Michigan Supreme Court Ends The Lawsuit Against Ex-Gov. Snyder

In November 2021 I published an opinion piece in the Washington Examiner, describing and condemning a criminal prosecution that had been launched against former Gov. Rick Snyder. Snyder was being prosecuted criminally for failing (according to the prosecution) to act quickly enough to put an end to a water crisis in the city of Flint. I condemned this extraordinary prosecution, which attempted to criminalize a policy dispute, as reminiscent of the worst excesses of third world nations that routinely incarcerate former leaders. Here’s a link to that piece.

Now the prosecution has essentially been dismissed by the Michigan Supreme Court. The court condemned the indictment issued by the extraordinary “one-man Grand Jury” provided for under a Michigan statute. No statute granted this “Grand Jury” any power to indict, said the unanimous court. [One Justice did not participate in the decision, due to her prior involvement as chief legal counsel for Governor Snyder.]

This is a crushing defeat for Attorney General Dana Nessel, who took office in 2019, got rid of a special prosecutor and put together a new team in order to prosecute Snyder. The abuse of process condemned by the state supreme court today resulted in this statement from Gov. Snyder’s legal team:

We applaud today’s decision from the Michigan Supreme Court, which leaves no doubt about how Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office egregiously mishandled these cases from the beginning. As the Michigan Supreme Court makes clear, these prosecutions of Governor Snyder and the other defendants were never about seeking justice for the citizens of Flint. Rather, Attorney General Nessel and her political appointee Solicitor General Fadwa Hammoud staged a self-interested, vindictive, wasteful, and politically motivated prosecution. The people of Michigan will recall how Solicitor General Hammoud took to the stage at every opportunity to grandstand, but they now see the truth from Michigan’s highest court of law. We will be moving immediately to dismiss all criminal charges against Governor Snyder based on today’s unequivocal and scathing Supreme Court ruling.

[NB I have no interest in this case, other than my interest in the Rule of Law.]