(Source: MIRS.news, Published 10/31/2023) It’s official – criminal charges against former Gov. Rick Snyder arising out of the Flint water crisis is dead after the Michigan Supreme Court Tuesday denied the Attorney General’s appeal request.
In a two-paragraph order, the court said it is “not persuaded” to review the case.
Chief Justice Elizabeth Clement did not participate due to her prior involvement as chief legal counsel for Snyder.
Attorney General Dana Nessel's Flint water prosecution team – led by Chief Deputy General Fadwa Hammoud and Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy – said the court's decision “has left us with no option but to consider the Flint water prosecutions closed.”
Snyder's attorney, Brian Lennon, said the former governor and his family are “pleased” with the court's decision and they are “encouraged by what appears to be a declaration by AG Nessel of the end of this political persecution of public officials.”
The AG's team plans to release a “full and thorough report to the public in the months to come detailing the efforts and decisions of the state prosecution.” The team expects that report to be released in 2024.
“Today, our Supreme Court has put the final nail in the coffin of the Flint water prosecutions,” the team said in a statement. “The Court decided that a process which has stood in place for over a century, one whose legitimacy the Court upheld repeatedly, was simply not ‘good enough’ to hold those responsible for the Flint water crisis accountable for their actions. Our disappointment in the Michigan Supreme Court is exceeded only by our sorrow for the people of Flint.”
That process was the one-judge grand jury that the AG’s office used to secure indictments against Snyder and eight other former state and city officials who were charged in the Flint water crisis.
In June 2022, the Supreme Court held a one-judge grand jury could authorize an arrest warrant, but not an indictment.
Lennon said the court “correctly invalidated that ‘Star Chamber-like’ one-judge grand jury process,” which was historically used in Wayne County. As for the AG's future report, Lennon said he hopes the department will explain why the prosecution team executed search warrants on documents held by their civil counterparts, then failed to properly review the documents before attorney-client privileged documents, attorney work product and protected documents were released.
A bankruptcy judge held the AG’s office in contempt for disclosing the confidential documents in Detroit city’s bankruptcy case and ordered the AG’s office to pay Snyder’s “reasonable attorney fees” as his legal team worked to defend him from the criminal charges.
As a result of the Supreme Court's ruling related to the one-judge grand jury, Genesee County Circuit Judge Elizabeth Kelly ordered the felony charges against seven defendants dismissed, including former health director Nick Lyon and former medical executive Dr. Eden Wells.
Lyon’s legal team also praised the court’s decision today, saying Lyon is “innocent as reflected by the long and sad history of this case.”
The AG’s office appealed Kelly’s ruling, but the Supreme Court declined to hear the challenge.
Kelly’s order didn’t address Snyder and former Flint public works director Howard Croft’s cases because they were charged with misdemeanors. However, then-Circuit Judge F. Kay Behm ordered the lower court to dismiss Snyder’s charges based on the Supreme Court’s one-judge grand jury ruling.
The only case that remains pending is Croft’s. A hearing in his case is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. on Nov. 20 in Genesee County Circuit Court.
There were a few plea deals made under Republican former AG Bill Schuette’s special prosecutor, Todd Flood, but none were felony convictions.
Hammoud and Worthy dismissed the pending criminal cases in June 2019, fired Flood and restarted the investigation which led to indictments in January 2021.
