Michigan House moves to ban one-man grand juries, citing outdated practice

LANSING, Mich. — The Michigan House of Representatives has passed a bill that could permanently eliminate the use of one-man grand juries in the state. 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seeks to ban the practice of using a single judge instead of a civilian grand jury, a process some have criticized as outdated.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 significant 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.

Republican lawmaker Luke Meerman, who proposed the legislation, said, “To me it just didn’t sound right and you know after the Michigan Supreme Court made the ruling it became a lot easier to make the case that we shouldn’t have this.”

Meerman expressed concerns about the fairness of the process, stating, “When I find out that it’s one judge in a one-person grand jury and the defendant doesn’t have access to this information of how the prosecutor decided to charge them, to me it seems, you know, it’s not justice.”

Despite the Michigan Supreme Court’s ruling, the law allowing one-man grand juries remains on the books. Michigan is the only state with such a law, which dates back to 1927.

Anastase Markou, an attorney with Levine and Levine who represented Richard Baird in the Flint water crisis case, said, “You want to keep a judge, the prosecutor, and the defense, all kind of 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Markou added that the 1927 law is outdated and that the legislation is long overdue for the state.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 federal system abolished it, doesn’t have it at all, they haven’t had it for a long time, they have citizens grand juries,” he said.

The bill now moves to the Senate Committee on Civil Rights, Judiciary, and Public Safety. Representative Meerman said he is in talks with senators to advocate for the legislation to be passed and signed into law.