Daily Briefs

Michigan Supreme Court opens year with new justice


LANSING, Mich. (AP) — A new justice made her public debut Wednesday as the Michigan Supreme Court heard arguments in five cases.

Election victories by Elizabeth Welch and Chief Justice Bridget McCormack gave Democratic nominees a majority on the seven-member court for the first time since 2010. They campaigned as a team.
“We are all eager to have her contributions to our work,” McCormack said at the start of the day.

Because of coronavirus restrictions, the Supreme Court still is hearing cases by video conference and not in its Lansing courtroom.

Welch, a Grand Rapids-area lawyer, took the seat of Stephen Markman, 71, a conservative justice who served for 21 years but couldn’t seek re-election because of age limits.

“I am not a textualist,” Welch said before the election, referring to a philosophy favored by conservatives of looking strictly at a law’s text for meaning. “I believe you do have to sometimes look at legislative intent if a law is not clear. The justices have to figure out an answer somehow.”

The court heard arguments in civil and criminal cases Wednesday, including a dispute over access to documents at the University of Michigan. Welch slipped once when she referred to attorney Philip
Ellison by the wrong name.

“You’re new today. You get the pass,” Ellison replied.

 

Tear gas talk by  state lawmaker’s aide leads to FBI visit


LANSING, Mich. (AP) — An FBI agent visited the home of a Michigan lawmaker’s top aide after authorities were told that she had discussed the use of tear gas before the election.

But Katie Reiter said the visit was because of a bizarre misunderstanding: She had been on the phone 10 days earlier in October talking about legislation to ban the use of tear gas by police.

“No one should have to go through what she experienced,” Reiter’s boss, state Sen. Rosemary Bayer, an Oakland County Democrat, told  The Detroit News. “I look forward to hearing from the FBI their plan to prevent these situations from happening in the future.”

Bayer said an appliance repairman who was at Reiter’s home might have overheard the conversation.

The FBI said that it received a complaint from a “concerned citizen” about the “use of tear gas during the upcoming election.”

“At no time prior to that interview did the citizen or the FBI know the reported comments were made in the context of proposed legislation,” spokeswoman Mara Schneider said.

The story was first reported Monday by the online news site The Intercept.

Bayer said it’s possible that tear gas was discussed this way on the phone call: “Should we drop the tear gas bill before the election or wait until after?”

She said “drop” was a reference to introducing a bill in the Michigan Legislature. Reiter said the FBI agent and another officer didn’t know she was Bayer’s aide before showing up at her home.




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