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.
In a suit filed today on behalf of nine people sentenced to life without parole for crimes committed while they were juveniles, the ACLU is asking the U.S. District Court in Detroit to declare Michigan’s juvenile life without parole sentences unconstitutional.
Under Michigan law children as young as 14 who are charged with certain felonies can be tried as adults and if convicted face mandatory life without parole sentences.
The ACLU charges that by denying the now-adult plaintiffs an opportunity for parole and a fair hearing to demonstrate their rehabilitation, Michigan’s law constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.
“These life without parole sentences ignore the very real differences between children and adults, abandoning the concepts of redemption and second chances,” Deborah Labelle, lawyer for the ACLU of Michigan’s Juvenile Life Without Parole Initiative, said in a statement announcing the lawsuit.
“As a society, we believe children do not have the capacity to handle adult responsibilities, so we don’t allow them to use alcohol, join the Army, serve on a jury or vote — yet we sentence them to the harshest punishment we have in this state — to die in adult prisons.”
In May the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that juvenile life without parole sentences are cruel and unusual punishment unless the juvenile has been convicted of murder.
In Michigan about 350 people serving life without parole sentences for crimes committed while they were younger than 17.
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