The Michigan Supreme Court Threw out all charges against former Governor Rick Snyder and other former members of the state executive branch in the case over the bad water in Flint, Michigan. Corrupt AG Dana Nessel hijacked the investigation as she fired the chief investigator and installed her hand-picked choices who were not concerned with obeying the law. They set up a single judge grand jury,
The Michigan Supreme Court agreed that the state could set up a single judge grand jury, but his power is very limited and he certainly did not have the power to issue indictments. He could “investigate, subpoena witnesses, and issue arrest warrants,” but they do not “authorize the judge to issue indictments.” There are two important points her. It was unanimous, meaning all of the liberal judges agreed. Secondly, it was a very sharp rebuke to Nessel and sends the message that she is no longer bulletproof.
in 2021, AG Nessel’s office announced that charges had been filed against Snyder and eight other officials. That included Snyder’s former chief of staff Jarrod Agen, former Michigan health director Nick Lyon, and Michigan chief medical officer Eden Wells. Snyder was charged with two counts of willful neglect which are misdemeanors. The charges against Lyon and Wells were both charged with involuntary manslaughter which carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison.
In the court declaration, they wrote:
“These prosecutions of Governor Snyder and the other defendants were never about seeking justice for the citizens of Flint. Rather, Attorney General Nessel and her political appointee Solicitor General Fadwa Hammoud staged a self-interested, vindictive, wasteful and politically motivated prosecution.”
The indictments themselves were a reversal of sorts. When Nessel assumed office in 2019, she immediately dismissed Todd Flood, the special prosecutor assigned by Nessel’s predecessor, Bill Schuette, to investigate the crisis, and instead appointed Fadwa Hammoud to the task. Hammoud then paired with Wayne County prosecutor Kym Worthy, and the two appointed Judge David Newblatt of Genesee County, where Flint is located, to be a one-judge grand jury with the power to investigate evidence in secret and issue indictments according to his findings.
The secretive nature of the proceedings and the exploitation of a loophole in Michigan law that permits a one-judge grand jury under rare circumstances led the Michigan Supreme Court to call the process a “Star Chamber comeback,” a reference to the sixteenth-century English law enforcement body that often waged attacks against the English sovereign’s political adversaries.
