INDICTMENTS IN FLINT WATER CASE RULED INVALID
Court: Process in which they were issued incorrect
The Michigan Supreme Court said Tuesday that former top state officials accused of wrongdoing in the Flint water crisis had been indicted improperly, upending some of the highest-profile prosecutions in recent state history and leaving residents whose tap water turned toxic eight years ago frustrated by a lack of accountability in criminal court.
When they brought charges last year against former Gov. Rick Snyder and others, prosecutors said those officials had failed to protect the safety and health of Flint residents, who were sickened by increased levels of lead and by Legionnaires’ disease after the city’s water supply was switched to the Flint River in April 2014.
But prosecutors appointed by Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, relied on a judge acting as a one-man grand jury to issue the indictments against Snyder, a Republican, and eight others, including the state’s former health director and the state’s former chief medical officer. The Supreme Court, in a 6-0 ruling, said Tuesday that single-person grand juries, which have long been used in Michigan, could not be deployed in that way.
Prosecutors said they planned to continue pursuing the charges using a different legal approach.
Still, for many in Flint, a city that was once a hub of the global auto industry, but that struggled with disinvestment, blight and poverty even before the water crisis, the Supreme Court ruling was seen as yet another betrayal. Some among Flint’s 81,000 residents had called for years for charges against Snyder and others, and had criticized an emergency oversight policy that allowed state officials to take control of the financially challenged city government and change the water source.
“The court system should be ashamed that they let it drag on this long,” said Claudia Perkins-Milton, a lifelong Flint resident and an activist on water issues, who said she still drank only bottled water. “People here are so upset. Do you
know it’s been eight long years — eight? Eight long years that we’ve been dealing with this atrocity.”
Three defendants, not including Snyder, had challenged the use of the oneman grand jury, but the court’s ruling also appeared likely to upset the prosecutions of the other defendants.
For defendants who had said from the start that criminal charges were wrong and politically motivated, the ruling on Tuesday marked vindication. Lawyers for Snyder said they would seek the dismissal of his case.
But Fadwa Hammoud, the state solicitor general who has helped lead the Flint prosecutions, said in a statement hours after the ruling that “these cases are not over” and that “commentary to the contrary is presumptive and rash.”
“We are prepared and determined to prove the allegations against the defendants in court and are committed to seeing this process through to its conclusion,” Hammoud said.
Still, Flint’s mayor, Sheldon Neeley, who said his residents continued to distrust government, said the decision was a disappointment. He said he hoped prosecutors would continue pursuing the cases.
“Residents of this community feel that they have not received justice, and this is another punch to the level of confidence that people have in government,” Neeley said. He added, “People are angry and they’re frustrated.”
At least nine people died of Legionnaires’ disease in the Flint region from June 2014 through October 2015 after a breakdown at all levels of government. The water crisis, which resulted in elevated lead levels among thousands of people in Flint, has left numerous families distrustful of the water supply, even as city officials insist that it is now safe to drink. Most of the city’s lead service lines have been replaced over the past few years, Neeley said, but a few thousand of the old pipes remain in the ground.
The Supreme Court said Tuesday that the use of a one-person grand jury to issue indictments unfairly denied the defendants a preliminary examination, where the evidence against them would have been outlined in open court.