicide charge, and a felony weapons charge.
Because Dixon previously practiced law in Houghton County, local judges recused themselves from the case due to prior professional relationships with him. The recusals required the court to rely on outside judicial schedules, contributing to delays throughout the proceedings.
Dixon had previously sought to pursue a diminished capacity defense, a strategy under consideration at the state Supreme Court level, but recently abandoned that effort. Diminished capacity has not been a recognized legal defense in Michigan since 2001, when the state Supreme Court ruled in People v. Carpenter that it falls outside the Michigan Insanity Defense Law.
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