Court official disputes prosecutors on Hutaree release conditions

In a very interesting and highly unusual development, a court official from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan has filed an affidavit with the appeals court disputing claims made by the government prosecutors in their court filings in the Hutaree case.

Alan H. Murray, the Chief Pretrial Services Officer for the Eastern District of Michigan, filed the document to correct a claim made by the prosecutors in one of their briefs arguing that the Hutaree 9 should be denied bond and kept in jail pending trial. Specifically, the prosecutors have asserted that the “home detention” provision ordered as a condition of release means the defendants can go anywhere they want without the government’s knowledge:

From the motion for an emergency stay filed by the U.S. Attorney’s office on Wednesday, May 5:

The conditions imposed by the district court are, the government believes, ineffective, in practice not what they appear to be, and in at least one instance contradictory of other release terms. For instance, although the district court ordered “home detention” that term is treated in practice by Pretrial Services as a curfew that allows the defendants unmonitored released the entire day.

The affidavit filed by Harris, whose agency oversees such bond conditions, calls this claim false:

Contrary to Mr. Waterstreet’s belief, the court-ordered “home detention” does not allow unmonitored release the entire day. The Global Positioning Satellites System allows a defendant to be monitored, at all times.

Harris also disputed another claim from the government’s brief, that there was no verification system to assure that the defendants or the third party custodians they will be turned over to upon release have actually gotten rid of their weapons. The government had claimed in its brief:

The court appointed third-party custodians, and ordered them to surrender the custodians’ firearms, but created no mechanism for doing so, and no verification procedure; Pretrial Services does not accept firearms.

Again, Harris says this is not true:

The Court’s Pretrial Services Agency has an internal form regarding the third-party custodians’ firearms. This form will be completed, and signed, by both the third-party custodian and the person who receives the firearms, before a Defendant is released to his or her designated third-party custodian.

The Court’s Pretrial Services Agency has a safe with the capacity to handle the third-party custodians’ firearms, if necessary.

This is all very unusual and it cannot bode well for the government’s case. The last thing an attorney wants is for the judge(s) to get the idea that they can’t depend on the accuracy of their factual claims.

Here is the Murray affidavit:

murray affidavit –

And here is the government’s motion for an emergency stay that contains the apparently false information:

motion for emergency stay