MIDLAND – Michigan’s civil forfeiture laws, which enable law enforcement agencies to gain possession of private property, are among the worst rated in the nation and should be changed, according to a new report jointly authored and published by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan.

Christopher Ratté, a University of Michigan professor, took his 7-year-old son, Leo, to a Detroit Tigers game in Comerica Park. Before they took their seats, Christopher purchased what he thought was lemonade from a stand advertising “Mike’s Lemonade,” and, not knowing that it contained alcohol, gave it to his son. During the ninth inning, a security guard saw Leo with a Mike’s Hard Lemonade and alerted the police.

In 2013 the ACLU of Michigan filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the Michigan Supreme Court on behalf of Lance Laird, who was denied custody of his children even though there was no adjudication establishing that he was an unfit parent. Mr. Laird was separated from the mother of his young children, who pleaded no contest to neglect and abuse.

Although Mr. Laird was not found to have done anything wrong, the court ordered that he attend parenting classes and counseling and submit to drug testing order to obtain custody of his children.

In a groundbreaking ruling, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the severe restrictions imposed by the Michigan legislature on former sex offenders long after they were convicted violated the Constitution.  

Before courts recognized that abusive interrogation techniques could easily lead to a false confession and a miscarriage of justice, police routinely administered the “third degree” on suspects they thought were guilty until a confession was obtained.

One form of abuse was to interrogate a suspect incommunicado, which included withholding information that the suspect’s attorney was trying to contact the suspect and was currently available to provide assistance.

R.V. is a certified nurse aid who worked in a nursing home from 2001 until 2009. In 2009 the Department of Community Health informed R.V. that she was barred for the rest of her life from working in long-term care, thereby forcing R.V. to give up her career.

Once a criminal defendant loses an appeal, there are certain circumstances under which he or she can invoke to go back to the trial court and seek relief by filing a “motion for relief from judgment.”

There are severe limitations on filing motions for relief from judgment: typically, a defendant will lose unless she or he can demonstrate that an issue was not previously raised, “good cause” for why it was not raised, and how the error was prejudicial to the outcome of the trial.

Michigan’s Central Registry for Child Abuse and Neglect is supposed to protect children by ensuring that individuals who are a threat to children do not work with kids or serve as foster parents.

But accused individuals are placed on the registry for life without a prior hearing. Some do not even get notice that they are listed. Others remain on the registry even if a court later finds that they never engaged in abuse or neglect.

Michigan’s so-called “zero tolerance” law for student expulsions is widely misunderstood, including by school administrators.

After hearing from several parents whose young sons were expelled by the Grand Rapids Public Schools for inadvertently bringing knives to school, the ACLU of Michigan wrote to the school district in April 2013 and explained that expulsion for such conduct is not mandated under state law; rather, school administrators have discretion to consider factors like whether the student intended to use the knife as a weapon.

The Michigan Parole Board sometimes imposes automatic conditions of parole on inmates leaving prison that deny them fundamental constitutional rights, even though there are no individual determinations of whether the conditions are necessary to protect the community.

In 2009, the ACLU of Michigan, working with Legal Aid of Western Michigan and the University of Michigan Clinical Law Program, filed a lawsuit on behalf of two men who were convicted for having sexual contact with young women who were just under of the age of consent.