Re: Michigan high court wipes charges against ex-Gov. Snyder, 8 others in Flint water crisis

[Women Lead With Their Cunts Wide Open]

In article <XnsAC94605...@95.216.243.224>
<governo...@gmail.com> wrote:

HA! HA! You VINDICTIVE STUPID CUNTS! LESBIANS ARE TOO STUPID
TO CORRECTLY APPLY THE LAW AS WRITTEN, DANA NESSEL.

DETROIT – The Michigan Supreme Court on Tuesday threw out
charges against former Gov. Rick Snyder and others in the Flint
water scandal, saying a judge sitting as a one-person grand jury
had no power to issue indictments under rarely used state laws.

It’s an astonishing defeat for Attorney General Dana Nessel, who
took office in 2019, got rid of a special prosecutor and put
together a new team to investigate whether crimes were committed
when lead contaminated Flint’s water system in 2014-15.

State laws “authorize a judge to investigate, subpoena
witnesses, and issue arrest warrants” as a grand juror, the
Supreme Court said.

“But they do not authorize the judge to issue indictments,” the
court said in a 6-0 opinion written by Chief Justice Bridget
McCormack.

She called it a “Star Chamber comeback,” a pejorative reference
to an oppressive, closed-door style of justice in England in the
17th century.

The challenge was filed by lawyers for former health director
Nick Lyon, but the decision also applies to Snyder and others
who were indicted. The cases now will return to Genesee County
court with requests for dismissal.

“This wasn't even a close case — it was six-zip. ... They
couldn’t do what they tried to do," said Lyon attorney Chip
Chamberlain.

Snyder's legal team described the court's opinion as
“unequivocal and scathing.”

“These prosecutions of Governor Snyder and the other defendants
were never about seeking justice for the citizens of Flint,”
Snyder's lawyers said. “Rather, Attorney General Nessel and her
political appointee Solicitor General Fadwa Hammoud staged a
self-interested, vindictive, wasteful and politically motivated
prosecution.”

Hammoud, however, released a statement, insisting the cases
weren't over, based on her interpretation of the opinion. There
was no immediate response to a request for additional comment.

The saga began in 2014 when Flint managers appointed by Snyder
dropped out of a regional water system and began using the Flint
River to save money while a new pipeline to Lake Huron was under
construction. State regulators insisted the river water didn’t
need to be treated to reduce its corrosive qualities. But that
was a ruinous decision: Lead released from old pipes flowed for
18 months in the majority-Black city.

The Michigan Civil Rights Commission said it was the result of
systemic racism, doubting that the water switch and the brush-
off of complaints would have occurred in a white, prosperous
community.

Snyder, a Republican, has long acknowledged that his
administration failed in Flint, calling it a crisis born from a
“breakdown in state government.”

He was out of office in 2021 when he was charged with two
misdemeanor counts of willful neglect of duty. Lyon and
Michigan’s former chief medical executive, Dr. Eden Wells, were
charged with involuntary manslaughter for nine deaths related to
Legionnaires’ disease when Flint’s water might have lacked
enough chlorine to combat bacteria.

Six others were also indicted on various charges: Snyder’s
longtime fixer, Rich Baird; former senior aide Jarrod Agen;
former Flint managers Gerald Ambrose and Darnell Earley; former
Flint public works chief Howard Croft; and Nancy Peeler, a state
health department manager.

Nessel assigned Hammoud to lead the criminal investigation,
along with Wayne County prosecutor Kym Worthy, while the
attorney general focused on settling lawsuits against the state.

Hammoud and Worthy turned to a one-judge grand jury in Genesee
County to hear evidence in secret and get indictments against
Snyder and others.

Prosecutors in Michigan typically file charges after a police
investigation. A one-judge grand jury is extremely rare and is
mostly used to protect witnesses, especially in violent crimes,
who can testify in private.

“It seems that the power of a judge conducting an inquiry to
issue an indictment was simply an unchallenged assumption, until
now,” the Supreme Court said Tuesday.

Lyon, the former state health director, was accused of
contributing to Legionnaires’ deaths by failing to timely warn
the public about an outbreak. His lawyers, however, said he had
ordered experts to investigate the illnesses and notify Flint-
area health officials. He had no role in Flint's water switch.

“State employees should not be prosecuted or demonized for just
doing their job,” Lyon said after the court's decision.

Residents were disappointed.

“So everyone who was involved in this manmade disaster by the
government is walking away scot-free?” said Leon El-Alamin, a
community activist. "We lock people up every day for petty
crimes. Something like this has killed people. People died from
the Flint water crisis.”

Former Mayor Karen Weaver said the result was unfair.

“One of the things we had been told over and over was justice
delayed has not been justice denied. But that’s not true for the
people of Flint," said Weaver, referring to the years that have
passed.

The water switch and its consequences 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 prison, but the results were different:
Seven people pleaded no contest to misdemeanors that were
eventually scrubbed from their records.

Flood insisted he was winning cooperation from key witnesses and
moving higher toward bigger names. Nonetheless, Nessel, a
Democrat, fired him and pledged to start over following her
election as attorney general.

Separately, the state agreed to pay $600 million as part of a
$626 million settlement with Flint residents and property owners
who were harmed by lead-tainted water. Most of the money is
going to children.

There is no dispute that lead affects the brain and nervous
system, especially in children. Experts have not identified a
safe lead level in kids.

Flint in 2015 returned to a water system based in southeastern
Michigan. Meanwhile, roughly 10,100 lead or steel water lines
had been replaced at homes by last December.

___

Associated Press writer Corey Williams in Detroit contributed to
this story.

https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/politics/2022/06/28/charges-
spiked-against-ex-governor-8-others-in-flint-water/