The Michigan Supreme Court heard arguments Thursday on whether to expand and make retroactive a history-making earlier decision that struck down one-judge grand juries.
A man charged with murder in Jackson County wants the justices to apply its 2022 decision that invalidated charges issued by a one-judge grand jury against nine state officials to his case.
The 2022 decision found the one-judge grand jury that indicted nines state officials, including former Governor Rick Snyder, for allegations related to the Flint water crisis unconstitutionally combined the roles of judge and prosecutor.
“Nobody thinks about a judge as someone who can charge people with criminal offenses,” said defense attorney Harold Gurewitz, who argued their job is to ensure fairness, not act as prosecutors.
“Our system is based upon protection of certain rights to ensure that things happen and get to the right results,” he said, “and where it starts off where a judge is acting as a prosecutor, I think that there is a question what the outcome should have been.”
Gurewitz said his client, a man convicted of murder prior to the Supreme Court’s earlier ruling, deserves the same rights as the Flint water defendants. The Michigan Court of Appeals agreed the one-judge process was improper, but said it was a harmless error.
The 2022 decision ended the Flint water cases because the window to refile charges had expired. But it many of the convictions that could be affected by a Supreme Court ruling do not have time limits. If they are reversed, prosecutors would have to decide whether to seek new trials.
“I would say over 200 cases in the state would have the potential to be affected,” said Jackson County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Matthew Way, the county’s chief appellate lawyer. “They are probably disproportionately serious, assaultive, homicide or attempted homicide type of crimes.”
There is an effort in the Legislature to abolish one-judge grand juries. The state House voted in June for a bill to repeal the law that allows one-judge grand juries to issue criminal charges. That bill is now before a state Senate committee.
