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The Michigan Messenger going forward

By Staff Report | 11.16.11

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 [...]

Colorado-based abstinence program provided false and misleading information to Michigan students

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By Todd A. Heywood | 11.16.11

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.

Class action lawsuit filed against MERS over unpaid taxes

foreclosure
By Todd A. Heywood | 11.15.11

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.

Schuette fights important mercury regulations

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By Eartha Jane Melzer | 11.14.11

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.

photo courtesy alancleaver_2000
photo courtesy alancleaver_2000

Senate Judiciary to take up statute of limitations

By Todd A. Heywood | 07.15.11 | 8:04 am

Sen. Rick Jones (R-Grand Ledge) announced Thursday that the Michigan Senate Judiciary would review statute of limitations provisions in Michigan law with an eye towards increasing them.

The announcement came after Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III announced a suspect in the 2000 killing of 24-year-old Brandon D’Annunzio could not be charged because of the statute of limitations on manslaughter, reports the State News. The law says a suspect must be charged with 10 years for the crime of manslaughter or the charges can’t be brought in court.

The News reports Jones made the announcement of the review in a prepared statement:

“I can only imagine the pain of a parent who has had a son or daughter murdered and then finds out the perpetrator cannot be brought to justice,” Jones said in the statement. “I want to do a complete review of the statute of limitations and plan to increase some of the times. We keep lengthening the period that someone can be freed from a conviction because of modern science such as DNA testing. Certainly we should also lengthen the time that a crime can be charged.”

Jones is the former Eaton County Sheriff and is widely seen as the go-to lawmaker in reference to criminal matters and legislation.

The State News explained the alleged crime:

Brandon D’Annunzio died from blunt force trauma to the head in Lansing’s Sparrow Hospital 10 days after he was assaulted in East Lansing.

He was attending a bachelor party at Buffalo Wild Wings, then called BW-3, 220 M.A.C. Ave., the night he allegedly was assaulted. He left the bar alone and was approached by two men and a woman.

One of the men allegedly punched Brandon D’Annunzio in the face, causing him to fall backward and crack his head on the concrete curb.

In explaining his decision, Dunnings said that he could only have charged the suspect with manslaughter, which means the suspect did not set out to kill a person.

That claim was challenged by East Lansing police Capt. Bill Mitchell, who worked the death case. He told the State News that the case was one of pure, simple murder.

Comments

  • Anonymous

    This unfortunate incident in the City of East Lansing of over ten years ago, wherein as the result of a Bar Fracas that occurred on Oct. 11, 2000 Brandon D’Annunzio died due to fisticuffs was not “cracked” by the local police authority.

    A recalcitrant witness stepped forward after the statute of limitations for aggravated assault expired. Why did the City of East Lansing’s Police authority fail to locate the witness within the ten year statutory time frame for this specific malum prohibita act?  This would be a proper question to be posed during a legislative investigation, and the star fact giver, may be the recalcitrant witness.

    Why does the Senator Rick Jones jump on this emotional bandwagon to change the malum prohibita limitations in statutory law, when the facts of the case are not known outside the backroom of the City of East Lansing’s Police
    authority?

    Why does Senator Rick Jones feed the State wide news Media “press
    releases” on his intent to use the failure of the City of East Lansing’s Police Department to address an apparent felony investigation, to change the Statute of Limitations by claiming he is out to help a Mother of the deceased?  Oh, no the press releases did not mention an investigatory failure, said press release claims sympathy for a grieved Mother
    over the loss her son.

    Why does Senator Rick Jones, a successful thirty year public service employee of the Eaton County Sheriff Department fail to address the
    obvious, the apparent investigatory failures of the City of East Lansing’s Police Department, especially as it addresses this incident from October 11, 2000?

    It appears the Senator Rick Jones is out to politically exploit this unfortunate incident that occurred in East Lansing those many years ago without
    first addressing the facts of the investigation, and incident itself, which was
    an apparent bar brawl that ended in the unfortunate death of one of the
    participants, Brandon D’Annunzio ten days after the incident.

    Why does the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Rick Jones turn a blind eye to the apparent failures of the investigators, and choose instead to parade the decedent’s mother, Shawn D’Annunzio’s in front of his committee?

    Yes it is heartbreak for Shawn D’Annunzio to suffer the loss of her Son to what appears to be a senseless brawl, yet why should that be a platform for Senator Rick Jones to claim the statute of limitations needs to be changed. 

    How will that enable the City of East Lansing’s Police Department to overcome their apparent failures in the underlying investigation? 

    The legislature should not be a tool of sensationalism where elected officials use the unfortunate happenstance of a bar fracas that is over ten years old to gain headlines and claim the objective goal is to protect a Mother from what?

    The question should be, why did the Mother allow her son to go to the bar?  Could it be the son was of the age of majority and could make his own decision, which in this instance apparently was a poor decision?

    We here in Michigan did not elect Legislative members to manipulate the heart strings of grieving mothers.  Yet this is exactly what appears to be the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee intent, along with some his unnamed legislative associates plan to play out in an open Senate Judiciary
    Committee hearing.

    WE Michiganders elected members to the State legislature to Reinvent Michigan. We Michiganders did not elect, nor do we need members of the
    State Legislature to play the old tired political games of playing on the
    emotions of the grieved.

    The Senator Rick Jones may consider addressing the issue of administrative failure within the investigatory authority of the City of East Lansing’s Police Department, in lieu of moving a politically charged emotional response to a horrific end to a night on the town in the City of East Lansing that occurred those many years ago outside of a local bar.

    A proper Senatorial investigation may answer the many questions surrounding this unfortunate incident in the City of East Lansing, which would
    then allow the Senate Judiciary Committee to pragmatically respond to this
    incident and address the statutory law accordingly.

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