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 state’s highest court has thrown out an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit that argued that the state of Michigan was not ensuring adequate representation for poor people who cannot afford lawyers.
According to the Detroit Free Press, in a 4-3 ruling today the court reversed a May decision to allow the case to go to trial.
Only two months ago, the court had unanimously upheld an appellate ruling to allow the case to proceed to trial.
But Justice Stephen Markman, in a concurring opinion released today, said the decision was erroneous. Siding with an opinion issued by a dissenting judge on the Court of Appeals, Markman said there is no constitutional guarantee that an indigent defendant be provided a particular attorney, one of a particular skill level or that the defendant and his counsel have a right to “a meaningful relationship.”
Joining Markman were justices Maura Corrigan and Robert Young Jr. Justice Elizabeth Weaver supported the result, but did not sign Markman’s concurrence.
The ACLU had argued that by allowing inadequate indigent defense services in Berrien, Genesee and Muskegon counties Michigan was failing to meet its Sixth Amendment responsibility.
According to a study prepared by the National Legal Aid and Defender Association Michigan “fails to provide competent representation to those who cannot afford counsel in its criminal courts.”
As Ed Brayton reported last year:
The report notes that in Detroit, only five part-time public defenders handle between 2,400 and 2,800 cases a year, spending an average of 32 minutes on each case. The national standard for public defenders is 400 cases per year. And some courts, according to the report, do not provide public defenders at all for misdemeanor cases, and others are so overwhelmed with cases that they will “offer to let people get out of jail for time-served if they agree not to ask for an attorney.”
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