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The comment from Matthew DePerno, who continues to champion election fraud claims in Antrim County as well as Arizona, came during today’s Bannon’s War Room podcast with Steve Bannon, a former political strategist for former President Donald Trump, who opened the interview with a question. “Are you under potential prosecution because the Republican Legislature up there has basically given a go signal to the Attorney General” to investigate “Patriots” still fighting alleged election fraud, Bannon asked. “That’s exactly right,” DePerno replied. Attorney General Dana Nessel announced Thursday that her department has accepted the Senate Oversight Committee’s request to investigate accusations that unnamed individuals made false claims about the 2020 election for personal profit. DePerno told Bannon that Nessel is “using the force” of the state police “to come after me and other people in Michigan who have been speaking out against this election.” He continues to assert that he has evidence showing fraud, and he cites “forensic” reports. “The real reason Dana Nessel is doing this is she’s heard that I’m talking to other people about running for Attorney General here. So this is a political hit,” DePerno said. “. . . Listen, Dana Nessel is my opposing counsel in the case here in Michigan, and she’s going to announce that she’s going to investigate opposing counsel? It’s ludicrous. So, she wants to stop what we’re doing; it’s very political with her. “She’s a straight up Marxist, and we got to get up her up out of office and that’s why I’m looking at running for Attorney General here in Michigan,” he added. When asked for comment about DePerno’s statements, AG press secretary Lynsey Mukomol said: “I refuse to dignify Mr. DePerno’s comments with a response.” DePerno started a fund on a crowdfunding site, which he says is to “defend and to protect the integrity of elections in the United States.” Likely to run as a Republican, DePerno, who represented former lawmaker Todd Courser, who resigned in 2015 after his affair with a fellow lawmaker became public, might be welcomed by Republicans who still question the integrity of the presidential election. DePerno’s client in Antrim County challenged election results there after the county mistakenly preliminarily reported a win for President Joe Biden. Election officials quickly found the error and attributed the mistake to human error. A hand recount showed Trump gaining 12 votes. Nessel is up for re-election in November 2022.
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments May 5 on whether to grant leave to appeal in People v. Stock. Kellie Stock was convicted of operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated causing death and operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated causing a serious impairment of a bodily function. In 2017, Ms. Stock was allegedly driving recklessly in Detroit without a valid driver’s license. There was a crash with another vehicle, killing Bennie Sims and seriously injuring Classie Butler. During the trial, a Detroit police officer testified he saw Ms. Stock drive her vehicle the wrong way down a one-way street. A high-speed chase ensued and Ms. Stock drove through a red light, striking the vehicle driven by Mr. Sims. A toxicology report showed Ms. Stock had a cocaine metabolite in her urine. She was convicted. The Court of Appeals reversed in an unpublished 2019 decision Ms. Stock’s convictions for operating a motor vehicle without a valid license causing death and serious injury but upheld the convictions for operating while intoxicated causing death and serious injury. The court found that her license had merely expired. On the intoxicated charges, the court held that drug metabolite proves the drug was ingested at some point. Instead of granting leave, the Supreme Court on a 5-2 vote reversed the Court of Appeals’ upholding of the two intoxication convictions. Prosecutors failed to show that the metabolite in question met the definition of a controlled substance, the Supreme Court held in an order with Chief Justice Bridget McCormack, Justice Richard Bernstein, Justice Megan Cavanaugh, Justice Elizabeth Clement and Justice Elizabeth Welch in the majority. “Further, the prosecution’s evidence showing the mere presence of an unidentified metabolite, but nothing more, was not sufficient to prove that the defendant had any amount of cocaine in her body at the time of the motor vehicle collision,” the court held in its order. The court remanded the case to the Wayne Circuit Court to determine whether resentencing on the defendant’s remaining convictions is required given the Court of Appeals reversals of two convictions and the Supreme Court’s reversal of two convictions. Ms. Stock still remains convicted of reckless driving causing death, first-degree fleeing and eluding, second-degree fleeing and eluding and reckless driving causing a serious impairment of a bodily function. The Wayne Circuit Court had sentenced Ms. Stock to concurrent terms to 19 to 50 years in prison for each of the convictions because she was sentenced as a fourth-offense habitual offender. Justice Brian Zahra, in a dissent signed by Justice David Viviano, held that the metabolite was in fact sufficient evidence to convict of operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated causing death and operating a motor vehicle causing serious injury. “Because a cocaine metabolite only ever appears in a person’s body if the person has ingested cocaine, the presence of cocaine metabolites necessarily establishes that defendant ingested cocaine at some prior point in time,” Mr. Zahra wrote. “And given that defendant was taken to the hospital immediately after her accident, it is unlikely that she ingested cocaine in the roughly four and a half hours between the accident and her urine test. It was therefore reasonable for the jury to infer that defendant had ingested cocaine prior to her motor vehicle accident.”
The Michigan Supreme Court today denied Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s and the state redistricting commission’s request to extend the deadline to draw the state’s new political maps to December. Justice Elizabeth Welch, who concurred, said the court’s decision “is not a reflection on the merits of the questions” asked or how the court might resolve a future case. “It is indicative only that a majority of this Court believes that the anticipatory relief sought is unwarranted,” she wrote. “By our decision today, we have declined the invitation to clothe the commission or the Secretary of State with any lawsuit-proof vest,” Welch’s statement, which Justice Megan Cavanagh joined, reads. “The risk of future lawsuits — however likely and however inconvenient to the commission’s ongoing work — is insufficient reason to justify the relief requested.” ICRC spokesperson Edward Woods III said: “in modeling fairness and transparency,” the commission’s request to the Supreme Court came due to the six-month delay in receiving tabulated Census data — the result of the COVID-19 pandemic, hurricanes and wildfires, the Census has said. The justices heard arguments in June and today they acknowledged the ICRC’s challenge, saying Benson and ICRC “made the sensible decision to alert the Court and the public,” but the commission’s counsel had already implied the commission intends to follow its delayed schedule with or without the court’s approval. The League of Women Voters of Michigan criticized the court’s decision, saying it doesn’t give the ICRC “enough time to provide the 45-day public comment period on its proposed new legislative maps. “This is the opposite of what voters asked for when they voted to amend the Michigan Constitution and create a citizen-led commission,” LWV President Christina Schlitt said in a statement. Michigan Republican Party Chair Ron Wesier, who called the ICRC’s request “unnecessary,” disagreed, noting that the commission has “ample time and resources necessary to complete their task” as their “own Democrat attorney has already acknowledged.” Nancy Wang, executive director of Voters Not Politician, the grassroots group behind the constitutional amendment that put citizens in charge of redistricting in Michigan, agreed that today’s decision “does not impede the Commission in any way from faithfully serving the people.” Tori Sachs, executive director of the Michigan Freedom Fund, said voters enshrined the Nov. 1 map deadline in the state’s constitution and “they expect results, not excuses. “Today’s ruling both upholds the constitution and puts the commission on the clock,” she said in a statement. “It’s time to deliver.” ARTICLES OF POLITICAL INTEREST: Whitmer’s Tax-And-Borrow Missteps Halted Road Repair Progress College towns that navigated COVID-19 learn pandemic lessons, begin economic rebound At least seven states report mosquitoes carrying disease that can paralyze humans VP Kamala Harris to help raise funds for Gov. Whitmer during Detroit visit Marijuana News, Updates, & Articles of Interest We are here to help you with: municipal lobbying, license application writing and assistance, business plans, state required operations manuals and compliance, facility design, corporate structure, and design and branding. We are experts in both medical and recreational cannabis policy and have been in the space for over ten years. We welcome any opportunity to work with you in the future! ARTICLES OF CANNABIS INTEREST: Michigan recalls 10,000 cannabis edibles that weren’t properly inspected State lawmakers weigh options as hemp-derived delta-8 THC disrupts marijuana market Can Marijuana Make You a Better Athlete? Michigan’s licensed cannabis industry wants bigger piece of $3.2B market Hundreds of cannabis brands defend caregivers in Michigan Doing Things Differently We’re making chess moves while others are playing checkers. Everything we do is with you in mind, we’re doing things we’ve never done before and aggressively pursuing opportunities. The time is now. DCD has taken our firm to the next level and your involvement and investment paired with our knowledge and expertise is going to launch the great state of Michigan forward. |
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Supreme Court: Unidentified Metabolite Insufficient For OWI ConvictionMetabolites are not sufficient to prove the presence of a controlled substance in a person while driving, the Supreme Court ruled Friday, overturning a Court of Appeals decision that the metabolites were sufficient to support the conviction of a defendant.
Redistricting Commission Doesn’t Get Deadline Extension For New Maps
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