Ron Plunkett Update--Guilty in Drug Death

Bad Lawyer previously relayed the sordid tale of Ann Arbor, former prosecutor and defense attorney Ron Plunkett's who's life descended into druggy hell.  Reporter Lee Higgins for AnnArbor.com is reports that Plunkett (pic) entered a guilty plea to charges relating to the provision of drugs that resulted in the death of his girl friend's girl friend in his bedroom:

"A former [Ann Arbor] defense attorney accused of paying for and transporting the heroin that caused the death of an Ypsilanti woman in 2006 pleaded guilty today to drug charges. Ronald James Plunkett, 53, pleaded guilty this afternoon in Washtenaw County Circuit Court to delivery of less than 50 grams of cocaine and maintaining a drug house.

He admitted to giving someone cocaine at his Fuller Court apartment on June 16, 2006 - the day 22-year-old Tiffany Gregory collapsed there and died after consuming a combination of alcohol, cocaine and heroin. Gregory was a medic in the Army National Guard and was scheduled to deploy to Iraq later that year.

'That day I allowed three people to come there and use drugs at [my] house,' Plunkett told Judge Melinda Morris.

Plunkett also admitted he allowed people to use drugs at his home before and after that date. Under a plea agreement with prosecutors, charges of delivery of heroin causing death and delivery of less than 50 grams of heroin will be dismissed.

Tracy Corson, 25, of Howell, who was Plunkett's girlfriend [according to the Michigan Supreme Court opinion reinstating his drug charges, a Livonia prostitute] at the time of the death, already served two years in prison in the case after pleading guilty to delivery of a controlled substance causing death.  Plunkett's case has been delayed numerous times due to legal challenges over the relatively new law allowing prosecutors to charge people with providing drugs that caused a death.

The Washtenaw County circuit judge and state appellate judges that reviewed the case determined there was not enough probable cause for Plunkett to stand trial. But the state Supreme Court reinstated felony drug delivery charges and refused to reconsider that decision earlier this year.

Plunkett faces a maximum of 23 months in prison[.]"

Appellate Practice

The Michigan Supreme Court has been wracked by partisan divides over many issues as highlighted by last week's decision in a medical malpractice case reported by MLive.com.  We saw evidence of the open contempt of the Michigan justices for one another--in the Geoffrey Fieger decision from last year.  The new decison a 4-3 opinion dealing with procedural deadlines in medical malpractice cases also breaks along poitical party lines although one Republican justice crossing the partisan divide to side with the Democratic majority opinion.  Usually in these sorts of opinions the cliche` charge in the dissent accuses the majority of invading the province of the state legislature.  The response in "tort reform" cases is that the legislature has already invaded the province of the judiciary and the applicable constitutions to deprive the citizens of the equal protection of the laws, in the medical malpractice arena to throw up undeserved protections for certain classes of defendants against lawsuits from persons they injured. 

Likewise, Wisconsin's Supremes are dealing with the election of the guy in the picture, Justice Gableman who defeated a sitting justice, (Justice Louis Butler, Jr.) a singular act of the electorate in tossing a sitting justice that constitutes the first time in something like +40 years.  The election of Justice Gableman followed a lot of campaign money and television advertising characterized by alleged misrepresentations from both sides.  The problem for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, Gableman's advertsing (which you can see on You Tube) took on Justice Butler for a case the Justice handled as a public defender in the years before he became a Supreme Court Justice; and, the commercials implied that Justice Butler was soft on crime with the result that a child molester was freed to molest again.

Maybe you see, the problem, can Justice Gableman be trusted to be fair and impartial in cases and controversies involving criminal defendants?  The implication of his campaign for Justice Butler's job was that he would never vote to reverse a criminal conviction.  Cool, huh?  Not if you were wrongly convicted, not if you were innocent!

So the Wiscosins have been boxed into a partisan divide over how to deal with motions to disqualify Justice Gableman, which they dealt with last week by adopting a rule by a 4-3 vote holding that Justice Gableman can hear and vote on the criminal cases pending before the court. 

Now this all gets us back into the wisdom of election of judges a recurring theme of this blawg, but to some extent it raises another question--what is appellate law about and why would the voters toss out a good Justice based on misleading commercials?  Let's address the latter question first--voters should never reject a justice purely over an appellate decision they disagree with unless they have a reason to believe that the decision or opinion is corrupt or procured through bribery or the maybe the product of incompetence.  Voters can, of course, properly decide to vote out a justice for philosophical reasons but I'm always surprised that where a lay person views a disqualifying philosophy in one Judge, if they were the litigant the person they disagree with is usually precisely the Justice they would want to hear their case.  The appellate decisions are a thicket in any case, often maddenly so. 

You see, one appellate justice is not deciding the case before the court being afterall, just one vote among, in the case of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, seven. Appellate judges deal with controversies that are both fact-driven but policy-derived.  At the Supreme Court level in most jurisdictions the decision to hear an appeal may be discretionary and those Courts look for cases that present interesting or important public policy decisions.  Great appellate practioners learn the art of contouring their petitions to be heard in such a way as to catch the interest of this or that Justice.  It is an art form to be heard by an appellate court. 

So when voters do what was done to Justice Butler, toss his ass out because someone ran commercials that falsely portrayed him as unleashing child molesters on the populace, and elect someone to take his place who suggests that he will never fairly decide a criminal case brought before him--you have to ask:  what the hell!  Good luck with that Wisconsin.