Injustice is Blind Too: County Prosecutor Beth Hand Proud of Charging First, Reviewing Evidence Later

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When I filed a FOIA disclosure lawsuit with Prosecutor Beth Hand this spring for body cam footage of deputies responding to clerical drama over a voter wearing a Trump hat, I thought that I would meet some resistance from her.  Frankly, my opinion of her arises from willful unethical lapses in her past, whether it was Brady violations back in Oakland County and her alleged manipulation of a trial court judge, or several that we covered here, not including the recent dismissal of serious felony charges in the appeals court against a man whose only crime was contacting his probation officer more often than she liked.  To her credit, she was assisted greatly in that latter injustice by former Prosecutor Lauren Kreinbrink and Circuit Court Judge Susan Sniegowski. 

                          Mason County Sheriff Kim Cole has Mason County Prosecutor Beth Hand stop by his office

Because this minister of injustice does not like to see her dirty work scrutinized, I have seen her team up with the City of Ludington, who contracts with her for the prosecution of city code violations, to bring spurious criminal charges against me for doing two things.  I was charged by her office with trespassing for walking on a pathway in Cartier Park, minding my own business.  This was thrown out by Judge John Middlebrook of the 79th District Court, after she wasted one of my Friday summer afternoons arguing that I had no right to be on public land because of an incident three days earlier where I was almost shot due to the city's negligence in a deer cull.  

The same police captain who thought he had authority to banish me from city parks that my taxes maintain, Mike Haveman (aka My Caveman), would try again this August.  He would once again say I had no right to stand quietly on public property, and though I encouraged him to write a letter of trespass to that effect, he refused to, instead calling in four other armed officers for backup.  Three weeks later, I found I was charged with a crime for deescalating the situation by caving into his unlawful demand and moving to a place he approved of.  My Caveman needs a refresher course on civil liberties.

But so does Prosecutor Beth Hand who approved of the captain's criminal warrant and charged me with disorderly conduct for standing quietly outside of a city hall door while five police officers with guns and similar intent looked menacingly at me, one giving me unlawful orders.  One would think that the police report and up to five bodycam videos would illustrate my innocence of any crime, but here I am over a month after being assigned a court appointed attorney and have seen nothing come from them yet. 

This was the same issue with Muzette Elizabeth O'Connell who was charged with two felonies of resisting and opposing police officers (R&O) from that election day mosh pit at Hamlin Township Hall.  She had received the police report and other charging documents but two court appointed attorneys that had been assigned to her and found wanting would not allow her to see the videos. which appear to be fully exculpatory towards the charge, as five months past her arraignment the prosecutor dropped the R&O charges before she had even seen them. 

Justice was denied to O'Connell for five months because she wasn't able to review the state's case against her in the videos.  In interviews with her during this time, she was not aware of any type of R&O behavior on her part.  From her vantage point, she had her phone knocked out of her hand onto the floor and broken by the township clerk who effectively assaulted her by swatting the phone.  Then when she came back shortly thereafter without the cap, two deputies who had been talking with the clerk rushed upon her and arrested her, handcuffing her without telling her any reason (confirmed by the police report).  

After the arrest, they had her car impounded and towed charging her for it, and impounded her dog who was in her car, also charging her for that while putting her in the county jail.  With such violations of her rights and dignity, was it surprising that they denied her the right to see the only evidence in discovery that showed she was not guilty of two felonies?  

In a FOIA lawsuit where the defendant still wants to unlawfully retain public records even after the summons and complaint is served, they typically ask for dismissal based on summary disposition.  Due to the prosecutor's zeal in taking on criminal cases with very little merit behind them, the courts in Mason County are incredibly backlogged and shortly after the preliminary stages of this lawsuit, Oceana County Probate Court Judge Eric Fox was assigned to adjudicate the case, rather than our county's circuit court judge, Susan Sniegowski.  This was likely providential, because I've seen the symbiosis between Hand and Sniegowski in a few cases and an outside arbiter could only be an improvement.  

Hand's motion and supporting brief was mostly the usual fare I have seen, using conclusory language to say that disclosing any part of the video would have detrimental effects on the investigation and the rights of the accused, also known as total hogwash (see M4SD1, M4SD2, and M32SD3 for her motion, brief and relevant exhibits).  There was some snark, as would be expected, but there was a crazy admission when she was trying to make an argument that the body cam footage I requested very specifically didn't exist and/or was her own work product, an interesting tact.  

This curious admission is that she charged a person with two serious and violent felonies without even looking at the only evidence in the case that would show it.  This is not a misstatement, as she would put in her affidavit the same notion:

She swore as truth that she "did not rely on body cam footage in making the charging decision, relying solely on hearsay in the reports of the responding deputies. Mike Fort and Noah Noble, who are among the most suspect characters on the county force (do a search of their names on the Ludington Torch).  

The American Bar Association's Fourth Edition (2017) of the Criminal Justice Standards for the Prosecution Function indicates this is not proper behavior for a prosecutor:

This was irresponsible on Beth Hand's part, but it seems to be her modus operandi as she takes on a lot of cases just because police officers ask her to, not because of the evidence in support.  While some of these will eventually be thrown out of court by responsible judges, too many will lead to a productive member of society getting bum-rushed into accepting pleas even when they are not guilty of anything other than observing their basic civil rights.

"The Prosecutor must thoroughly review all reports and records concerning the case" before charging crimes says this Charlevoix County link.  Monroe County says the same thing, as does Berrien, Mackinac, Shiawassee and too many others to list.  One county you won't find it in the prosecutor section is Mason County.  Beth Hand shows by practice that this prosecutorial standard is not followed here.  

Beth Hand's motion in this case should ultimately fail, in my response and supporting brief I indicate that the only course for the judge to follow at this stage in the lawsuit is to conduct an in camera review of the records in dispute.  In FOIA cases, one party has the public records, the other side wants those records, and the judge is likely more ignorant of what the records consist of than both, but is called on to decide whether they are open for disclosure.  An in camera review allows the judge to view the full record and use a test provided by the Michigan Supreme Court to decide whether disclosure must occur for all or part of the record. 

Deciding for either party while being fully ignorant of what the records look like would not be justice, and in my brief, I reference my own success in the appeals court when I went up against the City of Manistee to get police records from them.  

While I will eventually see these records and view the footage of what was likely an ugly arrest, what I likely won't see is a change in attitude by our county prosecutor (processor?) who has abandoned all concepts of prosecutorial discretion in order to advance an odd notion of justice.