DETROIT (AP) – Michigan Supreme Court on Tuesday dropped charges against former Gov. Rick Snyder and others over the Flint water scandal, saying a judge as a one-person grand jury had no power to issue charges under little-used state laws. .
It is a startling defeat for Attorney General Dana Nessel, who took office in 2019, got rid of a special prosecutor and formed a new team to investigate whether crimes were committed when lead contaminated the water system. of Flint in 2014-15.
State laws “authorize a judge to investigate, subpoena witnesses, and issue arrest warrants” as a grand jury, the Supreme Court said.
“But they don’t authorize the judge to issue charges,” the court said in a 6-0 opinion written by Justice President Bridget McCormack.
He called it a “return of the House of Stars,” a pejorative reference to an oppressive and closed-door style of justice in seventeenth-century England.
The challenge was filed by the lawyers of former health director Nick Lyon, but the decision also applies to Snyder and others who were charged. The cases will now return to the Genesee County Court for dismissal.
“This was not even a closed case, it was six zippers,” Lyon lawyer Chip Chamberlain said. “It was based on a simple reading of the statute. They couldn’t do what they tried to do. “
The Attorney General’s Office made no immediate comment on the decision. Snyder’s legal team described the court’s opinion as “unequivocal and scathing.”
“These prosecutions against Governor Snyder and the other defendants were never for seeking justice for the citizens of Flint,” Snyder’s attorneys said. “Rather, Attorney General Nessel and his designated politician, Attorney General Fadwa Hammoud, starred in an interested, vindictive, wasteful and politically motivated prosecution.”
The saga began in 2014 when Snyder-appointed Flint administrators abandoned a regional water system and began using the Flint River to save money while a new pipe was being built on Lake Huron. State regulators insisted that river water should not be treated to reduce its corrosive qualities. But this was a ruinous decision: the lead released from the old pipes flowed for 18 months into the mostly black city.
The Michigan Civil Rights Commission said it was the result of systemic racism, doubting the water switch and the removal of complaints had occurred in a white, prosperous community.
Snyder, a Republican, has long acknowledged that his administration failed in Flint, calling it a crisis born of a “rupture of state government.”
He was removed from office in 2021 when he was charged with two misdemeanors for willful negligence of duty. Former Lyon and Michigan chief medical officer Dr. Eden Wells was charged with manslaughter for nine deaths related to the legionary’s disease when Flint’s water may have lacked enough chlorine to fight the bacteria.
Six others were also charged with various charges: Rich Baird, Snyder’s repairman; former senior assistant Jarrod Agen; former Flint executives Gerald Ambrose and Darnell Earley; former Flint Howard Croft chief of public works; and Nancy Peeler, manager of the state health department.
Nessel assigned Hammoud to lead the criminal investigation, along with County Attorney Wayne Kym Worthy, while the attorney general focused on resolving lawsuits against the state.
Hammoud and Worthy appealed to a grand jury of a single judge in Genesee County to hear secret evidence and obtain charges against Snyder and others.
“There are no velvet ropes in our criminal justice system,” Hammoud proudly stated in 2021 when charges were filed. “No one, however powerful or well-connected, is above responsibility when he commits a crime.”
But she and her team, acting on Worthy’s recommendation, did not follow a traditional process. Hammoud has not yet publicly explained why.
Michigan prosecutors usually file charges after a police investigation. A grand jury of a judge is extremely rare and is used primarily to protect witnesses, especially in violent crimes, who may testify in private.
“It appears that the power of a judge conducting an investigation to issue an indictment was simply an unquestionable assumption, so far,” the Supreme Court said on Tuesday.
Residents were disappointed.
“It’s a shame for the justice system and the citizens of Flint,” said Leon El-Alamin, a community activist. “So everyone who was involved in this man-made disaster by the government is leaving free? We are closing people down every day for petty crimes. Something like this has killed people. People died because of the crisis. Flint water “.
Flint’s water switch and its aftermath have been investigated since 2016, when then-Attorney General Bill Schuette, a Republican, appointed Todd Flood as special prosecutor. Schuette pledged to put people in jail, but the results were different: seven people declared themselves unopposed to the misdemeanors that were eventually erased from their records.
Flood insisted he was gaining the cooperation of key witnesses and moving toward bigger names. However, Nessel, a Democrat, fired him and vowed to start again after his election as attorney general.
Separately, the state agreed to pay $ 600 million as part of a $ 626 million deal with Flint residents and homeowners who were harmed by the lead-contaminated water. Most of the money goes to children.
There is no doubt that lead affects the brain and nervous system, especially in children. Experts have not identified a safe level of lead in children.
Flint in 2015 returned to a water system based in southeast Michigan. Meanwhile, approximately 10,100 lines of lead or steel water had been replaced in homes last December.
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Associated Press writer Corey Williams in Detroit contributed to this story.
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