Michigan Supreme Court Wrap-Up
The Michigan Supreme Court has issued a number of landmark opinions over the past few days leading up to the Court's summer recess.
On July 26th, the Court ruled in the case of People v Smith that a plea agreement which prevents a former State Senator from seeking public office has an extraordinarily high bar to be met in order to be enforced because the citizens are ultimately allowed to pick whomever they wish to represent them in office. Nonetheless, the Court found that an error was committed when the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office was unable to withdraw the plea deal after the trial judge struck the public office provision.
On July 27th, the Court ruled in Michigan Gun Owners v Ann Arbor Schools that the Legislature has not passed any law preventing schools from banning guns from campuses and that the current law instead has signaled the intention to allow that decision to be left up to the schools. The Court's ruling will require legislative action to be overturned.
On July 30th, the Court ruled in Johnson v Vanderkooi that the Grand Rapids Police Department policy of photographing and fingerprinting young citizens because they do not have ID is a violation of the citizens' constitutional rights, and allowed a lawsuit on that topic to proceed against the Department even though the policy is "unofficial."
Lastly, at around 10:30pm on July 31st, the Court ruled in CPMC v Secretary of State that Michigan voters should be able to have the final say on whether to approve the Voters Not Politicians ballot initiative and that such an initiative is allowed to proceed as a ballot initiative rather than through holding a constitutional convention to revise the entire Michigan Constitution as opponents have suggested. The majority opinion undertook a sweeping constitutional analysis of the plan and the rights the citizens of Michigan have to petition their government.