EXPLAINER: Years later, Flint water court fight drags on
DETROIT (AP) — Michigan authorities have long promised to hold key officials criminally responsible for lead contamination and health problems arising from a disastrous water switch in Flint in 2014.
There's not much to show more than eight years later.
The latest: an extraordinary rebuke Tuesday from the state Supreme Court, which unanimously dismissed indictments against former Gov. Rick Snyder and eight others.
The attorney general's office is promising to press on, though hurdles remain even if fresh charges are pursued, including the age of any alleged crimes and a dispute over documents that could take years to resolve.
Solicitor General Fadwa Hammoud, who has led the investigation since 2019, said she's “committed to seeing this process through.”
A look at where things stand:
WHAT HAPPENED AT THE SUPREME COURT?
The court ruled 6-0 that a judge hearing evidence in secret while sitting as a one-person grand jury had no authority to issue indictments, derisively likening it to closed-door justice in the Middle Ages.
The method is so unusual in Michigan that the court said it apparently had never been challenged. Prosecutors typically file charges, then lock horns with defense lawyers in front a judge who decides whether there's enough evidence to go to trial.
Snyder, a Republican, faced indictment for willful neglect of duty. Flint managers appointed by him tapped the Flint River for water in 2014 while a new pipeline to Lake Huron was under construction. Lead from the city's aging pipes infected the system for more than a year because the corrosive water wasn't properly treated.
Snyder's health department director, Nick Lyon, and Michigan’s former chief medical executive, Dr. Eden Wells, were charged with involuntary manslaughter for nine deaths related to...
