Flint water crisis charges against ex-governor dismissed

A judge threw out criminal charges against former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder in the Flint water crisis, months after the state Supreme Court said an indictment returned by a one-person grand jury was invalid.

Mr. Snyder, a Republican who left office in 2019, was charged with two misdemeanor counts of misconduct while in office. He is the first person in the state’s history to be indicted for a crime related to being governor.

Mr Snyder is also the eighth person to dismiss the Flint water case following a unanimous Supreme Court decision in June.

Genesee County Judge F Kay Behm signed the order on Wednesday, a day after the U.S. Senate confirmed her nomination to become a federal judge in Eastern Michigan.

The Michigan attorney general’s office has tried, so far, to keep the cases going. Prosecutors argued that the indictment could simply become an ordinary criminal proceeding in district court, but Judge Bem and another judge rejected that approach.

Flint’s water was contaminated with lead after city managers appointed by Snyder started using the Flint River in 2014 to save money while a new pipeline to Lake Huron was being built. The water was not treated to make it less corrosive, causing lead to come out of the old pipes and contaminate the system for over a year.

Nine deaths linked to the Legionnaires’ disease outbreak were also blamed on the water switch.

The Michigan Civil Rights Commission said it was the result of systemic racism, suspecting that changing water and denying complaints in the majority-Black city would happen in a thriving white neighborhood.

Flint residents complained about the smell, taste and appearance of the water, causing health problems and reporting rashes, hair loss and other problems. Mr Snyder did not admit lead was a problem until 17 months after the water change in autumn 2015, when he promised to take action.

He conceded that the state government had screwed up the water switches, especially regulators who didn’t need certain treatments. But his defense team denied Mr Snyder’s actions rose to the level of a crime.

Michigan prosecutors typically file charges in district court following a police investigation. Single-judge grand juries are rare and are mostly used in Detroit and Flint to protect witnesses who can testify in private about violent crimes.

State attorneys, working with Wayne County Attorney Kym Worthy, chose that path in the Flint water incident to hear evidence in secret and prosecute Snyder and others.

But the state Supreme Court has unanimously said that a single-judge grand jury cannot issue an indictment. The process has apparently never been challenged.

Judge Elizabeth Kelly in October dismissed felony charges against seven people, including two top health officials in the Snyder administration, Nick Lyon and Eden Wells, who were charged in the deaths of nine veterans guilty of manslaughter.

The attorney general’s office is trying to persuade an appeals court to intervene and overturn the decision.

A misdemeanor conviction against former Flint public works official Howard Croft is still pending before another judge.