Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy on Tuesday demanded a new trial for Dwayne Provience, a Detroit man recently released after spending nearly a decade in prison due to the work of the Michigan Innocence Clinic. The Innocence Clinic documented false testimony — coerced by the police — and [...]
The bipartisan Michigan congressional delegation in Washington D.C. has successfully pushed the Army Corps of Engineers and other federal agencies to divert an additional $13 million to help fight the Asian carp. Sen. Carl Levin has been circulating a letter in the Senate while Rep. Bart Stupak and other Michigan [...]
Now that we know that the Guantanamo Bay detainees will be moved to a prison in rural Illinois, Gov. Jennifer Granholm is hinting at the possibility of keeping the Standish prison open by housing inmates from Pennsylvania instead. The Detroit News reports:
She said Michigan never made a proposal [...]
The ACLU of Michigan announced Tuesday that they had filed a federal lawsuit against the Detroit Public Schools for conducting mass searches of students without any particular suspicion of wrongdoing. They are also asking that the school system be held in contempt of court for violating a court order against [...]
Michigan ranked near the bottom of all the states in terms of the average increase in mpg gained from swapping older cars for newer ones during the cash for clunkers program earlier this year. The Detroit News reports that disappointing news:
According to a Detroit News analysis, Michiganians who [...]
You might think that the second largest car company in the country might be happy to see the first and third largest car companies go bankrupt and not come back. You’d be wrong. The chairman and heir of Ford Motor Company visited the White House on Monday and praised President [...]
As it has become clear that the electrical barrier constructed to prevent Asian carp from moving any closer to the Great Lakes has not worked, there are increasing calls for the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, which links the Mississippi River to Lake Michigan, to be closed down. But as [...]
Gov. Jennifer Granholm appeared on Meet the Press on Sunday and offered praise to the Obama administration for saving GM and Chrysler. Video below the fold.
The University of Michigan is currently considering a number of changes to its rules governing student behavior and one of the changes under consideration would have lowered the standard required to find a student guilty of violating university rules from one of “clear and convincing evidence” to one of [...]
The Michigan House of Representatives approved the Senate’s version of the smoking ban, sending the legislation to the desk of Gov. Jennifer Granholm for her signature. And since the governor called the ban a “terrific gift to Michigan,” her signature is inevitable. The ban will go into effect on [...]
Though Michigan leads the nation in the number of mortgages being renegotiated under a federal program to prevent foreclosures, the number of homeowners being helped through the program is still vanishingly small. The Detroit Free Press reports on the remarks of a Treasury Department official:
Less than 1% of [...]
Gov. Jennifer Granholm decided to delay a $127 per pupil cut to K-12 funding that she ordered in addition to the $165 per pupil cut that was passed by the state legislature in October. She ordered the additional cuts because there was a $100 million unfunded mandate in the [...]
A new bill, HB 5676, has been introduced in the Michigan legislature to address the many problems with the state’s indigent defense system. The bill was submitted by Rep. Bob Constan (D-Dearborn Heights) and cosponsored by Rep. Justin Amash (R-Kentwood).
The legislation, dubbed the Michigan Public Defense Act, would create [...]
Detroit Mayor Dave Bing’s proposal to sell $250 million in debt reduction bonds cleared its first major hurdle then the state House Appropriations Committee approved the sale by a 19-8 vote on Wednesday. The bonds be backed by future state revenue sharing funds and future property tax receipts, [...]
The Obama administration expects not to recover about one-third of the more than $80 billion the federal government invested in saving Chrysler and General Motors from going through a liquidation bankruptcy. The Detroit News reports:
Gene Sperling, senior counsel to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, confirmed in an interview late [...]
Michigan is not the only state struggling with an inadequate public defender system. The Missouri Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling (PDF) this week ordering judges, prosecutors and public defenders to work together to find ways to fix the indigent defense system in that state.
The Missouri Supreme [...]
In case you were wondering how former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick would attempt to explain why he was pleading poverty while simultaneously spending more than $15,000 on plastic surgery for his wife (not to mention while living in a mansion in a gated community in Texas and making a base [...]
The legal news just keeps getting worse for Meijer, Inc., the Michigan-based retail giant. Just a couple weeks after a state appeals court ruled that Meijer executives could still face criminal charges stemming from election law violations for which the company has already paid out nearly $1.7 million in fines [...]
Since Sam Riddle proved himself incapable of taking a strong hint from the judge in his criminal trial to stop talking about the trial on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, Judge Avern Cohn got serious on Monday and issued a gag order — but even the gag [...]
In her weekly radio address, Gov. Jennifer Granholm argued that the cuts in local revenue sharing in the state’s most recent budget are negatively impacting fire and police protection around the state and jeopardizing public safety as a result.
“Police officers and fire fighters are being laid off or open [...]
Following the Kwame Kilpatrick court battles is a lot like watching some viral video on Youtube of someone doing something you can’t believe — it’s just so ridiculous, you can’t stop watching it. In the latest hearings, Kilpatrick, the disgraced former mayor of Detroit, is trying to get his $6,000 [...]
The HIV-as-terrorism case is not the only potentially explosive legal proceeding going on for Macomb County Prosecutor Eric Smith. In another case, the tables are being turned on Smith as he finds himself accused of violating the law by engaging in retaliation against a defendant who publicly blew [...]
That tentative plan between Detroit Public Schools and the Detroit Federation of Teachers is not getting a good reception among the teachers themselves, the Detroit News reports. And given some of the provisions in the deal, that’s hardly surprising. The deal actually requires the teachers to loan money to [...]
The Detroit News has an article about the last couple weeks remaining in the state’s legislative calendar and how the House and Senate leadership are focusing on the most short-term and irrelevant solutions to the school funding crisis. House Speaker Andy Dillon is looking only at temporary solutions, while [...]
The Michigan gubernatorial race is getting national attention — not surprisingly since Michigan is viewed as a key battleground state between Republicans and Democrats and the midterm elections could have an effect on who wins the 2012 presidential elections. The National Journal has an article about it, out of [...]
With the Detroit Public Schools facing a deficit in the range of $300 million and losing an additional $38 million in state aid due to cuts in the recently passed state budget, the school system and the teacher’s union have reached an agreement to make significant concessions to save the [...]
After poisoning the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal two nights ago to kill off any Asian carp that might have breached the electrical barrier being shut down for maintenance, state and federal authorities have so far found a grand total of one specimen of the invasive species in the [...]
As we reported yesterday, environmental officials began poisoning the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal last night in an attempt to prevent Asian carp from reaching Lake Michigan, where experts say they would all but destroy the native ecosystem and force many other species to go extinct. But authorities [...]
Michigan native Erik Prince is apparently going to take a less active day to day role in running Blackwater (now known as Xe), the infamous private military contractor he founded. He announced the move through a spokesperson with more than just a hint of self-pity:
A spokeswoman for the [...]
A coalition of federal and state agencies will come together tonight to poison the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal in the hope of killing off any Asian carp that may have breached the electrical barrier and moved within a few miles of reaching Lake Michigan. The Detroit News reports:
[...]
A couple weeks ago we published a story about a Michigan boy whose insurance company was refusing to cover a prosthetic arm he needed. That story came from Danielle Ivory of the Huffington Post Investigative Fund, who now reports that the insurance company, Blue Cross and Blue Shield, [...]
Apparently facing heavy criticism from the new board of directors, General Motors CEO Fritz Henderson has resigned only eight months after being picked by the Obama administration’s auto taskforce to take over that post from Rick Wagoner. The Lansing State Journal reports:
General Motors Co. CEO Fritz Henderson has [...]
The Detroit Free Press has joined the fight to fix the constitutional crisis in Michigan’s public defender system with an editorial calling for legislative action. Noting that Michigan currently ranks 44th in the nation in spending on indigent defense, the editorial rightly declares, “Even in tough times, upholding constitutional [...]
A sharply divided Michigan Supreme Court voted 4-3 to adopt new recusal rules for justices in cases where they may have an ethical conflict of interest. The changes were prompted by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that found a violation of rights for parties before a state supreme [...]
Only 24 hours after denying an interest in running for governor in 2010, Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero is apparently now exploring the possibility. As Eric at Michigan Liberal notes, MIRS is reporting that Bernero told them he is “seriously considering” throwing his hat into the ring and taking [...]
The New York Times had an article on Saturday about the Med Grow Cannabis College, a new school in Southfield that promises to teach state residents the ins and outs of growing marijuana within the confines of Michigan’s new medical marijuana laws.
“This state needs jobs, and [...]
A group of messianic Jews commonly called Jews for Jesus has filed a lawsuit against the city of Pontiac alleging that the city police department violated their right to free speech and freedom of religion by preventing them from handing out literature during an annual music festival. The Oakland Press [...]
The fallout from the failure of the state legislature to provide adequate funding for schools continues. Several local school districts are now considering adding furlough days to the remainder of the school year, the Lansing State Journal reports:
At least two local school districts — DeWitt and East Lansing [...]
Happy Thanksgiving from the Michigan Messenger staff to all of our readers, for whom we are all very thankful. We’ll be celebrating Thanksgiving in the Michigan tradition — eating way too much and falling asleep on the couch while watching the Lions lose — so expect a light schedule of [...]
Macomb County Prosecutor Eric Smith is so incensed at the Macomb County Board of Commissioners over cuts to his office made necessary by a county budget deficit of nearly $16 million that he is considering filing a lawsuit against his own county to have those cuts overturned. The Detroit News [...]
In the latest roadblock thrown in the way of GM’s shedding of its niche brands, Swedish automaker Koenigsegg Group AB withdrew from a deal struck last year to purchase Saab from America’s largest car company. The Detroit News reports:
“We’re obviously very disappointed with the decision to pull out [...]
As the state prepares for its first real blast of winter over the Thanksgiving holiday, Gov. Jennifer Granholm signed into law a series of bills that provides increased protection for Michigan residents against having their gas or electric shut off during the coldest months. A press release from the [...]
After nearly ten years in prison, a man convicted of murder in 2000 has been freed from prison and the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office is likely to dismiss all the charges against him. Dwayne Provience was convicted on the word of a single eyewitness who has since recanted his testimony [...]
A new auto industry forecast by Fitch Ratings, an automobile market analysis firm, predicts that a slow recovery for the economy and resulting slow turnaround for the auto industry may prevent GM and Chrysler from making an initial public offering of stock in the newly restructured auto companies. The Detroit [...]
The latest poll from Denno-Noor on the 2010 governor’s race shows Rep. Pete Hoekstra has jumped into the lead. The poll of 950 likely voters in the state of Michigan found Hoekstra leading current Attorney General Mike Cox and Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard by a fairly healthy margin. [...]
Facing some of the most staggering foreclosure rates in the nation, the city of Detroit has a new program to keep people in homes after they’ve been foreclosed upon — at least temporarily. Tom Walsh of the Detroit Free Press has the details:
The so-called ROOF (for Retaining Occupancy [...]
Chris Christoff of the Detroit Free Press has an entirely unsurprising article about how state offices that handle unemployment, food stamps and Medicaid are being overrun with new clients as Michigan continues to lead the nation in unemployment and the Department of Human services has been cut to the [...]
The Michigan Court of Appeals has ruled that Meijer can be prosecuted criminally for violations of state campaign laws, overturning a lower court ruling to the contrary. This is the latest development in a complex series of court cases involving the retail giant’s illegal and secret backing of a [...]
The Detroit Free Press reports that there is evidence that the invasive Asian carp may have already breached an electrical barrier set up in a shipping canal in Chicago in order to keep the incredibly aggressive species from reaching the Great Lakes, where they would likely destroy the ecosystem [...]
A new report from the University of Michigan’s Research Seminar in Quantitative Economics concludes that while we may be nearing the end of the worst decline, job growth in Michigan will continue to be virtually non-existent until 2011 — and it won’t exactly be going like gangbusters after that. The [...]
Blogging for Michigan quotes a Gongwer report (subscription only) on a new study by the non-partisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) that concludes that Michigan is among the states with the most regressive tax structures, resulting in the poor and the middle class paying a much higher [...]
The Detroit News reports that the Michigan Economic Growth Authority approved $2.6 million in additional tax breaks for General Motors as an incentive to keep at least 2,500 workers at the Renaissance Center.
The most high-profile project addressed by the MEGA board Tuesday involved additional tax incentives to help [...]
As the court hearings continue over former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his required restitution payments, some very interesting tidbits have come to light. It had already been revealed that a group of prominent Detroit businessmen — Peter Karmanos, Dan Gilbert, Roger Penske and James Nicholson — had given Kilpatrick [...]
Much attention has been paid to Sen. John McCain’s comment the other day at a Nascar event that Chrysler is unlikely to survive, but that isn’t the only thing he said at the time. He also claimed — falsely — that the bailout happened because the unions refused to negotiate [...]
Gov. Jennifer Granholm said today that new unemployment figures expected to be released today will show that Michigan’s unemployment rate dropped slightly from 15.3 percent to 15.1 percent. Not exactly the roaring 20s again, but every little bit helps amid the doom and gloom of the last couple years.
[...]Longtime capitol reporter Tim Skubick, who is generally reticent about crossing the line to become a commentator, has a clearly angry post on his blog about the state legislature going on a hunting vacation rather than staying and working on Michigan’s budget crisis. He writes:
For time in memoriam [...]
U.S. Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, had an op-ed column in the Detroit Free Press on Tuesday calling for the financial industry to be re-regulated in the wake of multiple scandals and trillions of taxpayer dollars being used to keep banking and investment [...]
The now-infamous C Street house in Washington D.C., owned by a mysterious Christian group called the Family or the Fellowship and home to numerous members of Congress including U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan, is no longer tax exempt. The house, which was formerly a convent, has long been [...]
The Detroit News reports on perhaps the most unsurprising study since the Rand Corporation famously determined that water is, in fact, wet. This study concludes that the state of Michigan is unprepared to handle a flood of residents newly in need of Medicaid, food stamps and other social services.
[...]
Saying that he saw “signs of progress and signs of stability,” General Motors CEO Fritz Henderson announced on Monday that the nation’s largest automaker had lost $1.15 billion in the third quarter of the year. That amount was less than half the loss from the same quarter in 2008 and [...]
Lt. Gov. John Cherry, who has served in the past as the chairman of the Great Lakes Commission, issued a statement Friday urging fast and effective action to prevent the Asian carp from reaching the Great Lakes. The statement said, in part:
“Michigan has supported plans to protect the [...]
The Detroit Free Press reports on their own study of more than 1,800 government reports that concludes, despite state government claims that stimulus project spending has created or retained 22,500 jobs in Michigan, that stimulus money has failed to create any significant number of jobs at all since the [...]
In a rather odd interview with The Atlantic, Rep. Bart Stupak accused opponents of his controversial amendment to ban all abortion coverage of distorting what his amendment does and repeatedly said that the amendment didn’t actually change anything at all. Referring to the Hyde Amendment, a law passed in [...]
The Detroit News has the second installment up of their series on the abuse of asset forfeiture laws by law enforcement and it contains another alarming statement from a law enforcement official, this time Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy. The article recounts this story of a woman who had [...]
A long tradition of taser abuse by police departments in Michigan continues with an incident in Lansing where an officer shot a suspect with a taser even though he had already been subdued and handcuffed by two fellow officers. Officer Ryan Smith has been suspended without pay by the [...]
The Detroit News has a very important article about the use of asset forfeiture laws by law enforcement as a means of raising revenue. The law allows the police to seize any property (including cash) that was used in the commission of a crime or was purchased or gained [...]
Lt. Gov. John Cherry, the presumptive Democratic nominee for governor in 2010, said on Thursday that since the votes are not there in the state legislature to enact structural reforms to place the government on a firm revenue footing, it may require a popular referendum to get it done.
[...]
The Detroit Free Press reports on a new study from the Pew Center for the States that pinpoints the cause of Michigan’s persistent revenue shortfalls and resulting deficits: An out of date revenue structure that offers too many tax breaks and avoids taxing the most common types of spending.
[...]
Blackwater Global (now called Xe), the private military contractor founded by Michigan native Erik Prince, is already facing a long list of legal problems, both criminal and civil, ranging from illegal gun smuggling and child prostitution to unprovoked attacks on civilians. Now you can add bribery to [...]
The enormous cuts in local revenue sharing in the new state budget are forcing drastic layoffs and service cuts all around the state. Grand Rapids is the latest to announce the fallout from the new budget and, as expected, the cuts will most seriously hit local police and fire [...]
Anger over more than $500 million in cuts to school funding in the latest budget seems to be spreading in the state. Tuesday morning more than 1,500 students, teachers and parents rallied at the state capitol, demanding that the legislature restore those cuts. The Detroit News reports:
More than [...]
The Michigan Board of Canvassers approved language for a ballot referendum that would lower car insurance rates in the state for good drivers and prohibit insurance companies from unjustifiably dropping customers from their rolls.
This is only the first step to getting on the ballot. Now the group advocating [...]
There was news out of both GM and Chrysler on Monday showing that both companies that recently emerged from bankruptcy proceedings are preparing for the next generation of electric cars. The Detroit News reports that GM is moving forward with plans to produce a cutting edge Cadillac electric car:
[...]
Scholars like Amy Back and Radley Balko have spent years chronicling prosecutorial misconduct — ranging from withholding evidence to faking evidence to coercing confessions — around the country. Now it appears that Michigan may have its own example — and this one involves sex. The Grand Rapids Press reports:
[...]
The state of Michigan is applying for $290 million in federal funds to help set up or fully fund municipal land banks that help local governments take control of foreclosed and abandoned properties. The Detroit News reports:
The Michigan State Housing Development Authority has proposed launching the “New Michigan [...]
Detroit’s two hometown newspapers seem to be telling different stories about Mayor Dave Bing’s position on negotiations with AFSCME and the prospect of layoffs. The Detroit Free Press declares that Bing is “unwavering on union contracts” and “sticking to his guns” when it comes to terminating the AFSCME contract [...]
Gov. Jennifer Granholm said Thursday night that if the state Senate passes the bill the House passed to use $184 million more in federal stimulus funds to reduce the depth of cuts for K-12 education in this year’s budget, she’ll sign it. But she said the same thing [...]
The Detroit News reports that President Obama will sign the long-anticipated bill to extend unemployment benefits by an additional 14-20 weeks on Friday. After weeks of wrangling and political gamesmanship, the U.S. Senate finally passed the bill on Wednesday.
[...]The plan to recall 55 Michigan State Police officers that was put on hold yesterday is back on again, the Detroit News reports. They will be back on duty as of Nov. 16.
[...]The Michigan House of Representatives voted today to restore a large portion of the cuts in per-pupil spending on K-12 education by using $184 million in federal stimulus funds that were set aside to help balance next year’s budget. In a press release from the House Democrats, Rep. Terry Brown [...]
New Chrysler logo
The Detroit Free Press on Wednesday kept a running account of a full day of meetings and announcements from the new management team at Chrysler as the company revealed its plan to become stable and profitable. New CEO Sergio Marchionne, the Fiat [...]More fallout from the all-cuts budget passed by the legislature: Dozens of state police officers who were expected to be called back to work next week will stay on the sidelines while the government decides whether revenues will allow them to keep the troopers on the job long term. The [...]
In what may be an important precedent, the Michigan Court of Appeals has ruled that a man arrested for a so-called “Romeo and Juliet” relationship cannot be listed on the state’s sex offender registry because doing so would constitute cruel and unusual punishment.
The defendant, Robert Dipiazza, was arrested [...]
Mike Nofs won Mark Schauer’s old seat in the Michigan Senate last night, which extends the Republican majority in the Senate from 20-17 to 21-17. This changes little in terms of the odds that the Senate will approve new revenue bills, however, because the number of Republicans required to vote [...]
The chickens hatched during the budget negotiations over the last two months are quickly coming home to roost. The Department of Human Services is cutting 320 jobs just when the number of Michigan residents in need of the agency’s services is exploding due to rising unemployment and poverty. MLive.com [...]
It seems the expected hangover from the cash for clunkers program has been postponed as Ford and GM both post monthly gains over the previous year in October without the benefit of government-funded tax benefits. Automotive News says that with the October numbers, domestic auto sales “finally show some [...]
