I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
The Detroit News reports that Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy will no longer talk with local civic leaders who are seeking to broker a deal for Kwame Kilpatrick.
A spokesman for Worthy, who two weeks ago met with a group of prominent community leaders, including Peter Karmanos of Compuware and Judge Damon Keith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th District, said that she would be meeting only with attorneys for Kilpatrick to negotiate any possible plea deal. The News also reported that one member of that group of leaders, former Wayne County Commission chair Art Blackwell, said that Gov. Jennifer Granholm called him and asked him to try and broker a deal.
This new policy by Worthy is appropriate; I wish she had taken that position before meeting with those community leaders. Plea deals are negotiated by defendants and prosecutors, not by politicians or those not directly involved in the trial. I’m sure Granholm sees the entire Kilpatrick situation as an unwelcome burden dropped in her lap for which there is no good political answer, but that doesn’t mean she should be pushing the judicial system to do anything other than its job, which is to determine guilt or innocence and secure a conviction where guilty. This comes dangerously close to political interference in the judicial system, the independence of which is vital to the administration of justice.
Worthy should not be concerned with the political consequences of prosecuting Kilpatrick or the political convenience of those who just want a swift end to the controversy. Such political considerations should play no part in judicial proceedings because including those considerations can only distract from the job that a prosecutor is paid to do. If she and Kilpatrick’s attorneys can negotiate a plea arrangement that serves the interests of justice in the case, they should do so. But they should do so only for that reason, not because it might serve the interests of others not involved in the case.
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