Michigan AG releases report on failed Flint water crisis prosecutions

More than 10 years after the story first came to light, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel released a report detailing her office's yearslong criminal investigation into the Flint Water Crisis. "This report is meant to be as thorough and complete an accounting as is possible and legally allowed, and to offer the truth of the events and decisions made by government officials as uncovered by our investigation," Nessel said. The Flint Water Crisis began in April 2014, when the city switched its drinking water source from the Detroit water system to the Flint River without proper treatment. The contaminated water then sickened many before the city switched back in 2015. Released Tuesday, the report outlines the investigation, the criminal charges prosecutors pursued, and the legal challenges that ultimately brought those prosecutions to an end. Nessel held a news conference to discuss the report, which she described as an opportunity to give Flint residents a full account of the Flint Water Prosecution Team's investigation. "Absent open court trials of the several defendants indicted by the grand juror, this report is the single best and last available recourse available to us to put the story in the hands of those who deserve to hold it—the victims of the Flint water crisis," Nessel said in that conference. The investigation into the crisis led to the authorization of a one-person grand jury, which found probable cause that government officials had committed crimes. That jury ultimately indicted nine defendants on 42 criminal charges, including charges ranging from obstruction of justice to misconduct in office. Overall, state investigators obtained millions of digital records during the years-long investigation, according to the report. Yet, the criminal cases were ultimately dismissed after the Michigan Supreme Court's 2022 ruling in People v. Peeler invalidated the use of the one-person grand jury process used to issue the indictments. Nessel criticized the ruling, which she said ended the possibility of criminal trials for the defendants. "To a large extent, justice has evaded the people of Flint," Nessel said. "They will not have their day in a criminal court of law, and the people's exhibits and evidence will not be admitted and scoured. No defendants will be made to answer for their actions, and no jury of their peers will be seated to ultimately pass judgment on the actions that led to the deaths of many and the poisoning of thousands." With the criminal prosecutions no longer able to proceed, Nessel described the report as the final avenue for making the investigation public. She added that although the state's investigation has ended, Flint residents will continue to grapple with the effects of the crisis. "The people of Flint deserved justice, and much more than that, the Flint water crisis endures as an open wound across an entire community," Nessel said. "My heart continues to break for them, for their loss and suffering, and that they will never be given the chance to confront in a court of law the men and women we allege to have allowed the Flint water crisis to happen."