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 U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that sending juveniles to prison for life without parole is unconstitutional unless the juvenile has been convicted of murder, the Washington Post reports.
The court ruled 5 to 4 that locking up forever those under 18 who have not killed violates the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The decision follows the court’s 2005 decision that juveniles may not be executed, and expands upon its decision that the Eighth Amendment must be interpreted in light of the country’s “evolving standards of decency.”
In Michigan the general age of criminal responsibility is 17, and the state has around 350 people serving life without parole sentences for crimes committed while they were younger than 17.
It is not yet clear how many inmates in Michigan could be affected by the court’s ruling.
The Washington Post writes that Justice Kennedy said that there are 129 juvenile non-homicide offenders serving sentences of life without parole in 11 states, and that the majority of them are in Florida.
Last year Gary Walker, president of the Michigan Prosecutors Association, told Michigan Messenger that changing the age of criminal responsibility to 18 could represent a “monumental change in terms” for the Michigan criminal justice system because a large number of criminal offenses are committed by people between 17 and 18 years old.
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