Levine and Levine Criminal Defense Attorney Anastase Markou spoke with WEYI regarding a bill that passed the Michigan House of Representatives, eliminating the use of one-man grand juries in the state.
“This is really an antiquated old system that really needed to go,” Markou said during his interview. “It gave the judge powers that judges are not supposed to have.”
The legislation, which passed last week, seeks to ban the practice of using a single judge instead of a civilian grand jury, a process some have criticized as outdated.
The practice gained attention during attempts to prosecute individuals involved in the Flint water crisis. In June 2022, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that a judge did not have cause to indict nine people criminally charged in connection to the crisis.
Markou, who represented Richard Baird in the Flint water crisis case, explained:
“You want to keep a judge, the prosecutor, and the defense on different footing. And when you have a judge doing part of the investigation, that puts them in place of a prosecutor, and that's not proper.”
Markou added that the 1927 law is outdated and that the legislation is long overdue for the state.
“The last time I had a case prior to the case involving the Flint Water Crisis was probably 25 years before that,” he said. “The federal system abolished it – doesn't have it at all, they haven't had it for a long time, they have citizens grand juries.”
The bill now moves to the Senate Committee on Civil Rights, Judiciary, and Public Safety.
Watch the full interview, here.