Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has told a federal court she is immune from allegations that she violated former Gov. Rick Snyder’s aide’s due process rights when he was among the officials indicted following the Flint water crisis.
In a motion to dismiss filed Friday, Nessel argued she was not personally involved with the Flint water prosecution team. Even if she had been, Nessel claimed she was acting in her official capacity and entitled to immunity from Richard Baird’s claims that his due process rights were violated during the indictment process.
“But even assuming the attorney general was involved with the Flint water prosecution team (she was not), she was acting in an advocacy capacity and is thus entitled to absolute prosecutorial immunity for all claims,” the motion read.
Baird, a special adviser to Snyder from 2012 to 2018, was one of several officials criminally charged in 2019 after the Flint water crisis, in which state-appointed emergency managers changed the city’s water source from Lake Huron to the Flint River, leading to lead contamination. Baird’s charges were dismissed in 2022 after the Michigan Supreme Court ruled the indictments were invalid due to being issued by a one-judge grand jury. A 2023 ruling also blocked the revival of charges against seven officials involved.