Dogowners can sue for emotional distress, judge rules

By ERIC FREEDMAN
Capital News Service
LANSING — The owners of a dog shot and seriously wounded by a Corrections Department investigator can sue the state for emotional distress and mental anguish damages under federal civil rights law, a judge has ruled. U.S. District Judge Gershwin Drain rejected the state’s argument that the owners, Erica Moreno and Katti Putman, would be entitled only to economic damages if they prove that the investigator acted unconstitutionally. The investigator, Ronald Hughes, several state troopers and a Flint police officer on a multiagency team went to the wrong house in Flint while searching for a fugitive in June 2014, according to court documents. They had an arrest warrant for the fugitive. Hughes mistakenly went into the backyard of the fugitive’s next-door neighbors, where he saw 58-pound Clohe, a 15-year-old pit bull mix, coming out the door and shot her in the face, the decision said.

Small-scale meth production spreads in Northern Michigan

By MICHAEL KRANSZ
Capital News Service
LANSING — The recent bust of a mobile meth lab in Big Rapids illustrates the growing popularity of small-scale cooking operations employed by many drug users, and a growing problem for Northern Michigan, a police official said. The bust occurred Nov. 9 and saw 30-year-old Mark Peterson of Big Rapids led away in handcuffs after officers stopped his car in a remote part of the Ferris State University campus, said Bruce Borkovich, the director of public safety at the university. Following the vehicle stop, officers determined that Peterson had been using the car as a “one-pot” meth lab, a cooking operation in which small batches of the drug are produced, Borkovich said. Peterson was living with a Ferris State student in a campus apartment at the time, Borkovich said, and there was no evidence that he’d been distributing the drug.

Will earlier parole boost crime?

By SIERRA REOVSKY
Capital News Service
LANSING – With debate about ‘presumptive parole’ in the Legislature, the question arises whether keeping convicts in prison longer will actually prevent them from committing another crime once they’re set free. A recent report from the Council of State Governments found almost no difference in the re-arrests rates of Michigan parolees, whether they’re released within six months of their earliest eligibility date or incarcerated longer. That was true regardless of the crime for which they were imprisoned. “There is no correlation in keeping people longer in prison and keeping the public safer,” said Barbara Levine, associate director of research and policy at the Citizens Alliance on Prisons and Public Spending. “Most of those that committed a serious crime years ago present a lower risk to society, making keeping them in our prisons a waste of our money,” she said.