In the Freddie Gray murder trial in Baltimore, the most severe charge is that or Depraved Heart Murder, defined as:
In United States law, depraved-heart murder, also known as depraved-indifference murder, is an action where a defendant acts with a "depraved indifference" to human life and where such act results in a death. In a depraved-heart murder, defendants commit an act even though they know their act runs an unusually high risk of causing death or serious bodily harm to someone else. If the risk of death or bodily harm is great enough, ignoring it demonstrates a "depraved indifference" to human life and the resulting death is considered to have been committed with malice aforethought. n some states, depraved-heart killings constitute second-degree murder, while in others, the act would be charged with varying degrees of manslaughter.
If no death results, such an act would generally constitute reckless endangerment (sometimes known as "culpable negligence") and possibly other crimes, such as assault.
Well in Flint, it appears that we already have some deaths from Snyder’s decision to save a few bucks and punish Detroit some more, specifically deaths from the waterborne illness Legionnaires Disease:
I am writing this to you from the place where I was born—Flint, Michigan. Please consider this personal appeal from me and the 102,000 citizens of the city of Flint who have been poisoned—not by a mistake, not by a natural disaster, but by a governor and his administration who, to “cut costs,” took over the city of Flint from its duly elected leaders, unhooked the city from its fresh water supply of Lake Huron and then made the people drink the toxic water from the Flint River. This was nearly two years ago. All fingers from the doctors and scientists point to the filthy, toxic Flint River as the cause of this Legionnaires Disease outbreak. Photo credit: Ryan Garza / Detroit Free Press All fingers from the doctors and scientists point to the filthy, toxic Flint River as the cause of this Legionnaires Disease outbreak. Photo credit: Ryan Garza / Detroit Free Press
This week it was revealed that at least 10 people in Flint have now been killed by these premeditated actions of the Governor of Michigan. This governor, Rick Snyder, nullified the democratic election of this mostly African-American city—where 41 percent of the people live below the “official” poverty line—and replaced the elected Mayor and city council with a crony who was instructed to take all his orders from the governor’s office.
I am not a lawyer, but this seems at least as egregious as the “Rough Ride” given Freddie Gray in Baltimore.
So my questions are as follows:
- Does Michigan have a “Depraved Heart Murder” statute?
- Could this be applied to the actions of Rick Snyder, his cabinet, and Darnell Earley, the emergency manager at the time?
- Can the Genesee County District Attorney change them based on the fact that the deaths occured in his county, or would it have to be the Michigan Attorney General filing charges?
- Is Bill Schuette, the state AG, too corrupt and evil to start a criminal investigation? (Probably yes)
- What can the US Department of Justice do, since murder is not a federal crime?
I would dearly love to see this guy frog marched out of the governors mansion in hand cuffs.