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Detroit council approves ordinance shifting many misdemeanors to city prosecutors
Summary
The Detroit City Council voted 8-1 to amend city code so the city's law department will prosecute a long list of misdemeanor offenses now handled by Wayne County; city lawyers said the move improves local oversight but carries an estimated $700,000 startup cost.
Detroit's City Council on Aug. 31 approved an ordinance that moves many misdemeanor prosecutions from the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office to the City of Detroit's law department, a change supporters said will increase local oversight and create more predictable handling of quality-of-life offenses.
The ordinance, sponsored by Council Member Scott Vincent, passed on a roll-call vote after a multi-hour discussion of costs, responsibilities and implementation. "This is a historic change," Douglas Baker, chief of criminal enforcement in the city's law department, said as the department explained how it would staff and operate the program. "We're bringing those prosecutions closer to the people of the city of Detroit, closer to oversight by Detroit officials."
The ordinance amends Chapter 31 of the 2019 Detroit City Code to create city misdemeanor offenses that mirror state-law misdemeanors (including…
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