The Place Where Ludington Talks
Hamlin's Political Prisoner
Back on November 6, 2024, we indicated in an article Hamlin Hat Harassment we looked at an incident that happened out at the Hamlin Township Hall the previous day, Election Day, where a woman went into her polling place to vote, and chaos ensued because of her choice of head-covering apparel. We indicated then that there would be more to come on this topic, noting that we had filed FOIA requests for records from the Mason County Sheriff's Office (MCSO) and Hamlin Township.
Here, we will take a look at the ordeal of getting public records about this incident four months after the fact, we will then look at the woman's experiences in the justice system, we will then look at the incident report which the woman received as part of the discovery process, after we first look at the cap (below) that started this all. A cap wore on a cold November day that served a dual purpose of keeping the woman's head warm and covering her greying hairs-- yet had within it the power to also create disruption when poll workers saw something illegal in it.
The FOIA Experience
One might expect the town hall to have some sort of security system to record what happened that day between the becapped person who wanted to vote, Muzette O'Connell, and the Township Clerk, Catherine Lewis, who was supposedly assaulted. But the Hamlin township supervisor responded to my FOIA request that they had no camera footage or anything else in regard of that incident.
My request to the MCSO asked for their report on the incident, their bodycam footage of the incident after they arrived, and any supplements. I was given a notice of a ten-day extension the next day, suggesting that it would take some time to process. At that point, O'Connell had been arraigned for multiple charges, and one would suspect that the investigation was over and that due to the nature of the offense, there would be no outstanding forensic procedures in progress.
Oddly enough, the next day they denied the request in full, citing that release would interfere with law enforcement proceedings, without explaining why. Such responses, often given by police and prosecutorial agencies when they don't want to release records, are generally in violation of the law as explained in the seminal Michigan Supreme Court ruling in Evening News v City of Troy. It violates all six rules that court gave in determining any claim of exemption in such situations.
Rather than fight it then, I resubmitted the request on December 1st, presuming any sort of issue they had over three weeks earlier may have worked itself out, but I received a reply from their FOIA Coordinator telling me that the prosecutor was not allowing any records to be released on this case. I immediately appealed to Sheriff Kim Cole, telling him about the illegality of the prosecutor's dictum, all without any sort of legal explanation by her, but he would say:
I resisted the urge to immediately go to the local circuit court to appeal this disregard for the law by our two "respectable" justice system officers, hoping I might be able to catch some of the materials by attending O'Connell's court appearances, but this would prove difficult.
O'Connell's excursions in district court
Almost four months after the polling place incident and next day arraignment, O'Connell's case is bogged down in the 79th District Court, where traditionally by this time it would have been either bound over to the circuit court (as felonies are being pursued against her) or dismissed.
One could say the time has been extended because O'Connell has switched court-appointed attorneys (CAA) twice. She was given CAA Tracie Dinehart, but the mouthpiece was summarily dismissed by November 27th due to O'Connell's distrust of her to give valid counsel and enough time to her case. CAA Horia Neagos was assigned to her the next week and the probable cause conference was rescheduled to January 29 to give him time to acquaint himself with the issues. O'Connell would convince the judge that Mr. Neagos wasn't working out for her, and he was officially dropped the next day. Her opinion was that neither saw the various issues she deemed important.
This reporter went to the courthouse on February 12 to catch a preliminary conference regarding the Maddox Rosloniec case, another crime victim who became a potential 12-year felon for running. He wasn't there; presumptively the prosecutor and Rosloniec's counsel talked remotely over the case since he would have to come from Coopersville. But my visit was fruitful, in that the woman I struck up a conversation with on the benches in the hall was found to be none other than Ms. O'Connell who was there for her own case. She would go before an understanding Judge John Middlebrook and get assigned her third attorney, James Marek, and another court date the same time next week.
As expected, the next week Marek asked the court for more time to acquaint himself with the case and brought up an interesting item in that he had reports from the prior lawyers serving O'Connell but did not have any police videos from the arrest where the felonies of resisting and opposing (R&O) would have been charged due to the alleged actions of O'Connell. It seemed incredible that she did not have access to these videos which could play a major part in her defense 3.5 months after the arraignment. The assistant prosecutor who inherited this case from Prosecutor Beth Hand, David Marvin, did not see it as a big deal, but agreed to send those videos over as soon as he could.
Hand was pretty consistent in her improprieties in this case; to whit, she had no valid exemption for keeping the police report and body cam footage from me, but she did anyway, and then even though discovery was immediately issued by O'Connell's first attorney, unedited body cams that should have been produced immediately were not produced for over three months from asking. Fortunately, O'Connell was provided with a new court date in mid-March and the MCSO police report in the meantime, and she was kind enough to share it with me and gave me permission to share it with my readers and analyze it with a fair eye for them.
The Election Day police report
The report is six pages long with the first two pages giving personal information of the four people involved and noticed that O'Connell's car was impounded. The last page just noticed the incident was 'cleared by arrest', the narrative is in the other three pages.
The three witnesses interviewed had similar stories:
These accounts indicate that O'Connell was observed wearing her Trump cap and told it was forbidden, then she got out her phone to record the area, Clerk Lewis put up her hand in front of the phone and then was summarily pushed back into the treasurer.
While we have discussed why wearing apparel supporting a candidate is not illegal and is not electioneering (and the State of Michigan agrees by not listing it as a no-no) in our prior post, her cap incited Lewis to come over and encroach upon her space and raise her hand towards O'Connell's phone, two say nothing about the phone going to the ground. Only Lewis' mentions the phone fell and shattered. In O'Connell's account, she would claim not only this, but says Lewis knocked it on the ground and then accosted her while she picked up the phone.
This was what she declared in relevant part on November 6th when I contacted her to get her side of the story, since the official line seemed difficult to square:
"She ripped the phone from my hand and threw it and it broke. It didn't just break. the face came off and shattered. The video is more insane than you have ever seen; she is absolutely unstable. violent and threatening. It's really revealing. It also shows that I only videoed because I was threatened. She said she was gonna get me, screaming, hands shaking anger."
This aspect is vitally important as it's logical that someone wouldn't drop a phone just to give someone a push, unlikely that a phone would shatter from such a drop, and reasonable to believe that Lewis (a very excitable personality in her own right) would have accosted O'Connell while she was trying to pick up her shattered phone from the ground because she was still wearing her cap. One would give a defensive push under such conditions to get an attacker away from them.
But even if Lewis did not throw the cell phone on the ground, her act of reaching for it was arguably the assault that happened first. The Geno Law firm among others synthesizes what an assault in Michigan is: "A person does not actually have to have any injury for an assault charge, so if someone slapped a phone out of someone else’s hand or took it away from them... the key is not so much whether there was an injury, but that there was an offensive threat or offensive contact."
Inarguably, Lewis approached O'Connell and at the very least put her hand towards the phone, before any shoving happened, at most swatting the phone away and hampering the efforts to get that shattered phone. The one resultant push was a reaction to the encroachment and then the assaultive act by Lewis.
In any case, O'Connell's shove could and should be looked at as an act of self-defense. Prain Law describes Michigan's Self-Defense Act, which summarized says that one may use force anywhere they have a right to be (such as a polling place) with no duty to retreat if they honestly and reasonably believe that the use of that force is necessary to defend themselves from the imminent unlawful use of force by another.
Why wouldn't the two responding officers consider Lewis' actions as assaultive and O'Connell's as defensive? First, there would be the natural bias in favor of the township official trying to enforce election law and being mostly ignored for doing so. Second, O'Connell had a prior attempted assault charge stemming from a 2019 incident. Third, O'Connell offered resistance while being arrested claiming that she had done nothing wrong. Lastly, the two deputies involved, Mike Fort and Noah Noble, have a history of making questionable arrests (here, here, here, here, and even here for both).
This was another questionable arrest by them, using force immediately on someone who was arguably a victim of assault, had they actually tried better to piece together what happened. Acting solely on statements by the clerk and treasurer they went for the arrest using excessive force before any attempt was made to get O'Connell's side of the story when she came back to vote after being denied the first time and was eager to tell the deputies what Lewis had did to her.
One can imagine that the unreasonable and careless actions taken that day by Fort and Noble is a major reason why the bodycam footage of their interactions that day have been suppressed and hidden not only from FOIA requests but also from lawful discovery.
To add insult to injuries from two rounds of assaults, O'Connell had her lawfully parked car impounded that day by order of Clerk Lewis from the Hamlin Township Hall's parking lot, you know, the lot her taxes help maintain. Mason County Animal Control added an assist to the day's injustices by impounding O'Connell's pet dog in the back of that vehicle. And although she had gone to the polls twice to vote, she was never able to do so, county and township officials victimizing her one last time by disenfranchising her vote for no other reason than for wearing her nicest goddamn cap to hide her gray roots and defending herself from multiple assaults.
And on February 19th, she was alerted that she would be facing a fifth as-yet-unknown charge to go along with two R&Os, the simple assault to Lewis, and a polling place violation for wearing the cap. Welcome to the Mason County justice system. See pages 3-5 of the police report here, we will post the bodycam videos when we get them, O'Connell's warrant is here.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by RK Hubbard on
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Michigan law prohibits the following within 100 feet of a polling place: 1. Campaigning for a candidate or ballot measure. 2. Wearing or bringing election- or campaign-related clothing or accessories. 3. Displaying or wearing candidate or election-related signage. 4. Bringing election, campaign, or partisan materials into a polling place. 5. Requesting signatures for or signing petitions.
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What is your source RK? Did you read MI statutes or cut and paste from the Lansing State Journal?
https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/in-21-states-your-polli...
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This is the applicable section of the Michigan State Code:
"168.744 Prohibited acts; violation as misdemeanor. Sec. 744.(3)"
I can post the entire text if you are unable to look it up yourself.
Also:
Q: Are campaign or political materials, including but not limited to, clothing, accessories, leaflets or signage allowed at polling sites?
A: No. Michigan law prohibits any type of campaign or political materials or communications within 100 feet of a polling location, which shall be measured and demarcated by the local clerk or their designee. This includes t-shirts, hats, sashes, banners, signs, buttons, brochures, posters and any other campaign- or candidate-related items. This does not apply to personal notes, campaign literature, or slate cards discretely used by a voter within the polling place when actually casting their vote. (Courtney G. Agrusa and Robert A. Hamor
Foster Swift Municipal Law News. October 3, 2024)
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On election day, a person shall not post, display, or distribute in a polling place, in any hallway used by voters to enter or exit a polling place, or within 100 feet of an entrance to a building in which a polling place is located any material that directly or indirectly makes reference to an election, a candidate, or a ballot question. Except as otherwise provided in section 744a, this subsection does not apply to official material that is required by law to be posted, displayed, or distributed in a polling place on election day. MI 168.744 (3).
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RK, the MI statute above is much different from that which you provided on your first post inclusion (source?) where "clothing or accessories" is specifically mentioned.
MIchigan law doesn't specifically disallow "clothing" or "accessories" being WORN. Maybe if someone POSTED a "Vote for Trump" shirt on the wall within 100 feet ... that might fall within the MI.law.
Your initial quote seems to have been misinterpreted and written by a Lansing State Journal author. This article by LSJ Dan Brasso is a misinterpretation of MI law and seems to be your initial source post.
https://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/local/michigan/2024/...
Here's the problem with MI law if you don't want "political" clothing worn at a polling location ...
It is not specifically stated in MI statute about wearing clothing ... while 21 states specifically mention clothing (see above).
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If the following quote from the Michigan State Code does not include a hat with the name of a political candidate on it, then words have no meaning for you.
"... any material that directly or indirectly makes reference to an election, a candidate, or a ballot question."
Fortunately for the rest of us, Ms. Lewis and law enforcement personnel know how to read, understand and enforce the law.
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RK, I take opposition to you for clearly posting false information in your first post. Perhaps that inclusion without source has skewed your thinking; however, I agree that MI statute law could be made more easily understood by including one verb in your last direct quote of MI statute 168.744(3) and that would be to include the verb "wear." 21 states statutes are clear.
... below is your falsely quoted post with no reference. Do you care to reference it?
Michigan law prohibits the following within 100 feet of a polling place: 1. Campaigning for a candidate or ballot measure. 2. Wearing or bringing election- or campaign-related clothing or accessories. 3. Displaying or wearing candidate or election-related signage. 4. Bringing election, campaign, or partisan materials into a polling place. 5. Requesting signatures for or signing petitions.
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Please see: michigan.gov/sos/elections/voting/vote-on-election-day>. It's right on the Michigan Department of State Web site. Why is this so hard for you?
It specifically states that you cannot WEAR anything that references a political party or candidate near a polling place. Period. All Ms. O'Connell had to do was remove her hat, or borrow another hat, or ask to see a copy of the law, or leave and come back with a different hat, or put on a scarf, or go get her hair colored, or just go home. She also could have voted by mail. Instead she refused to leave, caused a confrontation with police, video-recorded inside the polling place when ordered to stop, resisted while getting arrested by two officers, and got both her car and her dog impounded. But maybe she thinks that not exposing her grey roots is more important than voting. I don't know. But as they say, play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Or more colloquially, FAFO.
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Permalink Reply by XLFD on
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RK, various interpretations of the Michigan law have been printed in news sources and in the websites of various municipalities. You and they focus on the wrong part of the law, and Freedom Seeker is correct in considering the verb that isn't in the law. I will go further and look at the verbs in the law.
The law offers three verbs that you cannot do with election-relevant material, let's analyze all 3 for wearing a Trump hat or an "I'm with her" t-shirt: 1) 'post' means to display, 2) 'display' means to arrange something to be seen by the public, and 3) 'distribute' means to deal out. Wearing clothes with a message on them, even political doesn't meet any of those verbs if all you are doing is wearing them, in my legal opinion, which isn't law. Sometimes a hat is just a hat.
My standby advice for officials of all sorts is that if they are trying to interpret a law and that law may infringe a civil right, err on the side of being permissive and don't try to read anything extra into the law that's not there just to claim a violation of the law has happened.
RK, if you look at that link provided for the state's guidance, they don't suggest that wearing a shirt that endorses a ballot issue or a candidate is the crime it was made out to be here. And just in case you were wondering, I would defend what this woman wore even it was for Kamala or some other candidate I would never ever vote for myself, because this is an issue of basic civil rights and the strict interpretation of this election law. This poor woman was seized, her dog was seized, and her car was seized by government officials who acted inappropriately, and the Ludington Torch is encouraging her to seek redress in federal court once she gets through this injustice tossed her way.
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Very interesting case and harrassment by Hamlin Clerk, imo, who apparently doesn't know Michigan law or interprets her own version and disregards Federal law disallowing voting (assuming O'Connell didn't get to vote while taken to jail) plus impounding her car and dog.
Something really should be done on a higher level (Representation of Federal right to vote). Has anyone tried to contact Trump's office to tell the story and ask for help?
The police report affirms there is police body cam and car cam videos but not made public. Terrible of MCSO and Cole's childish response. I hope the Clerk is punished for slapping O'Connell's phone and breaking it, more importantly disallowing her voting rights for misintrepation of MI voting law.
I hope MCSO is punished for being so one-sidedely wrong. And this Mason County Prosecutor ... about time to go and drink it up without consequences of being in the public eye at the Rendevous.
Thanks X for bringing this to light; however disturbing that Mason County is so blatantly trampling individual's rights.
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Thank you for understanding the issues involved here, Freedom Seeker, it's good to see you are also a justice seeker. The Ludington Torch will keep an eye on this case and try to support a fair conclusion to the criminal case, which will likely have to go to trial due to the prosecutor's belligerence against justice, as I found out yesterday in my own case where I am being charged for driving while license suspended without even having a traffic stop or a suspended license, and for trespassing by walking in a public park last March 15th, just like dozens of others did that day without offense.
A letter of trespass unlawfully imposed on me by a police captain three days earlier for 'causing a disturbance in a building' (I was never in a building in Cartier Park) had no lawful effect on my further use of a park that my high property taxes maintain. The offense was that government agents unlawfully fired high-powered rifles in that same park during broad daylight, almost killing me in the process. The prosecutor on March 3rd let it be known that she was not backing down on my charges, though she is not man enough to prosecute it herself, letting the new assistant David Marvin take the loss. He indicated to my attorney yesterday that if it was up to him, he would drop these weak, baseless charges for the cause of justice. But it isn't up to him, and it isn't about justice from her perspective.
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If I were a judge discerning intent of the 1954 Michigan election law, I would lean on the side that intent meant to include wearing clothing with intention to influence voters but that is not how it is written. In researching other states laws, it is clear their wording has been updated and I think Michigan should do the same. Nevada goes so far as to provide written notice at the "100.foot border" that political badges should not be worn (rough interpretation).
I take opposition to a clerk interpreting the law, and escalating violence which seems to have happened in Hamlin Twp.
The MI Secretary of State did not clarify so specifically as the Clerk made her own strict interpretation (imo) as you provided documentation.
For blatant misinterpretation and misinformation to be distributed as law by Basso of LSJ, certain attorneys presented by, and parroted by RK and maybe influencing many local clerks, is not justice, freedom or truth.I pray for honest justice for O"Connell and hope a challenge might cause Michigan to clarify their statutes as well as provide her relief for the injustices she suffered.
The new Prosecutor is out of touch with truth and reality (imo) and seemingly trying to be a tough lady but it seems she can't honestly understand law as shown by your continued persecution.
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