Nick Lyon
One of the biggest fishes charged in the Flint water scandal goes to court Thursday in a big test of how solid the attorney general's investigation has been.
Nick Lyon, state health and human services director, has a district court preliminary examination on criminal charges that include manslaughter. Attorney General Bill Schuette's legal team will have to persuade Judge David Goggins there is probable cause to proceed to trial.
The state health director’s attorneys may try to get the manslaughter charge dismissed, legal experts tell Leonard Fleming of The Detroit News.
“It is hard to get a charge dismissed at preliminary exam,” said Peter Henning, a Wayne State University law professor and former federal prosecutor. “These are the opening moves of a chess match.”
Specifically, Lyon is accused of killing a Genesee Township man by deliberately failing to warn the public about an outbreak of the deadly Legionnaires’ disease, an alert that might have saved his life.
The prosecution argues the death is related to the tainted Flint water supply. Some experts argue there's not evidence to link Legionnaires' disease to the water.
“You are going to have to show that these increased, dangerous impurities in the water present a clear and immediate danger, and you have to show that these impurities in the water actually caused the Legionnaires’ disease,” Adam Candeub, a law professor at Michigan State University, tells the News.
In August, former Michigan Attorney General Frank Kelley criticized the charges against Lyons, telling the Detroit Free Press:
"When charges are wrongfully made, it disrupts the whole justice system. I had an obligation to speak out. It’s wrong for this particular charge to be brought against Nick Lyon, who’s got nothing to do with making the decision, it’s just wrong, and he won’t escape the stigma of it even if he’s found innocent."
