Leaders of Flint water crisis prosecutions say they’re immune from lawsuit - MLive.com

Leaders of Flint water crisis prosecutions say they’re immune from lawsuit - mlive.com

FLINT, MI -- The two leaders of the state’s Flint water crisis prosecution team are mounting a defense similar to Attorney General Dana Nessel to a lawsuit that claims the three violated the constitutional rights of a top aide to former Gov. Rick Snyder.

Former Michigan Solicitor General Fadwa Hammound and Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy on Friday, June 28, joined Neseel in asking Judge Terrence G. Berg to dismiss the lawsuit filed against them by Richard Baird, the state’s former transformation manager, in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.

One day earlier, Nessel -- who appointed Hammoud and Worthy to investigate and prosecute Flint water crimes -- had asked Berg to dismiss the case against her because of prosecutorial and qualified immunity.

The attorney general also said Baird’s case against her could be dismissed because she was not directly involved in her office’s attempt to prosecute Baird for alleged Flint water crisis crimes.

Nessel has said she was never involved directly in the prosecutions after she erected a “conflict wall” that put Flint water prosecutors on one side of the wall and civil investigations led by herself on the other.

In their joint motion to dismiss, Hammoud and Worthy also said they are entitled to absolute immunity because they acted within the scope of their duties in initiating and pursuing the case against Baird, which was ultimately dismissed -- as were eight other criminal prosecutions of government officials with ties to the water crisis.

Worthy and Hammoud also say in their joint motion that they are immune from the lawsuit because of qualified immunity that protects government officials unless they violate a clearly established federal right.

“Baird alleges conduct squarely tied to prosecutorial duties, and he fails to identify any clearly established law guaranteeing a federal right to a preliminary examination,” their motion says.

Baird’s lawsuit, filed in May, alleges Nessel, Hammoud and Worthy ran roughshod over his constitutional rights when they pursued criminal charges, including perjury and extortion, against him.

The Flint native said in his lawsuit that he suffered damages of $2.8 million and is also owed roughly $800,000 he was forced to spend defending himself in the criminal case.

Criminal charges against Baird and other Flint water defendants were dismissed in federal court after the Michigan Supreme Court ruled in June 2022 that the state’s one-man grand juror statute did not allow them to be indicted without a preliminary hearing.

Hammoud and Worthy say the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has ruled that there is no federal right to a preliminary examination and that Baird has no federal constitutional right to challenge the reliability or competence of the evidence supporting a grand jury’s finding of probable cause.

The motion says Baird’s claim also must be dismissed under state law because he cannot show a violation of his federal statutory or constitutional rights.

Despite the state Supreme Court’s ruling that led to dismissal of charges against Baird, his lawsuit was filed more than a year after water prosecutors utilized the one-man grand jury procedure. The motion from Hammoud and Worthy says that means the right to a preliminary exam had not been clearly established by the state’s highest court.

Baird was indicted by the one-man grand jury in January 2021. He was charged with perjury, extortion, obstruction of justice, and felony misconduct in office.

Stories by Ron Fonger

- Maple Avenue bridge in Mundy Township closing until late September for rehab
- Kildee will speak at Flint Pride Festival at Riverbank Park
- Flint’s household hazardous waste collections are so popular there’s a drawing to pick participants
- Seven-week reconstruction job starts on West Main Street in downtown Flushing
- What’s that? Flint state park project work begins with construction of river riffles