The latest installation of the Flint Water Poisoning is encouraging. To begin with, there is still an ongoing investigation by the State of Michigan. That should be a relief to all involved.
This is a bit of a confusing issue because it involves understanding why the state's solicitor general is being secretive about important records required by the civil suits filed and moving forward. The current Solicitor General Fadwa Hammond is not responsible for any records that have been received by other litigants under the former Attorney General Bill Schuette. The current Solicitor General has ethical standards that protect the integrity of the state investigation. Finding the truth for criminal charges is going to take precedent over civil matters as far as she is concerned.
I would like to see the presiding judges in all these cases find a way to allow a thorough investigation by the state, protecting the integrity of the evidence while protecting the rights of those with civil suits. Unfortunately, the previous AG office did not pursue the correct path for criminal investigations and not the current office has to retrace and reassess the evidence and carry out a thorough investigation to obtain ALL THE FACTS.
The real problem is the civil suits have been ongoing for some time now and are ready to complete their fact-finding and bring the cases to court. When realizing how far the civil suits have come is to realize the stunted movement of the criminal charges because the criminal investigations had to literally start all over again. The biggest problem for both the criminal investigation and civil lawsuits is TIME. Time has passed and people may have moved on and evidence could be compromised by missing witnesses and incomplete facts.
The civil suits are in need of the information in the investigation to complete their discovery and subpoenas to witnesses. It is unfair to put the civil suits on hold, but, it is also wrong to compromise the State's case of the crimes committed. So, here we are cleaning up the corruption of evidence and incomplete facts by the Snyder Administration while the civil suits want to move forward. I am not sure that demanding information from the state AG and/or Solicitor Generals office is a good idea. Don't the civil suits want complete facts and evidence to proceed? I would think to allow the criminal investigations to complete in a TIMELY fashion will also benefit the civil suits.
It is a complicated issue and I hope the judge(s) making these decisions will do so well within in any constitutional law, either state or federal, to provide the best footing for all parties involved in pursuing justice.
May 29, 2020
By Ron Fonger
Michigan Solicitor General Fadwa Hammoud speaks to Molly Kettler, a special assistant attorney general, during a hearing on Friday, May 3, 2019 at Genesee County Circuit Court in downtown Flint, over a request for Genesee Circuit Court Judge Joseph J. Farah to delay issuing his opinion in the criminal case against Nick Lyon, the former director of Michigan's Department of Health and Human Services.
Flint water prosecutors (click here) are asking a federal judge to keep documents and transcripts in their possession secret despite a request from attorneys representing Flint residents in civil lawsuits in U.S. District Court.
Michigan Solicitor General Fadwa Hammound filed the brief, opposing a motion to compel her to release documents and testimony that have been compiled over the years by criminal investigators representing the Department of Attorney General.
“Enforcing the plaintiffs’ sweeping demands would comprise an unprecedented breach of the barrier traditionally erected between an active law-enforcement investigation and a civil action for money damages ...,” Hammoud wrote in a May 13 court filing. “At the heart of (our) opposition to the plaintiffs’ subpoena is the public’s interest in a thorough investigation into the criminality that led to the Flint water crisis, as well as the criminality that occurred in its aftermath. It goes without saying that secrecy during the pendency of the investigation furthers that public interest.”
Hammoud has been tight-lipped about the status of her criminal investigation into the water crisis since she was appointed by Attorney General Dana Nessel to lead it in January 2019....
...Stern’s legal team says some of the documents they are seeking have “trickled into the hands of other litigants -- and created an uneven playing field in the process—in a number of ways.”
Among them -- the defendants who worked for the former Michigan Department of Environmental Quality “have received production of such materials (or at least a subset of them) in criminal discovery that corresponded with the filing of (now dismissed or resolved) criminal charges against them.”...
...Hammoud announced in June 2019 that all charges against eight remaining Flint water defendants who had not accepted plea deals would be dismissed. She has criticized prosecutors who worked for Schuette for having failed to properly review millions of documents that she has said could have led to additional or reduced charges....
...“Ordering disclosure at this point will undermine the prosecution’s credibility with those to whom it has already made such assurances, chilling them from future participation in the prosecution,” the filing says. “It also will signal to those who have not yet been interviewed that their testimony is subject to dissemination.”
As painful as it is that George Floyd is dead, it was not first-degree murder. This murder is a very painful murder. People who do not know Mr. Floyd feels pain over this murder.
It is sometimes difficult to realize justice is far different than the pain the living feels.
In most states, (click here) first-degree murder is defined as an unlawful killing that is both willful and premeditated, meaning that it was committed after planning or "lying in wait" for the victim. For example, Dan comes home to find his wife in bed with Victor. Three days later, Dan waits behind a tree near Victor's front door. When Victor comes out of his house, Dan shoots and kills him....
My sincerest sympathies to the Floyd family and the community that enjoyed his presence from day to day. So sorry he is gone. It isn't fair.
Third Degree Murder sounds correct in the murder of George Floyd. There is something that bothers me, though. Derek Chauvin and George Floyd knew each other and worked together as bouncers in the same nightclub.
I don't know how two men that worked with each other could have a depraved heart and/or an indifference toward the death of one or the other. That doesn't make sense to me. What gives me pause about this murder is the fact there was a personal dynamic at work between George Floyd and Derek Chauvin.
Looking at the murder at a distance, as a stranger, without knowing Chavin knew George Floyd it is rightfully Third Degree murder with a police officer on the job. However, was Chavin so disconnected from his actions as a police officer that realizing the extent George Floyd was in trouble and struggling with staying alive that it allowed Mr. Floyd to succumb to strangulation? Basically, that is what it is, strangulation. Choking.
It bothers me that these men knew each other and such violence toward George Floyd was administered to hold him to the ground. George Floyd never really gave them an argument. He was walking to the police car when he fell. Did he fall or was he forced off balance? There appeared to be a time during George Floyd's pleading for his life when Chauvin seems to adjust his knee to bring greater pressure as if to finish the job of killing George Floyd. That is a matter of perception, but, the prosecutors and investigators are going to have to sort all this out.
Third degree murder (click here) can be defined as homicide committed with the intention of causing bodily harm, but not necessarily death. It can be a killing that results from indifference or negligence or recklessness. Statutes defining third degree murder vary considerably from state to state....
Minn. Stat. § 609.195 MURDER IN THE THIRD DEGREE
(a) Whoever, without intent to effect the death of any person, causes the death of another by perpetrating an act eminently dangerous to others and evincing a depraved mind, without regard for human life, is guilty of murder in the third degree and may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than 25 years.
(b) Whoever, without intent to cause death, proximately causes the death of a human being by, directly or indirectly, unlawfully selling, giving away, bartering, delivering, exchanging, distributing, or administering a controlled substance classified in schedule I or II, is guilty of murder in the third degree and may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than 25 years or to payment of a fine of not more than $40,000, or both.
It is definitely manslaughter, however, the charge of Third Degree Murder is probably more correct in this case. Manslaughter would be difficult to dismiss by any jury. It also carries a lesser sentence than Third Degree Murder.
Manslaughter is an unlawful killing that doesn’t involve malice aforethought—intent to seriously harm or kill, or extreme, reckless disregard for life. The absence of malice aforethought means that manslaughter involves less moral blame than either first or second degree murder. (But plenty argue that some instances of felony murder, a form of first degree murder, involve less blameworthiness than some instances of manslaughter.) Thus, while manslaughter is a serious crime, the punishment for it is generally less than that for murder.
In the state of Minnesota, there are 2 classifications of manslaughter: First-degree manslaughter and second-degree manslaughter.
The issue of last night was due to the murder of Mr. George Floyd. Everyone knows that. Mayor Frey did not call for police and/or national guard intervention that would have caused more injuries and deaths. He did exactly the right thing and he also understood the pain of the people.
The people weren't alone last night. Trump said a lot of very ugly things. They were based in hate and q wish for the promulgation of violence.
...Twitter placed a click-through block (click here) on a tweet from President Donald Trump that it said was "glorifying violence."...
There is no reason for control. Nearly every African American death by police is protested. This is the right action for American citizens to take. In Minnesota last night, there were no police injured, there was no citizen injured and there is plenty of room for reflection for the anger in the streets of Minnesota.
There must be a redrawing of the line of police abuse and power. Death of an unarmed, non-violent citizen is definitely a reason for arrests of officers and an investigation to the cause of the death. When a suspicion of guilt is realized by prosecutors, there are normally arrests even without charges. The government has 48 hours to decide about charges before a suspect is released.
These demonstrations are the price that is paid for the injustice of an African American death. The demonstrations are going to occur. Cities having problems with citizens and interactions with police is due to a police culture problem. There is something very wrong when these citizens' murders occur.
What occurred in Minneapolis over the past three days is not due to recklessness on the part of citizens. These were demonstrations of fear and oppression. A man died that should not have died. He died within the methods of the police department. He died at the hands of four officers acting together. They murdered George Floyd. Everyone knows that and any manipulation of the truth will not return trust to the government.
29 May 2020
By Lauren Aratani
The mayor of Minneapolis (click here) has accused Donald Trump of shirking responsibility and chided the president for insulting him on social media at a time of crisis in his city and the country.
Protests have erupted across the country over the killing of George Floyd, a black man, by a white police officer in Minneapolis, that was captured on cellphone video. The city has seen large-scale demonstrations and unrest, as protesters call for the officer who knelt on Floyd’s neck and the three officers who were there during the incident to be criminally prosecuted. Protests, some marred by violence, have also broken out elsewhere in the US.
But, tweeting about an hour after midnight in Washington, Trump launched a Twitter attack on Minneapolis’s mayor, Jacob Frey....
Minneapolis and St. Paul lost control with the last breath of George Floyd.
May 29, 2020
