{ "site": { "name": "WickmanWatch", "domain": "wickmanwatch.com", "base_url": "https://wickmanwatch.com", "tagline": "FOIA accountability for the Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "description": "A public watchdog archive documenting Freedom of Information Act requests, responses, denials, appeals, fees, and transparency issues involving the Delta County Prosecutor's Office in Michigan.", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "county": "Delta County, Michigan", "facebook_url": "https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61583966446094", "contact_email": "", "last_updated": "2026-11-02" }, "foias": [ { "id": "26-131", "slug": "26-131-felony-sex-offense-case-files", "title": "FOIA 26-131: Twenty case files, priced at $82.66 before a single page is copied", "short_title": "The $82.66 price tag on twenty case files", "subject": "Charging documents, plea sheets, judgments of sentence, nolle prosequi orders and verdict forms for every 2025 felony sex-offense case authorized or filed by the Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "synopsis": "A resubmission of FOIA 26-101, narrowed to 2025 felony sex-offense cases and to five existing documents per file. The office granted the request in part and denied it in part, then priced the answer at $82.66: $16.53 to locate roughly twenty files and $66.13 to redact an estimated 160 to 200 pages at two minutes a document. It demanded a 50 percent deposit of $41.33 before producing anything, with a thirty-day clock that begins only when the deposit arrives. The requester had already documented, inside the request itself, that the office's own earlier response put felony volume at roughly 350 files a year while claiming it must review 1,500, and that its Karpel case-management system went live on June 10, 2024, so every 2025 case sits in a searchable relational database. The April 24, 2026 response never addresses that contradiction. It simply prices the manual review anyway. The public-interest fee waiver section of the county's own itemization form is left entirely blank.", "status": "granted_in_part", "status_label": "Granted in part — release conditioned on a $41.33 deposit; no records produced yet", "submitted": "2026-04-17", "received": "2026-04-20", "response_date": "2026-04-24", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "requester": "Redacted", "fees_quoted": 82.66, "deposit_required": 41.33, "fees_paid": 0, "fee_waiver_requested": true, "fee_waiver_basis": "MCL 15.234", "fee_note": "The office quoted $82.66: $16.53 to locate approximately twenty files at two minutes each, and $66.13 to separate exempt from nonexempt material across an estimated 160 to 200 pages at two minutes a document, both billed at $24.82 an hour with fringe benefits in quarter-hour increments. Copying and mailing were $0. A 50 percent good-faith deposit of $41.33 was required before production, with an estimated thirty days to deliver the records after the deposit is received. The request asked for a public-interest fee waiver under MCL 15.234. On the county's own Detailed Cost Itemization form, the Public Interest waiver section is left completely blank: neither the 'all fees are waived' box nor the 'all fees are reduced by ___%' box is checked, and the 'Subtotal Fees After Waiver' line is empty. No waiver was granted, and no written reason for denying one appears anywhere in the packet. Nothing has been paid and no responsive records have been produced.", "appealed": false, "appeal_events": [], "appeal_status": "N/A", "appeal_note": "No appeal is recorded in the documents produced. The response enclosed appeal rights, a reproduction of MCL 15.240 and a blank FOIA appeal form, and it also enclosed the Fee Appeal Form and the text of MCL 15.240a, which governs appeals of a fee. The 180-day window to sue under MCL 15.240 runs from the April 24, 2026 response, so a court challenge to either the denial or the fee remains available on this record. The appeal status is shown as N/A rather than 'none' because this archive holds only what the office produced.", "requested": [ "FOIA 26-131 — for each felony criminal case authorized or filed by the Delta County Prosecutor's Office during calendar year 2025 in which the charge or charges involve a felony sex offense, including Criminal Sexual Conduct under MCL 750.520b through 750.520e, child sexually abusive material or activity, and any other felony sex-offense statute, produce five existing documents from each such case file.", "The Felony Information or Charging Complaint for each case.", "The Plea Sheet or Plea Agreement for each case.", "The Judgment of Sentence for each case.", "The Order of Nolle Prosequi for each case.", "The Verdict Form for each case.", "The request stated that it sought only existing documents already maintained in the case files, and did not ask the office to create a new record, generate a report, summary or compilation, perform a database query or system export, or provide statistical analysis.", "The request consented to redaction of personal identifiers under MCL 15.243(1)(a) but asked that the defendant name, case number, charge statute, charge description and authorization or filing date remain unredacted.", "Electronic delivery as PDF by email or secure download link.", "A public-interest fee waiver under MCL 15.234(1), and advance notice of any applicable charge.", "A challenge to the manual-review fee basis, asking the office to confirm whether a Karpel search filtered by case type equals felony and authorization date from January 1 to December 31, 2025 was performed and what it returned; to provide written documentation from Karpel Solutions if the office contends the system cannot perform that search; and to itemize any cost using the lowest-paid qualified employee's wage and to notify the requester before proceeding if the estimate exceeds $50." ], "provided": [ "A response letter dated April 24, 2026, signed by Emily DeSalvo as FOIA Coordinator on the letterhead of Lauren M. Wickman, Prosecuting Attorney and Civil Counsel.", "An acknowledgment that the request was dated April 17, 2026 and received by the Delta County Prosecutor's Office on April 20, 2026.", "A determination of granted in part and denied in part.", "A statement that the office identified approximately twenty files that would contain responsive records, each including approximately four to five responsive documents.", "A written justification that, due to the breadth of the records that must be reviewed, failing to charge for search, examination, review and deletion and separation of exempt from nonexempt information would result in unreasonably high costs to the county beyond those typically incurred in responding to FOIA requests.", "A Notice of Denial form dated April 24, 2026, with the 'Exempt from Disclosure' box checked and the subsection marked 'SEE MEMO', listing three reasons: records of a personal nature whose disclosure would constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy; records compiled for law-enforcement purposes; and information otherwise exempt by statute, specifically MCL 28.214(5) LEIN information.", "The same Notice of Denial form with the 'Redaction' box checked and a description of the redactions: names, dates of birth, addresses, telephone numbers and similar identifiers.", "A seven-page Detailed Cost Itemization dated April 24, 2026, itemizing $16.53 to locate, $66.13 to redact, $0 for copying and $0 for mailing, for a subtotal of $82.66, a 50 percent good-faith deposit of $41.33, and an estimated thirty days to provide the records after the deposit is received.", "A statement of appeal rights, a reproduction of MCL 15.240, a blank FOIA appeal form, a Fee Appeal Form, a reproduction of MCL 15.240a, and a copy of the county's written FOIA policy." ], "withheld": [ "All responsive records themselves. The determination granted the request in part, but production was conditioned on the $41.33 deposit, and no responsive documents had been produced as of this record.", "Names, dates of birth, addresses, telephone numbers and similar personal identifiers, to be redacted under MCL 15.243(1)(a) as information whose disclosure would constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.", "Law-enforcement information drawn from LEIN, withheld under MCL 28.214(5).", "Records the office characterizes as compiled for law-enforcement purposes, cited as a ground of exemption in the Notice of Denial.", "The public-interest fee waiver. The request asked for one under MCL 15.234; the county's itemization form leaves the waiver section blank, granting nothing and explaining nothing." ], "keywords": [ "26-131", "26-101", "felony", "sex offense", "criminal sexual conduct", "CSC", "child sexually abusive material", "CSAM", "MCL 750.520b", "MCL 750.520e", "Felony Information", "Charging Complaint", "Plea Sheet", "Plea Agreement", "Judgment of Sentence", "Order of Nolle Prosequi", "Verdict Form", "case statistics", "prosecutor statistics", "charging decisions", "fee estimate", "cost itemization", "deposit", "fee waiver", "MCL 15.234", "MCL 15.243(1)(a)", "MCL 28.214(5)", "LEIN", "privacy exemption", "ProsecutorByKarpel", "Karpel", "relational database", "manual review", "redaction", "Notice of Denial", "MCL 15.240", "MCL 15.240a", "Emily DeSalvo", "Lauren M. Wickman", "Delta County Prosecutor" ], "documents": [ { "title": "Response Letter, Notice of Denial and Detailed Cost Itemization (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/26-131/26-131-response-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The April 24, 2026 letter granting the request in part and denying it in part, the Notice of Denial form, the seven-page Detailed Cost Itemization quoting $82.66 and a $41.33 deposit, the appeal rights and blank appeal and fee-appeal forms, the county's FOIA policy, and the requester's own four-page request letter. Requester identifiers removed." } ], "infographics": [], "charts": [ { "title": "What $82.66 buys", "type": "interactive bar chart", "anchor": "price" }, { "title": "Three hundred fifty or fifteen hundred?", "type": "interactive comparison", "anchor": "math" }, { "title": "April 17 to thirty days after deposit", "type": "interactive timeline", "anchor": "clock" }, { "title": "Five documents asked for, none produced yet", "type": "interactive scorecard", "anchor": "documents-asked" } ], "published": "2026-10-25", "updated": "2026-10-25", "featured": true, "watchdog_alerts": [ "The office says roughly twenty files are responsive, then prices redaction of an estimated 160 to 200 pages. Its own earlier response to requests 26-100 through 26-105 put felony volume at roughly 350 files a year while claiming it had to review 1,500. The arithmetic behind the fee has never been reconciled to the arithmetic behind the case volume.", "The requester documented that ProsecutorByKarpel went live on June 10, 2024, so every 2025 case was entered natively into a searchable relational database, and that a filtered query should return roughly 350 results in minutes. The April 24 response never addresses the Karpel question. It prices a manual, page-by-page review anyway.", "The public-interest fee waiver section of the county's own Detailed Cost Itemization form is left entirely blank. Neither the waiver box nor the reduction box is checked, and the 'Subtotal Fees After Waiver' line is empty. The request asked for a waiver under MCL 15.234. The office neither granted one nor gave a written reason for refusing.", "A 50 percent deposit of $41.33 is demanded before a single page is produced, and the thirty-day production clock does not start until the deposit is received. The fee is small enough that paying it is easier than appealing it, which is precisely how a fee wall works.", "This is a resubmission of FOIA 26-101. The requester had to reword and narrow the request — to 2025 only, to five document types, to existing records only — before the office would even quote a price." ], "tile_title": "Twenty case files, priced before they are copied", "tile_synopsis": "A narrowed request for 2025 felony sex-offense charging records, granted in part and priced at $82.66 with a $41.33 deposit — while the office's own case-volume figures and its Karpel database go unaddressed.", "badge_label": "Granted in part", "categories": [ "case-statistics", "charging-decisions" ], "share_image": "assets/images/share/26-131.jpg", "karpel_note": "ProsecutorByKarpel went live on June 10, 2024. This request was deliberately limited to cases authorized or filed in calendar year 2025, after that go-live date, so that every responsive case would have been entered natively into Karpel's relational database. The requester said so in the request and asked the office to confirm whether a filtered Karpel query was run. The April 24, 2026 response does not mention Karpel, does not confirm or deny the query, and does not explain why a database that its own vendor documentation describes as supporting 'broad search capabilities' and 'custom ad hoc reports' would require a manual review of 160 to 200 pages. Nothing on this page faults the office for how pre-2024 records were stored. The criticism is confined to how a 2025-only request was priced and answered." }, { "id": "26-22", "slug": "26-22-conviction-success-rate-fee-quote", "title": "FOIA 26-22: A conviction rate the office says does not exist, priced at $9,548", "short_title": "Conviction rate and the $9,548 quote", "subject": "Aggregate conviction success rate, January 2023 through December 31, 2025", "synopsis": "A request for any existing document showing the office's overall conviction success rate from the prosecutor's election through the end of 2025. The office answered that no such record exists and that producing one would mean creating a new record — then quoted $9,548 to search and redact roughly 3,300 underlying case files, required a $4,774 deposit, and estimated 270 days. The itemization leaves the base hourly wage blank, leaves the public-interest waiver undecided, omits the deposit deadline the statute requires, and pools its deposit with a second request, 25-21, that is not in this archive.", "status": "denied", "status_label": "Denied — record does not exist; $9,548 quote for the underlying files", "submitted": "2026-01-30", "received": "2026-02-02", "response_date": "2026-02-05", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "requester": "Redacted", "fees_quoted": 9548, "deposit_required": 4774, "fees_paid": 0, "fee_waiver_requested": true, "fee_waiver_basis": "MCL 15.234", "fee_note": "The office quoted $9,548.00 for search and redaction labor and required a 50 percent deposit of $4,774.00. No payment was made. The requester had asked for a waiver of all fees under MCL 15.234 and for an itemized estimate before processing; the itemization's public-interest waiver section was left entirely blank.", "appealed": false, "appeal_events": [], "requested": [ "Any existing document, report, spreadsheet, or database output reflecting the overall conviction success rate of the Delta County Prosecutor's Office from the prosecutor's election date through December 31, 2025.", "An express statement that the request does not require the creation of a new public record.", "If no such calculation is maintained, an indication that no responsive record exists.", "A waiver of all fees under MCL 15.234, and a detailed written itemization before processing if any fee was anticipated.", "A response within five business days as required by MCL 15.235(2)." ], "provided": [ "A response letter dated February 5, 2026, signed by Lauren M. Wickman as Chief Prosecuting Attorney and Emily DeSalvo as FOIA Coordinator.", "A statement that the request is granted in part and denied in part.", "A statement that no aggregate statistical document exists and that producing one would require creating a new record, citing MCL 15.233(5).", "A certificate of nonexistence under MCL 15.233(1), signed by the FOIA coordinator.", "A Notice of Denial form with box 2, “Record Does Not Exist,” checked.", "An offer to provide the underlying records so the requester can compile the total himself.", "A seven-page detailed cost itemization dated February 5, 2026, quoting $9,548.00.", "A blank FOIA appeal form, the MCL 15.240 statutory excerpt, and the county's FOIA policy page.", "The fax transmission record showing the request arrived January 30, 2026 at 12:37 p.m." ], "withheld": [ "The overall conviction success rate from January 1, 2023 through December 31, 2025 — the office says no such record exists.", "Any existing document, report, spreadsheet, or database output reflecting that rate.", "The underlying charging, dispositional and sentencing documents for approximately 3,300 case files, which the office offered only on payment of $9,548.00." ], "keywords": [ "26-22", "conviction rate", "conviction success rate", "success rate", "aggregate", "aggregate statistics", "criminal case statistics", "dispositional documents", "sentencing documents", "charging documents", "case files", "1,100 files per year", "3,300 files", "record does not exist", "certificate of nonexistence", "creation of a new record", "MCL 15.233(1)", "MCL 15.233(5)", "MCL 15.234", "MCL 15.234(3)", "MCL 15.234(8)", "MCL 15.234(13)", "MCL 15.234(14)", "MCL 15.235(2)", "MCL 15.240", "MCL 15.240a", "MCL 15.243(1)(a)", "fee itemization", "fee waiver", "public interest waiver", "deposit", "50 percent deposit", "4,774", "9,548", "270 days", "unreasonably high costs", "fringe benefit", "hourly wage", "redaction labor", "25-21", "pooled deposit", "48 days", "45 days", "180 days", "Wickman", "DeSalvo", "Escanaba", "Delta County", "transparency", "watchdog" ], "documents": [ { "title": "FOIA Request (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/26-22/26-22-request-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The one-page request as faxed on January 30, 2026, including the fee-waiver and itemization language. Requester identifiers removed." }, { "title": "Response Letter and Notice of Denial (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/26-22/26-22-response-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The February 5, 2026 response letter, the certificate of nonexistence, and the Notice of Denial form." }, { "title": "Cost Itemization and Fax Record (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/26-22/26-22-itemization-and-fax-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The seven-page fee itemization quoting $9,548.00 and a $4,774.00 deposit, plus the fax transmission record and statutory excerpt." } ], "infographics": [], "published": "2026-10-23", "updated": "2026-10-23", "featured": true, "charts": [ { "title": "The paper trail", "type": "interactive timeline", "anchor": "papertrail" }, { "title": "How the $9,548 divides", "type": "interactive bar chart", "anchor": "fees" }, { "title": "The estimate, rebuilt", "type": "interactive calculator", "anchor": "arithmetic" }, { "title": "Two clocks", "type": "interactive capacity chart", "anchor": "clock" } ], "appeal_status": "N/A", "appeal_note": "The requester reports appealing most of these requests. The appeal record has not yet been located and added to this archive, so the appeal status is shown as N/A rather than as “none.”", "watchdog_alerts": [ "The office certified that no aggregate conviction success rate exists, then quoted 385 hours to search 3,300 case files. If the underlying files can be searched, the summary can be computed. Why is the total treated as nonexistent while its inputs are treated as retrievable?", "The itemization totals $9,548.00, but the base hourly wage and the fringe-benefit multiplier are blank on both labor lines. How can a fee be demanded without the wage it is built on?", "The public-interest waiver section of the itemization is entirely blank. Did anyone actually decide the waiver question, or was it simply left undecided?", "No 48-day deposit-receipt date appears anywhere in the packet, although the act requires one. When, if ever, was the deposit treated as received?" ], "karpel_note": "ProsecutorByKarpel went live in June 2024. This request covers January 2023 through December 2025, so the 2023 portion predates the system. This page does not fault the office for lacking system-generated reports before June 2024; the criticism is confined to the 2024–2025 period and to the fee itself.", "tile_title": "No conviction rate on file — $9,548 to look", "tile_synopsis": "The office says no such record exists, then quotes $9,548 and a $4,774 deposit to search roughly 3,300 case files.", "badge_label": "Denied", "categories": [ "case-statistics" ], "share_image": "assets/images/share/26-22.jpg" }, { "id": "26-20", "slug": "26-20-aggregate-criminal-case-totals", "title": "FOIA 26-20: The aggregate case total, and the records that would let you count it", "short_title": "Aggregate case totals", "subject": "Aggregate criminal case statistics, January 2023 through December 2025", "synopsis": "A request for one number — how many criminal cases the office filed between the prosecutor's election and December 31, 2025. The office denied it twice over: it says no document containing the total exists and that computing one would mean creating a new record, and it declined to reproduce the underlying reports on the ground that they had already been provided. The reports it names do not cover eleven months of 2024 or the last six months of 2025, so the total cannot be assembled from them either.", "status": "denied", "status_label": "Denied — record does not exist", "submitted": "2026-01-30", "received": "2026-02-02", "response_date": "2026-02-05", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "requester": "Redacted", "fees_quoted": 0, "deposit_required": 0, "fees_paid": 0, "fee_waiver_requested": true, "fee_waiver_basis": "MCL 15.234", "fee_note": "No fee quoted and no deposit required. The request asked for a fee waiver under MCL 15.234 and an itemized estimate if any fee was anticipated.", "appealed": false, "appeal_events": [], "requested": [ "The total number of criminal cases filed by the Delta County Prosecutor's Office from the prosecutor's election date through December 31, 2025.", "Any existing query result, summary output, or export reflecting that total, if the information exists in a case management system, database, spreadsheet, or report.", "An express statement that the request does not require the creation of a new public record.", "A fee waiver under MCL 15.234, and an itemized written estimate before processing if any fee was anticipated.", "A response within five business days as required by MCL 15.235(2)." ], "provided": [ "A written denial dated February 5, 2026, signed by Emily DeSalvo, FOIA Coordinator.", "A Notice of Denial form with box 2, “Record Does Not Exist,” checked.", "A list of seven distinct documents the office says are responsive but will not reproduce.", "A citation to Densmore v Department of Corrections as authority for withholding those documents.", "A certification that no record containing the aggregate total exists under the name given or any other name reasonably known.", "A copy of the FOIA appeal form, the Section 10 statutory excerpt, and the county's FOIA policy page.", "The fax transmission record showing the request arrived January 30, 2026 at 10:49 a.m." ], "withheld": [ "The aggregate numerical total of criminal cases filed, January 2023 through December 31, 2025.", "Any existing query result, summary output, or export reflecting that total.", "21st Century Report, January 1, 2024 to January 31, 2024.", "21st Century Report, January 1, 2025 to July 3, 2025.", "Warrants Authorized by Agency, January 1, 2023 to November 30, 2023.", "Budget Request for FY 2024-2025 memo dated 07/17/2024 and attachments.", "Budget Request for FY 2023-2024 memo dated 09/10/2023 and attachments.", "Charges on Authorized Misdemeanor Case Report, 01/01/2023 to 12/31/2023.", "Charges on Authorized Felony Case Report, 01/01/2023 to 12/31/2023." ], "keywords": [ "26-20", "aggregate", "aggregate total", "case statistics", "cases filed", "criminal cases", "case management", "21st Century Report", "warrants authorized", "charges authorized", "Densmore", "Densmore v Department of Corrections", "203 Mich App 363", "MCL 15.233(4)", "MCL 15.233(5)", "MCL 15.235", "MCL 15.240", "creation of a new record", "compilation", "summary", "report", "duplicative request", "closed loop", "coverage gap", "Wickman", "DeSalvo", "Escanaba", "Delta County", "prosecutor", "transparency", "public records", "FOIA", "statistics" ], "documents": [ { "title": "FOIA Request (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/26-20/26-20-request-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The one-page request as faxed on January 30, 2026. Requester identifiers removed." }, { "title": "Response Letter and Notice of Denial (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/26-20/26-20-response-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The February 5, 2026 denial letter, the list of records withheld, and the denial form." }, { "title": "Fax Record and Notice Packet (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/26-20/26-20-fax-and-notices-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The fax transmission record, the FOIA appeal form, and the county policy page." } ], "infographics": [ { "title": "What the office's own documents actually cover", "type": "interactive_bars", "anchor": "#fig-coverage-2620", "alt": "Interactive chart from January 2023 through December 2025 showing which months are covered by the seven documents the office named and which months are not covered at all." }, { "title": "Request, denial, and the appeal clock", "type": "interactive_timeline", "anchor": "#fig-timeline-2620", "alt": "Interactive timeline of the request faxed January 30, 2026, deemed received February 2, denied February 5, with the 180-day judicial review window closing August 4, 2026." } ], "published": "2026-10-23", "updated": "2026-10-25", "featured": true, "appeal_status": "N/A", "appeal_note": "The requester reports appealing most of these requests. The appeal record has not yet been located and added to this archive, so the appeal status is shown as N/A rather than as “none.”", "watchdog_alerts": [ "The office says the total “cannot be gleaned,” while naming seven reports that contain exactly the components needed to compute it. Why is a total that can be assembled from records the office already holds treated as a record that does not exist?", "The 2023 report ends on November 30, 2023. Why does a full calendar year of data stop a month short, and where is December?", "Four of the seven named documents were not produced under FOIA 25-94, one of the two requests the office relies on to say they were already furnished. Which request actually produced them, and on what date?", "The letter cites Densmore as “213 Mich 363 (1994).” That volume is Michigan Supreme Court reports; the case is 203 Mich App 363. How was a citation this easy to check printed wrong?" ], "karpel_note": "ProsecutorByKarpel went live in June 2024. The request spans January 2023 through December 2025, so the 2023 portion predates the system. The absence of system-generated aggregate reports for 2023 is not treated here as a failure; the questions concern 2024–2025 and the office's reasoning about records it already holds.", "tile_title": "How many cases were filed? The office won't say", "tile_synopsis": "Denied twice: no document holds the total, and the reports the office points to leave eleven months of 2024 uncovered.", "badge_label": "Denied", "categories": [ "case-statistics" ], "share_image": "assets/images/share/26-20.jpg" }, { "id": "25-257", "slug": "25-257-plea-dispositions-and-the-19-840-reconstruction", "title": "FOIA 25-257: Three certificates of nonexistence, then a $19,840 bill to rebuild the data by hand", "short_title": "The $19,840 reconstruction", "subject": "Criminal case dispositions and plea agreements for calendar years 2020 through 2024, requested as a data export or report from the office's case-management system", "synopsis": "A request for five years of plea and disposition data, sent as three numbered paragraphs: any report, data export or spreadsheet listing cases with a final disposition of plea; for each case, the case number, defendant name or initials, offense, charge class, disposition date and prosecutor of record; and any existing log, annual summary or internal communication compiling plea activity. The office answered all three paragraphs with a certificate of nonexistence, stating that it 'does not possess or maintain any reports, data exports, or spreadsheets related to cases dispositions, whether by plea or not.' In the next paragraph of the same letter it wrote that 'the data related to the request is available.' To get it, the office said, it would have to pull and read approximately 1,200 files per year, five minutes each to locate the disposition and three minutes each to redact, across five years. It priced that manual reconstruction at $19,840 and demanded a 50 percent deposit of $9,920 before starting, with a 180-day estimate. The request asked for a public-interest fee waiver; the waiver section of the county's own itemization form is left entirely blank. The denial form checks both 'record does not exist' and 'redaction' at once. The letter's own footnotes cite an earlier, substantially similar request, 25-177, limited to 2024, whose estimate was sent on or about August 22, 2025 and never paid or fulfilled.", "status": "denied", "status_label": "Denied — three certificates of nonexistence, with a $19,840 estimate to rebuild the same data by hand", "submitted": "2025-10-31", "received": "2025-11-03", "response_date": "2025-11-20", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "requester": "Redacted", "fees_quoted": 19840.0, "deposit_required": 9920.0, "fees_paid": 0, "fee_waiver_requested": true, "fee_waiver_basis": "MCL 15.234", "fee_note": "The office quoted $19,840.00 on the county's Detailed Cost Itemization form. Line 1, labor to locate, is $12,400.00: 2,000 quarter-hour increments at $6.20 each, which works out to 1,200 files a year at five minutes a file across five years. Line 3a, labor to redact, is $7,440.00: 1,200 quarter-hour increments at $6.20 each, which works out to 1,200 files a year at three minutes a file across five years. Copying, contract redaction and mailing are all $0.00. The subtotal is $19,840.00 and a 50 percent good-faith deposit of $9,920.00 is required before any work begins. The stated time frame is 180 days for the first paragraph and 90 days for the second, counted from receipt of the deposit. The hourly rate is $24.82 with fringe benefits, billed in quarter-hour increments at $6.20. The request asked for a public-interest fee waiver under MCL 15.234. On the itemization form the Public Interest section is left completely blank: neither the 'all fees are waived' box nor the 'all fees are reduced by ___%' box is checked, the 'Subtotal Fees After Waiver' line is empty, and the indigence and nonprofit-discount boxes are also unchecked. No waiver was granted and no written reason for refusing one appears anywhere in the packet. Nothing has been paid and no responsive records have been produced.", "appealed": false, "appeal_events": [], "appeal_status": "N/A", "appeal_note": "No appeal is recorded in the documents produced. The packet encloses appeal rights, a reproduction of MCL 15.240, a blank FOIA appeal form, a Fee Appeal Form and the text of MCL 15.240a, which governs an appeal of a fee. The 180-day window to sue under MCL 15.240 runs from the November 20, 2025 response, so a court challenge to either the denial or the fee remains available on this record. The appeal status is shown as N/A rather than 'none' because this archive holds only what the office produced.", "requested": [ "FOIA 25-257 — criminal case dispositions and plea agreements for calendar years 2020 through 2024, requested in three numbered paragraphs.", "Paragraph 1: any report, data export or spreadsheet generated from the office's case-management system — the request named ProsecutorByKarpel as an example — listing cases with a final disposition recorded as 'Plea' or 'Plea accepted'.", "Paragraph 2: for each such case, the case number, the defendant's name or initials, the offense description or statute number, the charge level or class, the date of the plea or final disposition, and the prosecutor of record.", "Paragraph 3: any existing log, annual summary or internal communication compiling plea-agreement activity.", "Records broken down by year, in Excel, CSV or PDF.", "An express instruction not to deny the request in full if records for some years were unavailable, and to produce whatever existed for the years that were.", "Electronic delivery.", "A public-interest fee waiver under MCL 15.234, and notice if any fee would exceed $50." ], "provided": [ "A response letter dated November 20, 2025, signed by Emily DeSalvo as FOIA Coordinator on the letterhead of Lauren M. Wickman, Prosecuting Attorney and Civil Counsel.", "An acknowledgment that the request was dated October 31, 2025, faxed that day, and received by the Delta County Prosecutor's Office on November 3, 2025.", "A statement that the office filed a notice to extend the response time on November 6, 2025.", "A certificate of nonexistence for Paragraph 1, stating that the office 'does not possess or maintain any reports, data exports, or spreadsheets related to cases dispositions, whether by plea or not.'", "A certificate of nonexistence for Paragraph 2 on the same theory.", "A certificate of nonexistence for Paragraph 3, stating that no logs, annual summaries or internal communications compiling plea-agreement activity exist.", "A statement that 'the data related to the request is available,' and that producing it in raw form would require reviewing each resolved case — approximately 1,200 files per year — at five minutes per file to locate the disposition and three minutes per file to redact.", "A citation to MCL 15.243(1)(a), MCL 15.243(1)(b)(xiii) and MCL 15.243(d), the Crime Victims Rights Act, as the redaction authorities.", "A Notice of Denial form dated November 20, 2025, with both Reason 2 (Record Does Not Exist) and Reason 3 (Redaction) checked, the redaction description reading 'victim names/information'.", "A seven-page Detailed Cost Itemization quoting $19,840.00, a $9,920.00 deposit and a 180-day estimate.", "A statement of appeal rights, a reproduction of MCL 15.240, a blank FOIA appeal form, a Fee Appeal Form, a reproduction of MCL 15.240a, the county's written FOIA policy, a blank extension form, and the fax transmission records." ], "withheld": [ "All responsive records. All three paragraphs were denied on a certificate of nonexistence.", "The disposition and plea data the office concedes is 'available,' withheld behind a $19,840.00 estimate and a $9,920.00 deposit.", "Victim names and information, cited as the redaction basis on the Notice of Denial.", "The public-interest fee waiver. The request asked for one under MCL 15.234; the county's own itemization form leaves the waiver section blank, granting nothing and explaining nothing." ], "keywords": [ "25-257", "25-177", "plea", "plea agreement", "plea accepted", "disposition", "criminal case dispositions", "case statistics", "prosecutor statistics", "2020", "2021", "2022", "2023", "2024", "data export", "spreadsheet", "report", "case management system", "ProsecutorByKarpel", "Karpel", "relational database", "manual review", "1,200 files", "redaction", "MCL 15.243(1)(a)", "MCL 15.243(1)(b)(xiii)", "MCL 15.243(d)", "Crime Victims Rights Act", "fee estimate", "cost itemization", "deposit", "fee waiver", "MCL 15.234", "MCL 15.240", "MCL 15.240a", "certificate of nonexistence", "Notice of Denial", "Emily DeSalvo", "Lauren M. Wickman", "Delta County Prosecutor" ], "documents": [ { "title": "Response Letter (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-257/25-257-response-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The November 20, 2025 cover letter, four pages with footnotes: the three certificates of nonexistence, the statement that 'the data related to the request is available,' the 1,200-files-a-year manual-review math, the $19,840.00 estimate, the $9,920.00 deposit, and the citations to 25-177. Requester identifiers removed." }, { "title": "Notice of Denial, Appeal Form and County FOIA Policy (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-257/25-257-denial-forms-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The Notice of Denial form with Reason 2 and Reason 3 both checked, the text of MCL 15.240, the blank FOIA appeal form, a second copy of the statute, and the county's written FOIA policies, guidelines and forms page. Requester identifiers removed." }, { "title": "Detailed Cost Itemization (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-257/25-257-fee-itemization-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The seven-page Detailed Cost Itemization: $12,400.00 to locate, $7,440.00 to redact, $0.00 for copying and mailing, a $19,840.00 subtotal, a $9,920.00 deposit, a 180-day estimate, and a Public Interest waiver section left entirely blank. Requester identifiers removed." }, { "title": "Fee Appeal Form, MCL 15.240a and Extension Form (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-257/25-257-fee-appeal-and-extension-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The Fee Appeal Form, the text of MCL 15.240a governing fee appeals, a second copy of the county FOIA policy page, and the blank Notice to Extend Response Time form. Requester identifiers removed." }, { "title": "Original Request and Fax Receipt (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-257/25-257-request-and-fax-receipt-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The requester's October 31, 2025 letter with its three numbered paragraphs and fee-waiver request, the Zimbra fax-received email notice, and the TelNet fax portal receipt showing transmission at 11:27:03 AM on October 31, 2025. Requester identifiers removed." } ], "infographics": [], "charts": [], "published": "2026-10-26", "updated": "2026-10-26", "featured": true, "watchdog_alerts": [ "The same letter certifies three times that the office keeps no plea or disposition data, then states in the next paragraph that 'the data related to the request is available.' Both statements cannot be true at once, and the letter does not reconcile them.", "The Notice of Denial form checks Reason 2 (Record Does Not Exist) and Reason 3 (Redaction) simultaneously. A record cannot both not exist and be redacted. The form never says which reason governs which part of the answer.", "The $19,840.00 estimate is built on reading roughly 6,000 case files by hand — 1,200 a year for five years, five minutes to locate and three minutes to redact each. The office runs ProsecutorByKarpel, a searchable relational case-management system. The letter never explains why a database query is not the cheaper way to answer a request for a data export.", "The request asked for a public-interest fee waiver under MCL 15.234. The Public Interest section of the county's own itemization form is left entirely blank — no waiver, no reduction, no written reason. Declining a waiver with reasons creates a reviewable decision. Leaving the section blank creates nothing to review.", "The request expressly asked the office not to deny in full if some years were unavailable. The office denied all five years at once rather than produce the years it could.", "The letter's own footnotes cite FOIA 25-177, a substantially similar request limited to 2024, whose estimate was sent on or about August 22, 2025 and never paid or fulfilled. The office is now re-quoting the same work at five times the scope, and treating the earlier unpaid estimate as part of the reason a deposit is required." ], "tile_title": "Three certificates, then a $19,840 bill", "tile_synopsis": "Five years of plea and disposition data, denied three times as nonexistent — then priced at $19,840 to reconstruct by hand from 6,000 files the office's own database already indexes.", "badge_label": "Denied", "categories": [ "case-statistics", "governance-foia-compliance" ], "share_image": "assets/images/share/25-257.jpg", "karpel_note": "ProsecutorByKarpel went live in June 2024. This request covers 2020 through 2024, so it reaches records that predate the system, and nothing on this page faults the office for how those older files were stored. The criticism is narrower. The request asked for a data export and named the case-management system as the obvious source. The office answered that it keeps no such export, which may be literally true, and then priced a manual read of 6,000 files instead of describing what a query of the system it does run would return. A public body is not obliged to create a new record. It is obliged to explain the search it made and the records it holds. On this packet the search is never described, the system is never mentioned, and the only number offered is the cost of not using it." }, { "id": "25-254", "slug": "25-254-brady-giglio-logs-and-the-74-520-reused-itemization", "title": "FOIA 25-254: Two certificates of nonexistence, two documents produced, and a $74,520 itemization copied from an earlier request", "short_title": "The $74,520, reused", "subject": "Brady and Giglio disclosure logs, disclosure templates and checklists, and ProsecutorByKarpel reports or exports referencing officer credibility, January 1, 2022 to the present", "synopsis": "A request dated October 31, 2025, faxed that morning and received November 3, asking for three things: any indexes, spreadsheets or logs used to record when Brady or Giglio materials were served to defense counsel; any letters, form templates or checklists used by prosecutors to decide when disclosure is required; and any reports or exports from the ProsecutorByKarpel case-management system referencing Brady, Giglio, officer credibility or similar fields. The office answered in three different ways in one letter. Paragraph one was denied with a certificate of nonexistence, and separately denied on the theory that the underlying Proofs of Service had already been produced in FOIA 25-244, so a second copy required 'good cause' under Densmore v Department of Corrections. Paragraph two was granted, and produced two documents: a Brady/Giglio Compliance Form and a February 15, 2024 memo to six law-enforcement agencies titled 'Continuing Duty to Disclose Exculpatory and Favorable Impeachment Evidence,' with an addendum listing eight categories of officer-credibility information the agencies must report to the office. Paragraph three was denied in part with a second certificate of nonexistence, and granted in part 'as to the underlying information that would allow for the compilation of the statistics requested' — for a fee. That fee is $74,520.00, with a $37,260.00 deposit. It is the same $74,520.00, built from the same 8,000 and 4,000 increments at the same $6.21 rate, that the office quoted in FOIA 25-244 seven weeks earlier for a different and wider request. The letter says the office will review approximately 200 cases per year at ten minutes a case; the itemization says 1,000 cases per year for six years. The request asked for a public-interest fee waiver; the waiver section of the county's own form is blank.", "status": "granted_in_part", "status_label": "Granted in part, denied in part — two documents produced, two certificates of nonexistence, and a $74,520 estimate identical to FOIA 25-244's", "submitted": "2025-10-31", "received": "2025-11-03", "response_date": "2025-11-20", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "requester": "Redacted", "fees_quoted": 74520.0, "deposit_required": 37260.0, "fees_paid": 0, "fee_waiver_requested": true, "fee_waiver_basis": "MCL 15.234", "fee_note": "The office quoted $74,520.00 on the county's Detailed Cost Itemization form and required a 50 percent good-faith deposit of $37,260.00 before any work would begin. Line 1, labor to locate, is $49,680.00: the form enters 8,000 increments at $6.21. Line 3a, labor to redact, is $24,840.00: the form enters 4,000 increments at $6.21. Copying, contract redaction, duplication and mailing are all $0.00. The hourly wage is $24.82 with fringe benefits, billed at $6.21 per quarter-hour increment. The form's own instructions require that time be charged in 15-minute increments with partial increments rounded down, so an increment count is minutes divided by fifteen. Line 1 states its own volume as '800 cases @ 10 minutes', which is 8,000 minutes and therefore 533 increments, or $3,309.93 — not 8,000 increments and $49,680.00. Line 3a states 'approximately 5 minutes per file (1000 in each request/year for 6 years)', which is 6,000 files at five minutes, or 30,000 minutes, or 2,000 increments, or $12,420.00 — not 4,000 increments and $24,840.00. Against the volume the cover letter actually states, approximately 200 cases per year, the printed total is fifteen times the result of the form's own stated method. The itemization is also numerically identical, line for line, to the one the office issued in FOIA 25-244 on October 30, 2025 for a request covering 2020 through 2025 at 1,000 cases a year: same $49,680.00, same $24,840.00, same $74,520.00, same 8,000 and 4,000 increments, and the same '6 years' language left in the justification line for a request that covers 2022 to the present. The cover letter estimates 90 days from receipt of the deposit; the itemization states 180 days. The request asked for a public-interest fee waiver under MCL 15.234. On the itemization the Public Interest section is left entirely blank: neither the 'all fees are waived' box nor the 'all fees are reduced by ___%' box is checked, the 'Subtotal Fees After Waiver' line is empty, and the indigence and nonprofit-discount boxes are unchecked. No waiver was granted and no written reason for refusing one appears anywhere in the packet. Nothing has been paid.", "appealed": false, "appeal_events": [], "appeal_status": "N/A", "appeal_note": "No appeal is recorded in the documents produced. The packet encloses appeal rights, a reproduction of MCL 15.240, a blank FOIA appeal form, a Fee Appeal Form and the text of MCL 15.240a, which governs an appeal of a fee. The 180-day window to sue under MCL 15.240 runs from the November 20, 2025 response, so a court challenge to the denial or to the fee remains available on this record. The appeal status is shown as N/A rather than 'none' because this archive holds only what the office produced.", "requested": [ "FOIA 25-254 — Brady and Giglio disclosure records, January 1, 2022 to the present, in three numbered paragraphs.", "Paragraph 1: any indexes, spreadsheets or logs used to record when Brady or Giglio materials were served to defense counsel.", "Paragraph 2: any letters, form templates or checklists used by prosecutors to determine when disclosure is required.", "Paragraph 3: any reports or exports generated by the ProsecutorByKarpel case-management system referencing Brady, Giglio, 'officer credibility' or similar fields.", "Electronic delivery in PDF.", "Notice before any cost exceeded $50." ], "provided": [ "A response letter dated November 20, 2025, signed on the letterhead of Lauren M. Wickman, Prosecuting Attorney and Civil Counsel, with Emily DeSalvo as the contact at 906-789-5100.", "An acknowledgment that the request was dated October 31, 2025, faxed that day, and received by the Delta County Prosecutor's Office on November 3, 2025.", "A statement that an extension was filed on November 6, 2025 by the public body.", "A certificate of nonexistence for Paragraph 1, stating that the office 'does not have any indexes, spreadsheets, or logs used to record when Brady/Giglio materials were served to defense counsel' and that 'the records do not exist.'", "A second denial of Paragraph 1 on a prior-production theory: that the information is in the form of Proofs of Service, that it 'was previously provided to you in response to FOIA Request 25-244,' and that because no good cause for a reproduction was shown the request is denied under Densmore v Department of Corrections, 203 Mich 363 (1994), as the office cites it.", "A full grant of Paragraph 2, with two records produced: a Brady/Giglio Compliance Form, and a memo dated February 15, 2024 titled 'Continuing Duty to Disclose Exculpatory and Favorable Impeachment Evidence.'", "The February 15, 2024 memo, addressed to Sheriff Ed Oswald, Director John Gudwer of Escanaba Public Safety, Director Ron Robinson of Gladstone Public Safety, F/Lt Gregg Cunningham of the Michigan State Police, D/Lt Tim Sholander of the Upper Peninsula Substance Enforcement Team, and Chief Jeff Hanson of the Hannahville Tribal Police Department, and signed by Lauren M. Wickman as Delta County Prosecuting Attorney.", "An 'Addendum Regarding Law Enforcement Witnesses' attached to that memo, listing eight categories of officer-credibility information that agencies must report to the office, and stating that such information 'will not automatically be disclosed to the court or to the defense' but will be reviewed by the Prosecuting Attorney or Chief Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, who 'will decide whether further exploration of the facts should be made.'", "A certificate of nonexistence for Paragraph 3, stating that no reports or exports from the ProsecutorByKarpel system referencing Brady, Giglio, officer credibility or similar fields exist.", "A partial grant of Paragraph 3 'as to the underlying information that would allow for the compilation of the statistics requested,' conditioned on a fee.", "A citation to MCL 15.243(1)(a), MCL 15.243(1)(b)(xiii) and MCL 15.243(1)(w) as the redaction authorities, covering victim names and identifying information, dates of birth, addresses, phone numbers, criminal identification numbers, law-enforcement investigation records and Social Security numbers.", "A Notice of Denial form dated November 20, 2025 with 'Part' of the request denied and all three reason boxes checked: Reason 1 (Exempt from Disclosure), Reason 2 (Record Does Not Exist) and Reason 3 (Redaction).", "A seven-page Detailed Cost Itemization quoting $74,520.00, a $37,260.00 deposit and a 180-day estimate.", "A statement of appeal rights, a reproduction of MCL 15.240, a blank FOIA appeal form, a Fee Appeal Form, a reproduction of MCL 15.240a, the county's written FOIA policy, a blank extension form, the fax transmission records, and a copy of the original request." ], "withheld": [ "Paragraph 1 in full: any index, spreadsheet or log recording when Brady or Giglio materials were served. The office certified that no such record exists and separately denied a second copy of the underlying Proofs of Service as duplicative of FOIA 25-244.", "Paragraph 3 in part: any ProsecutorByKarpel report or export referencing Brady, Giglio, officer credibility or similar fields, certified nonexistent.", "The underlying information behind Paragraph 3, which the office concedes exists and offers to compile, withheld behind a $74,520.00 estimate and a $37,260.00 deposit.", "Victim names and identifying information, dates of birth, addresses, phone numbers, criminal identification numbers, law-enforcement investigation records and Social Security numbers, cited as redaction bases on the Notice of Denial.", "The public-interest fee waiver. The request asked for one under MCL 15.234; the county's own itemization form leaves the waiver section blank, granting nothing and explaining nothing." ], "keywords": [ "25-254", "25-244", "25-214", "Brady", "Giglio", "Brady material", "Giglio material", "Brady/Giglio", "disclosure log", "disclosure index", "Proofs of Service", "proof of service", "officer credibility", "impeachment evidence", "exculpatory evidence", "prosecution team", "Brady/Giglio Compliance Form", "Continuing Duty to Disclose", "Addendum Regarding Law Enforcement Witnesses", "February 15, 2024 memo", "Densmore v Department of Corrections", "203 Mich 363", "prior production", "duplicative request", "good cause", "case management system", "ProsecutorByKarpel", "Karpel", "PbK", "data export", "report", "fee estimate", "cost itemization", "deposit", "fee waiver", "MCL 15.234", "MCL 15.240", "MCL 15.240a", "MCL 15.243(1)(a)", "MCL 15.243(1)(b)(xiii)", "MCL 15.243(1)(w)", "certificate of nonexistence", "Notice of Denial", "Emily DeSalvo", "Lauren M. Wickman", "Delta County Prosecutor" ], "documents": [ { "title": "Response Letter (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-254/25-254-response-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The November 20, 2025 cover letter, three pages: the certificate of nonexistence for paragraph one, the Densmore prior-production denial, the grant of paragraph two with two records, the second certificate and partial grant for paragraph three, the 200-cases-per-year narrative, the 50 percent deposit, the 90-day estimate, the three redaction subsections, and the note that the request is 'nearly identical' to FOIA 25-214, paragraph 3. Requester identifiers removed." }, { "title": "Notice of Denial, Appeal Form and County FOIA Policy (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-254/25-254-denial-forms-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The Notice of Denial form with all three reason boxes checked, the text of MCL 15.240, the blank FOIA appeal form, a second copy of the statute, and the county's written FOIA policies, guidelines and forms page. Requester identifiers removed." }, { "title": "Detailed Cost Itemization (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-254/25-254-fee-itemization-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The seven-page Detailed Cost Itemization: $49,680.00 to locate at 8,000 increments, $24,840.00 to redact at 4,000 increments, a $74,520.00 subtotal, a $37,260.00 deposit, a 180-day estimate, and a Public Interest waiver section left entirely blank. The justification lines carry the volume figures from FOIA 25-244, including '1,000 cases per year' and '6 years.' Requester identifiers removed." }, { "title": "Fee Appeal Form, MCL 15.240a and Extension Form (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-254/25-254-fee-appeal-and-extension-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The Fee Appeal Form, the text of MCL 15.240a governing fee appeals, a second copy of the county FOIA policy page, the Notice to Extend Response Time signed November 6, 2025, and a page the office left blank on purpose. Requester identifiers removed." }, { "title": "Original Request and Fax Receipt (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-254/25-254-request-and-fax-receipt-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The requester's October 31, 2025 letter with its three numbered paragraphs, the Zimbra fax-received email notice, and the TelNet fax portal receipt showing transmission at 10:48:14 AM on October 31, 2025 and receipt of one page. Requester identifiers and the transmitting fax identifiers removed." }, { "title": "Produced Records: Brady/Giglio Compliance Form and the February 15, 2024 Memo (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-254/25-254-produced-records-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The two records the office produced under paragraph two: the one-page Brady/Giglio Compliance Form with its five questions about a witness's employment history, misconduct findings, criminal convictions, pending investigations and other impeachment issues; and the six-page February 15, 2024 memo to six law-enforcement agencies on the continuing duty to disclose exculpatory and impeachment evidence, including the Addendum Regarding Law Enforcement Witnesses and its eight categories of officer-credibility information. Requester identifiers removed." } ], "infographics": [], "charts": [], "published": "2026-10-26", "updated": "2026-10-26", "featured": true, "watchdog_alerts": [ "The office certifies that it keeps no index, spreadsheet or log of when Brady or Giglio materials were served, and in the same letter describes a written policy that requires six law-enforcement agencies to report eight categories of officer-credibility information to it, plus a compliance form for collecting that information. It keeps the intake and not the record of what it did with it.", "The $74,520.00 estimate is numerically identical to the estimate the office issued in FOIA 25-244 on October 30, 2025: same $49,680.00 to locate at 8,000 increments, same $24,840.00 to redact at 4,000 increments, same $6.21 rate. 25-254 covers 2022 to the present; 25-244 covered 2020 through 2025. The itemization did not change when the request did.", "The itemization bills minutes as if they were quarter-hours. Line 1 states '800 cases @ 10 minutes' and then enters 8,000 increments; the form's own 15-minute rule makes that 533 increments, or $3,309.93. Line 3a states 6,000 files at five minutes and enters 4,000 increments; the same rule makes that 2,000 increments, or $12,420.00.", "The cover letter says the office will review approximately 200 cases per year. The itemization's justification line says 1,000 cases per year for six years — the volume and the period from FOIA 25-244, left in place on a request covering roughly four years.", "The cover letter estimates 90 days from receipt of the deposit. The itemization states 180 days. The two documents were signed the same day.", "The Notice of Denial checks all three reason boxes at once — Exempt from Disclosure, Record Does Not Exist and Redaction — and never says which reason governs which paragraph.", "Seven weeks before this response, the office produced thirteen Brady/Giglio guidance documents in FOIA 25-244, including quick reference guides, a manual, timing-of-disclosure sheets and annotated examples. Asked again in paragraph two for 'letters, form templates, or checklists used by prosecutors to determine when disclosure is required,' the office produced two documents and did not mention the thirteen.", "The request asked for a public-interest fee waiver under MCL 15.234. The Public Interest section of the county's own itemization form is left entirely blank — no waiver, no reduction, no written reason." ], "tile_title": "Two certificates, two documents, one reused invoice", "tile_synopsis": "The office says it keeps no Brady/Giglio disclosure log — while its own 2024 policy orders six police agencies to report eight kinds of officer-credibility information to it. Then it quotes the same $74,520 it quoted seven weeks earlier.", "badge_label": "Granted in part", "categories": [ "law-enforcement", "case-statistics", "governance-foia-compliance" ], "share_image": "assets/images/share/25-254.jpg", "karpel_note": "ProsecutorByKarpel went live in June 2024. This request reaches back to January 1, 2022, so part of the window predates the system, and nothing on this page faults the office for how those earlier files were kept. The point is narrower. Paragraph three asked for any Karpel report or export referencing Brady, Giglio, officer credibility or similar fields. The office certified that none exist, then granted 'the underlying information that would allow for the compilation of the statistics requested' for $74,520.00. If the underlying information can be compiled, the question is what it is stored in and why a query of the system the county bought in 2024 is not the cheaper route. The letter does not describe a search, does not name Karpel, and does not say whether the system was opened. It prices a manual review of case files instead, at a rate and a volume that match the previous request rather than this one." }, { "id": "25-244", "slug": "25-244-brady-giglio-service-records", "title": "FOIA 25-244: Ten service slips, thirteen policy manuals, and a $74,520 quote", "short_title": "Ten service slips and a $74,520 quote", "subject": "Statistical and administrative records on Brady/Giglio disclosures, officer-credibility tracking, and police reports returned for correction, 2020 to 2025", "synopsis": "An October 10, 2025 request asked for aggregate data on how often the office identified or disclosed officer misconduct and Brady/Giglio material, for logs of police reports sent back for correction, for case-management fields tagged Brady, Giglio or credibility, for the written criteria used to decide materiality, and for any statistical reports from the Karpel system. The office certified that every aggregate record, every tracking log, every tagged export and every dashboard does not exist. It granted its own Brady/Giglio policy manuals in full, thirteen documents at no charge, and produced ten Proof of Service slips spanning January 2024 to September 2025 as its answer on disclosures. For the underlying case files it would have to search to build the statistics itself, it quoted $74,520.00 and demanded a $37,260.00 deposit before any search would begin.", "status": "granted_in_part", "status_label": "Granted in part, denied in part", "submitted": "2025-10-10", "received": "2025-10-13", "response_date": "2025-10-30", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "requester": "Redacted", "fees_quoted": 74520.0, "deposit_required": 37260.0, "fees_paid": 0, "fee_waiver_requested": true, "fee_waiver_basis": "MCL 15.234", "fee_note": "The office quoted $74,520.00 and required a $37,260.00 deposit, half the estimate, before any search would begin. The itemization charges $49,680.00 to locate records (8,000 quarter-hour increments at $6.21) and $24,840.00 to redact them (4,000 increments at $6.21); copying, contract redaction, duplication and mailing are all $0. The hourly wage used is $24.82 and the fringe-benefit multiplier is recorded as 0%, so no fringe was added. The requester asked that all fees be waived under the public-interest provision of MCL 15.234(1). On the county's own itemization the 'All fees are waived' and 'All fees are reduced by' boxes are both blank, the 'Subtotal Fees After Waiver' line is blank, and the indigence and nonprofit discount boxes are unchecked. No fee was paid and no records were produced under the quote.", "appealed": false, "appeal_events": [], "requested": [ "Annual summaries, reports, or internal data compilations (2020-present) showing the number of criminal cases in which the Prosecutor's Office identified, evaluated, or disclosed officer misconduct, credibility issues, or Brady/Giglio material to the defense or the court", "Logs, spreadsheets, or tracking records showing instances where police reports or warrant requests were returned for correction, clarification, or re-submission due to inaccurate or incomplete information (2020-present)", "Any case-tracking spreadsheets, reports, or database exports (from the ProsecutorbyKarpel system) containing fields or tags for 'Brady,' 'Giglio,' 'impeachment,' 'credibility,' or 'law enforcement subject,' including metadata or field definitions showing the number of cases with these flags per calendar year", "Written criteria, decision matrices, or checklists used to determine whether officer misconduct is 'material' under Brady or Giglio, including any scoring rubrics or internal review standards", "Any statistical reports or dashboards generated by the ProsecutorbyKarpel (PbK) system that summarize case dispositions, declinations, or Brady/Giglio entries for the period 2020 through June 2025", "Segregation and release of all reasonably segregable non-exempt material under MCL 15.244(1)", "Electronic delivery in PDF, CSV, or XLSX", "A waiver of all fees under the public-interest provision of MCL 15.234(1)", "A response within five business days under MCL 15.235(2), or a written notice of any permitted extension" ], "provided": [ "Proof of Service, Case No. 25-SD-4521577A (District Court), serving 'C. Immel Brady Material' on attorney Craig W. Elhart by email, September 19, 2025", "Proof of Service, Case No. 25-11332-FH (Circuit Court), serving 'Giglio Material' on attorney Jana Mathieu by email, May 19, 2025", "Proof of Service, Case No. 23-FY-387 (Circuit Court), serving 'MSP Report 80-02-24 Brady Information' on attorney Diane Kay-Hougaboom by email, January 9, 2024", "Proof of Service, Case No. 24-SD-4444581A (District Court), serving 'Immel - Giglio Concern' on attorney Trent M. Stupak by email, January 23, 2025", "Proof of Service, Case No. 23-11032-FH (Circuit Court), serving 'Statement of Charges' on attorney Diane Kay-Hougaboom by email, May 13, 2024", "Proof of Service, Case No. 24-11156-FH (Circuit Court), serving 'Immel - Giglio Concern' on attorney Jana Mathieu by email, January 9, 2025", "Proof of Service, Case No. 24-SD-4392494A (District Court), serving 'Trooper Immel 2023 State of Charges Proposed Discipline' on attorney James R. Maki by email, September 5, 2024", "Proof of Service, Case No. 24-SD-4392187A (94th District Court), serving 'Immel - Giglio Concern' on attorney Trent Stupak by email, December 19, 2024", "Proof of Service, Case No. 24-11257-FH (Circuit Court), serving 'Immel - Giglio Concern' on attorney Diane Kay-Hougaboom by email, March 24, 2025", "Proof of Service, Case No. 24-FY-424 (District Court), serving 'Trooper Immel 2023 State of Charges/Proposed Discipline' on attorney James R. Maki by email, September 5, 2024", "Brady & Giglio At a Glance Quick Reference Guide, dated August 22, 2023", "Brady & Giglio Disclosure Requirements Quick Reference Guide, dated August 22, 2023", "Brady & Giglio Examples of Required Disclosure (Annotated), dated August 22, 2023", "Brady & Giglio Manual, dated May 2021 (the Prosecuting Attorneys Coordinating Council's 'Brady & Giglio: A Prosecutor's Guide')", "Brady & Giglio Timing of Disclosure, dated August 22, 2023", "Michigan Prosecutors' Justice Initiative Best Practice Recommendations, approved 2023", "Brady & Giglio At a Glance, dated April 1, 2025", "Brady & Giglio Disclosure Requirements, dated April 1, 2025", "Brady & Giglio Examples of Required Disclosures (Annotated), dated April 1, 2025", "Brady & Giglio Examples of Required Disclosures (Unannotated), dated April 1, 2025", "Brady & Giglio Timing of Disclosures, dated April 1, 2025", "Brady & Giglio Violation, dated April 1, 2025", "Brady & Giglio Violation created by the Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan, dated April 1, 2025" ], "withheld": [ "Item 1, in part: the office certified that no 'annual summary, report, or internal data compilations' showing how often it identified, evaluated, or disclosed officer misconduct, credibility issues, or Brady/Giglio material exist", "Item 2, in part: the office certified that no logs, spreadsheets, or tracking records of police reports or warrant requests returned for correction exist, and separately denied any underlying record in which an officer is the named suspect", "Item 3, in part: the office certified that no case-tracking spreadsheets, reports, or database exports containing Brady, Giglio, impeachment, credibility, or 'law enforcement subject' fields or tags exist", "Item 5, in part: the office certified that no statistical reports or dashboards from the ProsecutorbyKarpel system exist for 2020 through June 2025", "Material redacted under MCL 15.243(1)(a) (names, victim identifying information, dates of birth, addresses, phone numbers, criminal identification numbers)", "Material redacted under MCL 15.243(1)(b)(iii) (investigation records compiled for law enforcement purposes)", "Social Security numbers redacted under MCL 15.243(1)(w)", "Material withheld under MCL 15.243(1)(d) 'exempted pursuant to MCL 423.507,' cited without explanation", "Material withheld under 'MCL 15.234(1)(s)(ix),' a provision that does not exist in the statute as cited" ], "keywords": [ "FOIA", "25-244", "Delta County", "Prosecutor", "Lauren Wickman", "Brady", "Giglio", "Brady/Giglio", "officer credibility", "impeachment", "proof of service", "Colin Immel", "Michigan State Police", "ProsecutorByKarpel", "Karpel", "case management", "fee estimate", "deposit", "public interest waiver", "MCL 15.234", "MCL 15.235", "MCL 15.243", "MCL 15.244", "MCL 423.507" ], "documents": [ { "title": "Request letter, October 10, 2025", "file": "assets/documents/25-244/25-244-request-redacted.pdf", "type": "REQ", "desc": "The two-page FOIA request as faxed to the Prosecutor's Office, setting out the five numbered categories, the MCL 15.244(1) segregation demand, the request for PDF, CSV or XLSX delivery, the MCL 15.234(1) fee-waiver request, and the MCL 15.235(2) timing request. Sender name, address, phone and email removed." }, { "title": "Response letter, October 30, 2025", "file": "assets/documents/25-244/25-244-response-redacted.pdf", "type": "RESP", "desc": "The seven pages of the October 30, 2025 response that answer FOIA 25-244, item by item: the certificates of nonexistence, the ten Proof of Service documents, the thirteen Brady/Giglio policy documents granted in full, the fee conditions on items 2, 3 and 5, and the exemptions cited." }, { "title": "Notice of Denial form", "file": "assets/documents/25-244/25-244-denial-form-redacted.pdf", "type": "RESP", "desc": "The county's Notice of Denial of FOIA Request, Request No. 25-244, recording a date received of 10/10/2025 and a notice date of 10/30/2025, with the 'Part of your request has been denied' box checked. Requester contact block removed." }, { "title": "Notice to Extend Response Time", "file": "assets/documents/25-244/25-244-extension-form-redacted.pdf", "type": "RESP", "desc": "The Notice to Extend Response Time for Request No. 25-244, dated October 16, 2025, checking the 'voluminous amount of separate and distinct public records' reason and stating an estimated time frame of October 30, 2025. Requester contact block removed." }, { "title": "Detailed Cost Itemization", "file": "assets/documents/25-244/25-244-fee-itemization-redacted.pdf", "type": "RESP", "desc": "The seven-page Delta County FOIA Detailed Cost Itemization Form: $49,680.00 to locate, $24,840.00 to redact, $0 for copying, contract redaction, duplication and mailing, a $74,520.00 subtotal, a 180-day estimate, a $24.82 hourly wage, a 0% fringe multiplier, a 50% good-faith deposit of $37,260.00, and the blank public-interest waiver, indigence and nonprofit sections." }, { "title": "Responsive documents", "file": "assets/documents/25-244/25-244-responsive-documents.pdf", "type": "DOC", "desc": "The 120-page responsive packet: ten Proof of Service slips from January 2024 through September 2025, the thirteen Brady/Giglio policy documents granted in full, and the Prosecuting Attorneys Coordinating Council's May 2021 'Brady & Giglio: A Prosecutor's Guide.'" } ], "infographics": [], "charts": [ { "title": "Five requests, one answer each", "type": "interactive scorecard", "anchor": "produced" }, { "title": "Where the $74,520 goes", "type": "interactive bar chart", "anchor": "the-fee" }, { "title": "The ten service slips", "type": "interactive timeline", "anchor": "service-slips" }, { "title": "The response clock", "type": "interactive clock", "anchor": "papertrail" } ], "published": "2026-10-25", "updated": "2026-10-25", "featured": true, "appeal_status": "N/A", "appeal_note": "The requester reports appealing most of the requests in this batch. The appeal record for 25-244 has not yet been located and added to this archive, so the appeal status is shown as N/A rather than as 'none.'", "watchdog_alerts": [ "The office certified that it keeps no annual summary, no log, no spreadsheet, no tagged database export and no dashboard showing how often it identified or disclosed officer misconduct and Brady/Giglio material. It then quoted $74,520.00 to hand-search the underlying files so that a member of the public could compile those numbers themselves. Which is it: the information does not exist, or it exists but costs more than most people earn in a year to assemble?", "The same letter granted thirteen written Brady/Giglio policy documents in full, at no charge, and certified that no record exists showing how those written standards were applied. The office can produce its rulebook on demand. It says it cannot produce a single count of the cases the rulebook governed.", "To answer how many police reports were sent back for correction, the office proposed to review roughly 1,000 files a year for six years at ten minutes each, plus a further 1,000 cases a year for six years, plus 200 cases a year for six years. That is not a records search. That is a re-audit of essentially the entire criminal caseload, priced at $74,520.00 and 180 days after a $37,260.00 deposit.", "The office's own letter concedes that 'many of the records were not transferred properly from the old system to the new case tracking system,' and that Karpel 'was not utilized' in some of the years requested. It proposes to spend 180 days and $74,520.00 searching records it has already told the public are not reliably searchable.", "The only Brady/Giglio disclosures the office could point to over a six-year window are ten Proof of Service slips dated between January 2024 and September 2025. Seven of the ten are the same Trooper Immel material re-served to different defense attorneys in eight different cases. If that is the measurable output, what does it say about the system that is supposed to produce it?", "The denial again cites 'MCL 15.234(1)(s)(ix),' a provision that does not exist, and invokes MCL 15.243(1)(d) 'exempted pursuant to MCL 423.507' without saying what record it covers. The requester asked for a public-interest fee waiver under MCL 15.234(1); the county's itemization leaves the waiver boxes blank and gives no reason." ], "karpel_note": "ProsecutorByKarpel went live in June 2024. This page does not use the case-management system to judge records from 2020 through May 2024, and it does not treat the absence of Karpel-era statistics as a failure of the system itself. It notes only what the office said in its own letter: that Karpel was not used in some of the years requested, and that records from the prior system were not all transferred.", "tile_title": "Ten service slips and a $74,520 quote", "tile_synopsis": "Every Brady/Giglio statistic certified nonexistent. The policy manuals handed over free. And a $37,260 deposit demanded before anyone would look.", "badge_label": "Granted in part", "categories": [ "law-enforcement", "case-statistics", "governance-foia-compliance" ], "share_image": "assets/images/share/25-244.jpg" }, { "id": "25-241", "slug": "25-241-special-prosecutor-petition", "title": "FOIA 25-241: The special-prosecutor petition the office filed, and the 2024 memo that says it did not need another one", "short_title": "The special-prosecutor petition", "subject": "Petitions for a special prosecutor, declination memoranda, conflict-of-interest policies, and correspondence with law enforcement and the Attorney General concerning cases in which a law-enforcement officer was the subject or suspect, 2020 to present", "synopsis": "An October 10, 2025 request asked for the records behind the office's charging decisions when an officer is the subject. The office produced its own September 11, 2022 petition asking the Attorney General to appoint a special prosecutor — a petition that states the office “believes we are disqualified” — the September 2022 email chain in which the Attorney General answered “I don’t see a conflict,” and a May 20, 2024 memo declining a second case against the same person because the office “did not feel an additional determination was necessary.” It certified that no “insufficient evidence” or “no probable cause” criteria exist, and priced the remaining search at $1,863.00 with a $931.50 deposit — leaving the public-interest waiver boxes blank.", "status": "granted_in_part", "status_label": "Granted in part, denied in part", "submitted": "2025-10-10", "received": "2025-10-13", "response_date": "2025-10-30", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "requester": "Redacted", "fees_quoted": 1863.0, "deposit_required": 931.5, "fees_paid": 0, "fee_waiver_requested": true, "fee_waiver_basis": "MCL 15.234", "fee_note": "Parts one, three and four were produced at no charge. Only part two — the underlying records of cases in which an officer was not the named suspect — was priced. The form's line items do not reconcile with its own subtotal: line 1 (labor to locate) reads 2,800 quarter-hour increments at $6.21, or $17,388.00; line 3a (labor to redact) reads 100 increments at $6.21, or $621.00; the two sum to $18,009.00. The printed subtotal is $1,863.00 and the required 50 percent deposit is $931.50. The subtotal reconciles only if line 1 were 200 increments ($1,242.00) rather than the printed 2,800 ($17,388.00) — a $16,146.00 gap on the face of the document. The requester asked in the request letter that all fees be waived under MCL 15.234(1); the itemization's two waiver boxes are both blank, and no written waiver determination appears in the packet.", "appealed": false, "appeal_events": [], "requested": [ "Prosecutor declination memoranda, charging review summaries, or case-closing statements for all cases between January 1, 2020 and the present in which a law-enforcement officer (local, county, state, or federal) was identified as a subject or suspect in a criminal complaint, investigation, or referral, and the office declined to issue charges", "Any internal spreadsheets, logs, or lists maintained by the office that record or track warrant requests submitted by law enforcement agencies that were denied, returned, or rejected for insufficiency or lack of probable cause between 2020 and the present", "Policies, training materials, or internal guidance describing how charging decisions are made when the subject of a complaint is a law-enforcement officer, including any written criteria for evaluating ‘insufficient evidence,’ ‘no probable cause,’ or ‘conflict of interest’", "Communications or memoranda referencing or summarizing declination decisions for law-enforcement officers, including correspondence with the Delta County Sheriff’s Office, Escanaba Police Department, Gladstone Police Department, Michigan State Police, or the Michigan Attorney General’s Office", "Limitation to final, closed records, excluding ongoing investigations and pre-decisional drafts", "Redaction of only specific exempt sections and release of all reasonably segregable material under MCL 15.244(1)", "For any denial, a written statement of the statutory exemption subsection, a description of the withheld material, and the number of pages withheld or redacted", "Records delivered electronically, by email, in PDF", "A waiver of all fees under the public-interest provision of MCL 15.234(1)", "A response within five business days under MCL 15.235(2), or a written ten-day extension notice" ], "provided": [ "Petition for Appointment of Special Prosecutor dated September 11, 2022, signed by Lauren Wickman as Prosecuting Attorney for Delta County and filed under MCL 49.160(1), asking the Attorney General to appoint a special prosecutor in an incident in Wells Township; all names redacted in the produced copy", "The email exchange regarding the Special Prosecutor Denial, September 12–19, 2022, including the Attorney General’s September 15, 2022 message “I don’t see a conflict” and the September 19, 2022 relay from the Prosecuting Attorneys Coordinating Council that “the AG denied your request for special prosecutor on this case, so you are able to keep it for prosecution”", "Memo regarding MSP Incident No. 84-1384-22, dated September 26, 2022, from Lauren Wickman to Trooper Leinonen of the Michigan State Police, declining charges", "Memo regarding MSP Incident Number 84-717-24, dated May 20, 2024, from Lauren Wickman to Trooper Polley of the Michigan State Police, declining charges and stating that the matter “was not sent for review” because “I did not feel an additional determination was necessary”", "PAAM Best Practices Recommendation on Conflict of Interest / Special Prosecutor, approved February 10, 2017", "Conflict of Interest Manual, November 2015, issued by the Prosecuting Attorneys Coordinating Council", "Special Prosecutor Assignment (SPA) Checklist", "Special Prosecution Assignment (SPA) Process flowchart", "A seven-page Detailed Cost Itemization for Request No. 25-241 dated 10/30/2025, quoting $1,863.00 and a $931.50 deposit", "A Notice of Denial dated 10/30/2025 checking the partial-denial, exempt-from-disclosure, record-does-not-exist, and redaction boxes", "A Denial Appeal Form and a Fee Appeal Form enclosed with the response" ], "withheld": [ "Part 1 in part: names and identifying details redacted from the petition and the two memos under MCL 15.243(1)(a), (1)(b)(iii), and (1)(d) under the Crime Victim’s Rights Act at MCL 780.758", "Part 2 in part: any internal spreadsheet, log, or list tracking denied or returned warrant requests, certified not to exist", "Part 2 in part: underlying records of cases in which an officer is the named suspect, certified not to exist", "Part 3 in part: written criteria for evaluating ‘insufficient evidence’ or ‘no probable cause,’ certified not to exist", "Part 4: granted, with the same personal-privacy and victim-rights redactions as part 1", "Any page count or item-level description of the separated material, which the request expressly asked for and the response does not state" ], "keywords": [ "FOIA", "25-241", "Delta County", "Prosecutor", "Lauren Wickman", "special prosecutor", "special prosecution assignment", "SPA", "conflict of interest", "recusal", "disqualification", "declination memo", "charging decision", "law enforcement officer", "Michigan State Police", "84-1384-22", "84-717-24", "Michigan Attorney General", "Dana Nessel", "Prosecuting Attorneys Coordinating Council", "PACC", "PAAM", "MCL 49.160", "MCL 15.234", "MCL 15.243", "MCL 15.244", "MCL 15.235", "fee waiver", "good-faith deposit" ], "documents": [ { "title": "Request letter, October 10, 2025", "file": "assets/documents/25-241/25-241-request-redacted.pdf", "type": "REQ", "desc": "The four-part FOIA request as faxed to the Prosecutor’s Office, captioned ‘Charging and Declination Records for Law Enforcement Personnel (2020–Present),’ with the MCL 15.244 segregation demand, the page-count demand, the electronic-delivery demand, and the MCL 15.234(1) public-interest fee-waiver request. Requester name, address, phone, and email removed." }, { "title": "Response letter and Notice of Denial", "file": "assets/documents/25-241/25-241-response-redacted.pdf", "type": "RESP", "desc": "The October 30, 2025 response letter answering requests 25-239 through 25-245, with the four 25-241 determinations (part one granted in part; part two granted in part and denied in part, priced at $1,863.00; part three granted in part and denied in part; part four granted) and the Notice of Denial form. Requester contact information removed." }, { "title": "Notice of Denial form", "file": "assets/documents/25-241/25-241-denial-form-redacted.pdf", "type": "RESP", "desc": "The one-page Notice of Denial dated 10/30/2025 for Request No. 25-241, received via fax, checking the partial-denial, exempt-from-disclosure, record-does-not-exist, and redaction boxes, and naming MCL 15.243(1)(a), (1)(s)(ix), (1)(b)(iii) and (1)(d). Requester and coordinator contact information removed." }, { "title": "Detailed Cost Itemization", "file": "assets/documents/25-241/25-241-fee-itemization-redacted.pdf", "type": "RESP", "desc": "The seven-page Detailed Cost Itemization prepared for Request No. 25-241 and dated 10/30/2025: $1,242.00 labor to locate, $621.00 labor to redact, a $1,863.00 subtotal, a $931.50 good-faith deposit, and a 90-day production estimate. The ‘Waiver: Public Interest’ section has both boxes blank. Requester contact information removed." }, { "title": "Responsive documents: petition, email chain, memos, and conflict-of-interest material", "file": "assets/documents/25-241/25-241-responsive-documents-redacted.pdf", "type": "RESP", "desc": "The 58-page production: the September 11, 2022 Petition for Appointment of Special Prosecutor; the September 12–19, 2022 Attorney General email chain; the September 26, 2022 memo on MSP Incident 84-1384-22; the May 20, 2024 memo on MSP Incident 84-717-24; the February 10, 2017 PAAM Best Practices Recommendation; the November 2015 PACC Conflict of Interest Manual; the SPA Checklist; and the SPA Process flowchart. All names redacted." } ], "infographics": [], "charts": [ { "title": "September 2022: the petition, the AG’s answer, the declination", "type": "interactive timeline", "anchor": "papertrail" }, { "title": "The second case and the request that followed", "type": "interactive timeline", "anchor": "second-case" }, { "title": "The four parts and how each was answered", "type": "interactive scorecard", "anchor": "answers" }, { "title": "Where the fee comes from — and why it does not add up", "type": "interactive bars", "anchor": "fee" } ], "published": "2026-10-25", "updated": "2026-10-25", "featured": true, "appeal_status": "N/A", "appeal_note": "The office enclosed a Denial Appeal Form and a Fee Appeal Form with its October 30, 2025 response. No appeal filing or appeal decision appears in this record, so the appeal status is shown as N/A rather than as ‘none.’", "watchdog_alerts": [ "On September 11, 2022 the office petitioned the Attorney General for a special prosecutor, stating in the petition that it “believes we are disqualified” from the case. Four days later the Attorney General wrote “I don’t see a conflict.” Two years after that, facing a second incident involving the same person, the office wrote that the matter “was not sent for review” because “I did not feel an additional determination was necessary.” Who decides whether a conflict exists — the prosecutor or the Attorney General?", "The office’s own SPA Checklist says to “act upon the conflict as soon as it is identified, preferably pre-charge.” The May 20, 2024 memo says the opposite: the matter was not sent for review. Both documents are in the same produced file. Which one is the office’s operative practice?", "The 2022 petition gives specific reasons it believed the office was disqualified: the subject’s role in law enforcement, witnesses who are local law enforcement, and close personal ties to people who work in the office. The Attorney General’s September 15, 2022 reply is a single sentence. Did anyone at the Attorney General’s Office weigh the specific reasons the petition gave?", "The cost itemization does not add up. Line 1 charges 2,800 quarter-hour increments at $6.21, or $17,388.00. Line 3a charges 100 increments at $6.21, or $621.00. Together that is $18,009.00. The form's printed subtotal is $1,863.00 and the deposit it demands is $931.50. The subtotal matches the line items only if line 1 were 200 increments ($1,242.00), not the 2,800 the form prints. Which figure is the office actually charging — $1,863 or $18,009?", "The requester asked, in the request letter itself, that all fees be waived under the public-interest provision of MCL 15.234(1). The county’s own Detailed Cost Itemization has a ‘Waiver: Public Interest’ section with two boxes. Both are blank, and no written waiver determination appears anywhere in the packet.", "The office certifies that it keeps no written criteria for evaluating ‘insufficient evidence’ or ‘no probable cause.’ In the same response it produces four written conflict-of-interest documents — a PAAM recommendation, a 46-page PACC manual, a checklist, and a process flowchart. Why written standards for one charging question and none for the other?", "The request expressly asked for “the total number of pages withheld or redacted.” The response describes the categories of separated material but gives no page count for any part. Where is the count the statute’s disclosure provisions were meant to enable?" ], "karpel_note": "ProsecutorByKarpel went live in June 2024. The events this page examines — the September 2022 petition and Attorney General correspondence, and the May 20, 2024 declination memo — predate go-live, and this page does not use the case-management system to judge them. It uses the office’s own written petition, its own memos, and its own conflict-of-interest materials, which are the office’s statements regardless of what system it runs.", "tile_title": "The special-prosecutor petition", "tile_synopsis": "The office said it was disqualified in 2022, the AG disagreed, and in 2024 the office decided on its own that no new review was needed.", "badge_label": "Granted in part", "categories": [ "law-enforcement", "charging-decisions" ], "share_image": "assets/images/share/25-241.jpg" }, { "id": "25-240", "slug": "25-240-use-of-force-referrals", "title": "FOIA 25-240: Officer use-of-force referrals, and the $1,863 bill for the one part the office would search", "short_title": "The use-of-force referrals", "subject": "Logs, summaries, review memos, written policies, and correspondence concerning law enforcement misconduct, use-of-force incidents, and officer-involved shootings referred to the Prosecutor's Office, 2020 to present", "synopsis": "An October 10, 2025 request asked how the office reviews law enforcement misconduct and officer-involved use-of-force. The office denied three of four parts outright, certifying that no logs, review memos, written use-of-force standard, or referral correspondence exist, and granted only the fourth category — incidents in which an officer used force but was not the suspect — on condition of a $1,863.00 fee and a $931.50 deposit. The requester asked for a public-interest fee waiver in the same letter; the county's cost itemization leaves both waiver boxes blank.", "status": "granted_in_part", "status_label": "Granted in part, denied in part", "submitted": "2025-10-10", "received": "2025-10-13", "response_date": "2025-10-30", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "requester": "Redacted", "fees_quoted": 1863.0, "deposit_required": 931.5, "fees_paid": 0, "fee_waiver_requested": true, "fee_waiver_basis": "MCL 15.234", "fee_note": "The office quoted $1,863.00 for labor to locate and separate exempt material across an estimated 300 files, and required a 50 percent good-faith deposit of $931.50 before the search would begin. No fee was paid in this record and no records were produced. The requester asked that all fees be waived under the public-interest provision of MCL 15.234(1); the county's Detailed Cost Itemization leaves both waiver boxes — 'All fees are waived' and 'All fees are reduced by' — blank, and no written waiver determination appears in the packet.", "appealed": false, "appeal_events": [], "requested": [ "Logs, summaries, or referral forms documenting all use-of-force or officer-involved incidents submitted to the Prosecutor's Office for review or charging from January 1, 2020 to present, including referrals from the Delta County Sheriff's Office, Escanaba Police Department, Gladstone Police Department, and Michigan State Police", "Prosecutor review memos, declination summaries, or case-closing statements for such referrals where no criminal charges were issued against the involved officer", "Any written policies, procedures, or training materials used by the office to evaluate officer-involved use-of-force incidents or determine whether to authorize criminal charges", "Correspondence between the office and any law enforcement agency, MCOLES, or the Michigan Attorney General's Office discussing officer misconduct referrals, use-of-force reviews, or declination decisions", "Segregation and release of all reasonably segregable non-exempt material under MCL 15.244(1)", "Identification of the specific statutory subsection relied on for any exemption, the nature of the withheld material, and the total number of pages withheld or redacted", "Records delivered electronically in PDF", "A waiver of all fees under the public-interest provision of MCL 15.234(1)", "A response within five business days under MCL 15.235(2), or a written extension under subsection (2)(d)" ], "provided": [ "No responsive records were produced with the October 30, 2025 letter. Production of the one granted category is contingent on the $931.50 deposit, with the office estimating approximately 90 days from receipt of the deposit", "A seven-page Detailed Cost Itemization for Request No. 25-240 dated 10/30/2025, stating $1,242.00 labor to locate and $621.00 labor to separate exempt material, for a $1,863.00 subtotal and a $931.50 deposit", "A Notice of Denial dated 10/30/2025 checking the 'Part of your request has been denied,' 'Record Does Not Exist,' 'Exempt from Disclosure,' and 'Redaction' boxes", "A Notice to Extend Response Time dated 10-16-25, signed by FOIA Coordinator Emily DeSalvo, checking the 'voluminous amount of separate and distinct public records' reason", "A Denial Appeal Form and a Fee Appeal Form enclosed with the response, pre-filled with Request No. 25-240" ], "withheld": [ "Part 1 in part: logs and summaries, and referral forms naming an officer as the suspect or concerning officer-involved shootings, certified not to exist", "Part 2 in full: prosecutor review memos, declination summaries, and case-closing statements, certified not to exist", "Part 3 in full: written policies, procedures, or training materials for evaluating officer-involved use of force, certified not to exist", "Part 4 in full: correspondence with law enforcement, MCOLES, or the Attorney General on these subjects, certified not to exist", "Material described as separated under MCL 15.243(1)(a), (1)(b)(iii), (1)(d) under MCL 780.758, and (1)(w): names, addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, criminal identification numbers, and crime-victim-rights information", "Any page count or item-level description of the separated material, which the request expressly asked for and the response does not state" ], "keywords": [ "FOIA", "25-240", "Delta County", "Prosecutor", "Lauren Wickman", "use of force", "officer-involved shooting", "law enforcement misconduct", "officer misconduct referrals", "declination", "prosecutor review memo", "MCOLES", "Michigan Attorney General", "Delta County Sheriff", "Escanaba Police Department", "Gladstone Police Department", "Michigan State Police", "fee waiver", "MCL 15.234", "MCL 15.243", "MCL 15.244", "MCL 15.235", "good-faith deposit", "cost itemization" ], "documents": [ { "title": "Request letter, October 10, 2025", "file": "assets/documents/25-240/25-240-request-redacted.pdf", "type": "REQ", "desc": "The four-part FOIA request as faxed to the Prosecutor's Office, captioned 'Prosecutor Review of Law Enforcement Misconduct and Use-of-Force Referrals,' with the MCL 15.244 segregation demand, the page-count demand, the electronic-delivery demand, and the MCL 15.234(1) public-interest fee-waiver request. Requester name, address, phone, and email removed." }, { "title": "Response letter and Notice of Denial", "file": "assets/documents/25-240/25-240-response-redacted.pdf", "type": "RESP", "desc": "The October 30, 2025 response letter answering requests 25-239 through 25-245, with the 25-240 determinations (part one granted in part and denied in part; parts two, three and four denied on certificates of nonexistence) and the Notice of Denial form. Requester contact information removed." }, { "title": "Notice of Denial form", "file": "assets/documents/25-240/25-240-denial-form-redacted.pdf", "type": "RESP", "desc": "The one-page Notice of Denial dated 10/30/2025, checking the 'Part of your request has been denied,' 'Record Does Not Exist,' 'Exempt from Disclosure,' and 'Redaction' boxes, and listing MCL 15.243(1)(a), (1)(b)(iii), (1)(d) and (1)(w) as the exemptions relied on. Requester contact information removed." }, { "title": "Notice to Extend Response Time", "file": "assets/documents/25-240/25-240-extension-form-redacted.pdf", "type": "RESP", "desc": "The Notice to Extend Response form, dated 10-16-25 and signed by FOIA Coordinator Emily DeSalvo, checking the 'voluminous amount of separate and distinct public records' reason. Requester contact information removed." }, { "title": "Detailed Cost Itemization", "file": "assets/documents/25-240/25-240-fee-itemization-redacted.pdf", "type": "RESP", "desc": "The seven-page Detailed Cost Itemization prepared for Request No. 25-240 and dated 10/30/2025: $1,242.00 labor to locate, $621.00 labor to separate exempt material, a $1,863.00 subtotal, a $931.50 good-faith deposit, and a 90-day production estimate. The 'Waiver: Public Interest' section has both boxes blank. Requester contact information removed." }, { "title": "Denial Appeal Form", "file": "assets/documents/25-240/25-240-denial-appeal-form-redacted.pdf", "type": "RESP", "desc": "The Denial Appeal Form enclosed with the October 30 response and pre-filled with Request No. 25-240, stating the appeal route to the county board and to circuit court under MCL 15.240. Requester contact information removed." } ], "infographics": [], "charts": [ { "title": "The paper trail", "type": "interactive timeline", "anchor": "papertrail" } ], "published": "2026-10-25", "updated": "2026-10-25", "featured": true, "appeal_status": "N/A", "appeal_note": "The office enclosed a Denial Appeal Form and a Fee Appeal Form with its October 30, 2025 response. No appeal filing or appeal decision appears in this record, so the appeal status is shown as N/A rather than as 'none.'", "watchdog_alerts": [ "The requester asked, in the request letter itself, that all fees be waived under the public-interest provision of MCL 15.234(1). The county's own Detailed Cost Itemization has a 'Waiver: Public Interest' section with two boxes, 'All fees are waived' and 'All fees are reduced by.' Both are blank. Was the waiver considered at all?", "The office certifies that it keeps no written policies, procedures, or training materials for evaluating officer-involved use of force. In the same October 30 letter it produces twelve written Brady/Giglio disclosure-policy documents. Why does the office have written standards for one prosecutorial decision and none for the other?", "Part one says the office keeps no log or summary of use-of-force referrals. Yet the same letter says it can identify 'approximately 50 cases per year, for 6 years, or approximately 300 files.' How does the office find those files without an index of them?", "The request expressly asked for 'the total number of pages withheld or redacted.' The response describes the categories of separated material but gives no page count for any part. Where is the count the statute's disclosure provisions were meant to enable?", "The office priced the one granted category at $1,863.00 and required $931.50 before it would begin the search. It did not offer a narrowed alternative or a less expensive way to reach the same records. What would it have cost to search a narrower date range or a single referring agency?", "The county's own cost itemization and denial form record the request as received 10/10/2025, the day of the fax. The cover letter says it was received 10/13/2025. Which date does the office use to compute its deadlines, and why do its own documents disagree?" ], "karpel_note": "ProsecutorByKarpel went live in June 2024. This page does not use the case-management system to judge the office's handling of incidents before go-live; it uses the record only where the record concerns the period after go-live, including the 2024–2025 referrals the request was meant to reach.", "tile_title": "The use-of-force referrals", "tile_synopsis": "Three of four parts certified nonexistent, and the fourth priced at $1,863 — with the fee-waiver boxes left blank.", "badge_label": "Granted in part", "categories": [ "law-enforcement", "complaints-grievances" ], "share_image": "assets/images/share/25-240.jpg" }, { "id": "25-239", "slug": "25-239-brady-giglio-list", "title": "FOIA 25-239: The Brady/Giglio list and how the office tracks officer credibility", "short_title": "The Brady/Giglio list", "subject": "Records identifying law enforcement officers with sustained credibility or honesty findings, and the office's policy for tracking and disclosing them", "synopsis": "An October 10, 2025 request asked for any list, memo, database, or communication identifying officers with sustained credibility or honesty findings, the office's policy for tracking that information, and the date of the most recent update. The office granted in part and denied in part, producing 137 pages including a 2017 Brady/Giglio letter template, an MSP investigation into an Escanaba officer over retained license plates, and a trooper's internal-affairs settlement. Its answer to the third question describes a case-by-case, request-driven practice rather than a maintained list.", "status": "granted_in_part", "status_label": "Granted in part, denied in part", "submitted": "2025-10-10", "received": "2025-10-13", "response_date": "2025-10-30", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "requester": "Redacted", "fees_quoted": 0, "deposit_required": 0, "fees_paid": 0, "fee_waiver_requested": true, "fee_waiver_basis": "MCL 15.234", "fee_note": "No fee was quoted and none was paid. The requester asked that all copying and labor fees be waived under the public-interest provision of MCL 15.234(1). The response letter assessed no search, review, redaction, copying, or mailing charge.", "appealed": false, "appeal_events": [], "requested": [ "Any list, memo, database, spreadsheet, or communication identifying law enforcement officers whose credibility, honesty, or integrity is compromised or subject to a Brady/Giglio disclosure obligation", "Any written policy, memo, or procedure for tracking, evaluating, or disclosing officer credibility or impeachment information", "The date of the most recent update to any such records", "Segregation and release of all reasonably segregable non-exempt material under MCL 15.244(1)", "Records delivered electronically in PDF or text", "A waiver of all copying and labor fees under the public-interest provision of MCL 15.234(1)", "A response within five business days under MCL 15.235(2), or a written extension under subsection (2)(d)" ], "provided": [ "Michigan State Police original incident report, Incident No. 080-0000002-24 (9 pages), investigating Escanaba Public Safety officer Cole Tianen over retained license plates; status 'Open pending review at the Delta County PA Office'", "Two December 28, 2017 Brady/Giglio letters to Lt. Greg Cunningham of the MSP Gladstone Post, one signed by Jessica E. Pelto and one by Lauren M. Wickman", "Email chain dated May 10, 2024, requesting Brady information on Trooper Colin Immel and the MSP reply disclosing that a referenced memo was never created", "Email chain dated April 16, 2025, concerning 'MSP Report 80-163-23' and a defense demand for Brady material", "Statement of Charges and Proposed Discipline for Trooper Colin T. Immel, IA case PSS-683-23, dated December 21, 2023 and signed December 26, 2023", "Settlement Agreement under Discipline No. D-MSPTA-215-23, signed January 11, 2024, resolving the Immel internal-affairs case with a ten-day suspension split five served and five in abeyance until January 11, 2026", "A completed Brady/Giglio Compliance Form (page 21 of the packet, not itemized in the cover letter)", "The office's Brady/Giglio reference set dated August 22, 2023 and April 1, 2025, including 'At a Glance,' 'Disclosure Requirements,' 'Examples of Required Disclosures,' 'Timing of Disclosure,' and 'Violations'", "Brady & Giglio: A Prosecutor's Guide, Prosecuting Attorneys Coordinating Council, May 2021", "Michigan Prosecutors' Justice Initiative Best Practice Recommendations (2023)" ], "withheld": [ "Material redacted under MCL 15.243(1)(a) (names, dates of birth, addresses, phone numbers, criminal identification numbers, and license plate or registration information)", "Social Security numbers redacted under MCL 15.243(1)(w)", "Material withheld under MCL 15.243(1)(s)(iii) and MCL 15.243(1)(b)(iii)", "Material withheld under MCL 15.243(1)(d) 'exempted pursuant to MCL 423.507' (Public Employment Relations Act), cited without explanation", "Two items the letter lists as granted but which do not appear in the packet, both dated 01/10/2024 (an 'Email communication' and a 'Memo entitled')" ], "keywords": [ "FOIA", "25-239", "Delta County", "Prosecutor", "Lauren Wickman", "Brady", "Giglio", "Brady/Giglio list", "officer credibility", "impeachment", "Michigan State Police", "Escanaba Public Safety", "Cole Tianen", "Colin Immel", "license plates", "internal affairs", "MCL 15.243", "MCL 15.244", "MCL 257.901", "MCL 423.507" ], "documents": [ { "title": "Request letter, October 10, 2025", "file": "assets/documents/25-239/25-239-request-redacted.pdf", "type": "REQ", "desc": "FOIA request as faxed to the Prosecutor's Office, with the narrowing paragraph, the MCL 15.244 segregation demand, the MCL 15.234(1) fee-waiver request, and the MCL 15.235(2) timing request. Requester name, address, phone, and email removed." }, { "title": "Response letter and denial form", "file": "assets/documents/25-239/25-239-response-redacted.pdf", "type": "RESP", "desc": "The October 30, 2025 response letter answering requests 25-239 through 25-245, and the Notice of Denial form with the 'Part' box, the 'Exempt from Disclosure' box, and the 'Redaction' box checked. Requester contact information removed." }, { "title": "Notice to Extend Response Time", "file": "assets/documents/25-239/25-239-extension-form-redacted.pdf", "type": "RESP", "desc": "The Notice to Extend Response form, filed October 16, 2025, checking the 'voluminous amount of separate and distinct public records' reason. Requester contact information removed." }, { "title": "Responsive documents", "file": "assets/documents/25-239/25-239-responsive-documents.pdf", "type": "DOC", "desc": "The 137-page responsive packet: the MSP incident report, the two 2017 Brady/Giglio letters, the 2024 and 2025 email chains, the Immel Statement of Charges and Settlement Agreement, the Brady/Giglio Compliance Form, and the office's Brady/Giglio reference set and guides." } ], "infographics": [], "charts": [ { "title": "The paper trail", "type": "interactive timeline", "anchor": "papertrail" } ], "published": "2026-10-25", "updated": "2026-10-25", "featured": true, "appeal_status": "N/A", "appeal_note": "The requester reports appealing most of these requests. The appeal record has not yet been located and added to this archive, so the appeal status is shown as N/A rather than as 'none.'", "watchdog_alerts": [ "The office says it does not keep a Brady/Giglio list and instead requests information case by case. Its own 2017 template asks police only for sustained findings and expressly excludes unsubstantiated ones. Why does the completeness of the office's knowledge depend on what a police agency chooses to call 'sustained'?", "The April 2025 email from MSP Labor Relations states that 'the order for a memo referenced in the Written Reprimand was rescinded, so one was never created.' If a request-driven system can produce a missing memo, what else is missing that no one has asked for yet?", "The MSP report into an Escanaba officer's retained license plates is marked 'Open pending review at the Delta County PA Office.' Where is the record of how that review ended, and why is it not in this packet?", "The cover letter lists nine items as granted, but two of them, both dated 01/10/2024, do not appear in the packet, and a completed Brady/Giglio Compliance Form appears in the packet but is not listed. Why does the itemization not match the production?", "The denial cites 'MCL 15.234(1)(s)(ix),' a provision that does not exist, and invokes MCL 15.243(1)(d) 'exempted pursuant to MCL 423.507' without explaining what record it covers. How is a requester supposed to evaluate a denial that does not resolve to a real statute?", "The request expressly demanded segregation under MCL 15.244(1). The letter applies redactions but never says what was redacted, how much, or on what basis for each item. Where is the item-by-item segregation the statute requires?" ], "karpel_note": "ProsecutorByKarpel went live in June 2024. This page does not use the case-management system to judge the 2017 letters or the 2023–2024 discipline matters; it uses the record only where the record concerns the period after go-live, including the April 2025 email exchange.", "tile_title": "The Brady/Giglio list", "tile_synopsis": "137 pages on how the office tracks officer credibility — and an answer that describes a case-by-case practice, not a maintained list.", "badge_label": "Granted in part", "categories": [ "law-enforcement" ], "share_image": "assets/images/share/25-239.jpg" }, { "id": "25-234", "slug": "25-234-forensic-lab-testing-escanaba-bar-raid", "title": "FOIA 25-234: Four lab reports, two certificates, and 26.4 grams where the press said four ounces", "short_title": "The lab said residue, the file said four ounces", "subject": "Copies of laboratory testing results related to the evidence seized in the Escanaba bar cocaine raid that was the subject of FOIA 25-130, including laboratory analysis reports, toxicology results or controlled substance testing reports from the Michigan State Police Forensic Laboratory or any other forensic laboratory; any chain-of-custody cover sheets accompanying those results; and any transmittal or return correspondence between the Prosecutor's Office and the laboratory regarding the status or outcome of testing", "synopsis": "A request dated October 1, 2025 and received the same day by fax asked the Delta County Prosecutor's Office for the laboratory testing behind the April 2024 Escanaba bar cocaine raid, the subject of FOIA 25-130. On October 8, 2025 the office granted the request and produced four Michigan State Police Forensic Laboratory reports, all bearing laboratory number MQ 24-101, together with their cover sheets. It denied, with two signed certificates of nonexistence, any chain-of-custody cover sheets beyond those four and any transmittal or return correspondence with the laboratory. No fee was quoted and no deposit was required. The produced reports identify three agency items: a January 31, 2024 trash pull (Item #14, cocaine residue on a plastic bag corner) and an April 30, 2024 traffic stop documented in Delta County Sheriff's Department Report 24-813 (Items #18 and #20, the latter 26.4 grams of cocaine). The reports name James Joseph Johnson and Corey Allen Way as suspects on the trash-pull item and Johnson alone on the traffic-stop items. No produced report identifies an item seized from inside the business.", "status": "granted_in_part", "status_label": "Granted in part", "submitted": "2025-10-01", "received": "2025-10-01", "response_date": "2025-10-08", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "requester": "Redacted", "fees_quoted": 0, "fees_quoted_note": "No fee quoted", "deposit_required": 0, "fees_paid": 0, "fee_waiver_requested": true, "fee_waiver_basis": "MCL 15.234", "fee_note": "The request asked that any fees be waived or reduced under MCL 15.234(1) as a matter of significant public interest. The October 8, 2025 response quotes no fee, requires no deposit and does not rule on the waiver request. Because the office produced the records at no charge, the practical outcome is the same as a waiver, but the letter never addresses the request or states a basis for granting or denying it. No itemization appears anywhere in the packet.", "appealed": false, "appeal_events": [], "appeal_status": "N/A", "appeal_note": "No appeal was filed. The two certificates of nonexistence would each have supported an appeal under MCL 15.240, and the scope of the grant is at least arguably narrower than the request, since the request asked about evidence seized in the bar raid and the produced reports concern a trash pull and a traffic stop. The response itself reproduces the appeal route to the chairperson of the Delta County Board of Commissioners and to the Delta County Circuit Court. No appeal was taken, and this page does not fault the requester for that choice.", "requested": [ "Laboratory analysis reports, toxicology results or controlled substance testing reports generated by the Michigan State Police Forensic Laboratory, any regional forensic laboratory, or any contracted or private forensic laboratory, concerning suspected narcotics seized in the Escanaba bar cocaine raid", "Any chain-of-custody cover sheets accompanying those laboratory results", "Any transmittal or return correspondence between the Prosecutor's Office and the laboratory regarding the status or outcome of the testing", "Redaction of only exempt information, with the specific statutory exemption cited, under MCL 15.244(1)", "Delivery in electronic form (PDF or scanned documents) by email", "A waiver or reduction of all fees under MCL 15.234(1) as a matter of significant public interest" ], "provided": [ "A determination letter dated October 8, 2025 granting the laboratory-report portion of the request and denying the other two portions", "Michigan State Police Forensic Laboratory Report MQ 24-101, Record No. 1, released March 4, 2024 — cocaine residue on a plastic bag corner, Agency Item #14, from a trash pull on or about January 31, 2024", "Michigan State Police Forensic Laboratory Report MQ 24-101, Record No. 2, dated March 12, 2024 — latent print examination of Agency Item #14, with the ACE-V methodology description", "Michigan State Police Forensic Laboratory Report MQ 24-101, Record No. 3, released February 3, 2025 — cocaine, Agency Item #18, turned over to UPSET after a Delta County Sheriff's Office traffic stop documented in DCSO Report 24-813", "Michigan State Police Forensic Laboratory Report MQ 24-101, Record No. 4, released February 6, 2025 — 26.4 grams of cocaine, Agency Item #20, from the same traffic stop", "Forensic Advantage Discovery Packet cover sheets for all four reports", "A certificate of nonexistence for chain-of-custody cover sheets beyond those produced", "A second certificate of nonexistence for transmittal or return correspondence with the laboratory", "A Notice of Denial form, request 25-234, date received 10/01/2025, date of notice 10/08/2025", "The MCL 15.240 excerpt, the county FOIA appeal form, and the county FOIA written policies page" ], "withheld": [ "Any chain-of-custody cover sheet beyond the four cover sheets produced — certified nonexistent, on the stated ground that all evidence seized by the Delta County Sheriff's Office was turned over to UPSET and the office holds no separate chain-of-custody paperwork", "Any transmittal or return correspondence between the Prosecutor's Office and the laboratory — certified nonexistent", "Any laboratory report for an item seized from inside the business on April 30, 2024 — not addressed in the letter, and not produced" ], "keywords": [ "FOIA", "25-234", "Delta County", "Prosecutor", "Lauren Wickman", "forensic laboratory", "Michigan State Police Forensic Laboratory", "Marquette Forensic Laboratory", "MQ 24-101", "UPT-19-24", "laboratory report", "controlled substance testing", "toxicology", "chain of custody", "transmittal correspondence", "certificate of nonexistence", "Escanaba bar raid", "Northtown Crown Da'Bar", "UPSET", "Upper Peninsula Substance Enforcement Team", "Delta County Sheriff's Office", "DCSO 24-813", "traffic stop", "trash pull", "cocaine", "cocaine residue", "26.4 grams", "four ounces", "James Joseph Johnson", "Corey Allen Way", "Ronald David Frans", "Sara Kozmor", "Ryan P. Gerbig", "Josh Dishaw", "James McDonough", "latent prints", "ACE-V", "ISO 17025", "25-130", "MCL 15.234", "MCL 15.240", "MCL 15.243", "MCL 15.244", "granted in part" ], "documents": [ { "title": "Determination letter, October 8, 2025", "file": "assets/documents/25-234/25-234-response-redacted.pdf", "type": "RESP", "desc": "The three-page letter granting the laboratory-report portion of the request, listing the four MSP reports by record number, and denying the chain-of-custody and transmittal-correspondence portions with two signed certificates of nonexistence. Requester name and address removed." }, { "title": "Notice of Denial and FOIA appeal form, October 8, 2025", "file": "assets/documents/25-234/25-234-denial-and-appeal-forms-redacted.pdf", "type": "DOC", "desc": "Two pages: the Notice of Denial of FOIA Request for 25-234, dated 10/08/2025 and marked received by email and fax, and the county FOIA appeal form. Requester name, street, city, state, zip, email and phone removed." }, { "title": "MCL 15.240 excerpt and county FOIA policy page", "file": "assets/documents/25-234/25-234-law-and-policy-excerpts.pdf", "type": "DOC", "desc": "Three pages of the enclosures: the statutory excerpt on appeal rights and judicial review, reproduced twice, and the Delta County page pointing to its FOIA written policies, guidelines and forms." }, { "title": "Original request, fax receipt and email exchange", "file": "assets/documents/25-234/25-234-request-and-receipt-redacted.pdf", "type": "DOC", "desc": "Four pages: the Zimbra fax receipts showing the request arrived October 1, 2025 at 5:20 p.m., the October 1, 2025 request letter with its three numbered parts and its MCL 15.234 waiver request, and the October 2, 2025 email exchange in which county staff asked the requester to confirm a delivery address he had left off the form. Requester name, address, email, phone and fax identifiers removed." }, { "title": "Responsive records: four MSP Forensic Laboratory reports, MQ 24-101", "file": "assets/documents/25-234/25-234-responsive-lab-reports.pdf", "type": "DOC", "desc": "Eleven pages: the Forensic Advantage Discovery Packet cover sheets and the four Marquette Forensic Laboratory reports, Records 1 through 4. Record 1 identifies cocaine residue on a plastic bag corner from a January 31, 2024 trash pull and names Johnson and Way as suspects; Record 2 is the latent print examination of the same item; Records 3 and 4 identify cocaine, including 26.4 grams on Item #20, from an April 30, 2024 traffic stop. No requester information appears in this set and it is published unaltered." } ], "infographics": [ { "title": "From the request to the four reports", "type": "interactive_timeline", "anchor": "#fig-timeline-234", "alt": "Interactive timeline from the October 1 2025 request and fax receipt, through the October 8 2025 response, back to the January 31 2024 trash pull and the April 30 2024 traffic stop that the produced laboratory reports actually describe." }, { "title": "Five dispositions in one letter", "type": "interactive_scorecard", "anchor": "#fig-five-234", "alt": "Interactive scorecard of the five separate dispositions the October 8 2025 letter gave: three parts of the request granted, and two parts denied with signed certificates of nonexistence." }, { "title": "What the four reports actually tested", "type": "interactive_scorecard", "anchor": "#fig-reports-234", "alt": "Interactive scorecard of the four MSP Forensic Laboratory reports: Record 1 cocaine residue on a bag corner from a trash pull, Record 2 latent prints on the same item, Record 3 cocaine on Agency Item 18 from a traffic stop, and Record 4 26.4 grams of cocaine on Agency Item 20." } ], "published": "2026-10-26", "updated": "2026-10-26", "featured": true, "watchdog_alerts": [ "The request asked for the laboratory testing on the evidence seized in the Escanaba bar raid. The four reports the office produced test a January 31, 2024 trash pull and an April 30, 2024 traffic stop. Not one of them identifies an item seized from inside the business, and the letter does not say whether any such report exists.", "The largest quantity any produced report confirms is 26.4 grams of cocaine, on Agency Item #20 from the traffic stop. That is a little under one ounce. The press coverage the earlier request was built on described “approximately 4 ounces.” No produced laboratory report supports four ounces.", "The report on the trash-pull item found residue — cocaine on a plastic bag corner — and names two suspects, James Joseph Johnson and Corey Allen Way. The judgments the office produced in FOIA 25-130 name Johnson and Ronald David Frans. Way appears in the laboratory file and nowhere in the sentencing records.", "The letter labels two different reports as “Record Number 2”: the March 4, 2024 controlled-substance report and the March 12, 2024 latent-print report. The March 4 report is stamped Record No. 1 on its face. The cover letter never lists Record No. 1 at all.", "The request asked for a fee waiver under MCL 15.234. The office charged nothing, which is the right result, but the letter never mentions the waiver request and states no basis for granting or denying it. A silent waiver is not a ruling, and it leaves the next requester with no precedent to point to." ], "karpel_note": "Nothing in this response turns on the case-management system. The records produced are Michigan State Police laboratory reports, generated by the state forensic laboratory and delivered through the Forensic Advantage discovery portal, not by ProsecutorByKarpel. The April 30, 2024 traffic stop predates nothing relevant here, and this page makes no claim about when the office adopted its case-management software.", "tile_title": "Four lab reports, two certificates, and 26.4 grams", "tile_synopsis": "The bar raid was the subject. The reports test a trash pull and a traffic stop. The biggest confirmed quantity is 26.4 grams, not the four ounces the press described.", "badge_label": "Granted in part", "categories": [ "evidence-discovery", "law-enforcement", "case-statistics" ], "share_image": "assets/images/share/25-234.jpg" }, { "id": "25-202", "slug": "25-202-case-management-procurement", "title": "FOIA 25-202: No RFP, no bid, no purchase order — and the emails that show how the system was picked", "short_title": "How the case-management system was picked", "subject": "Any request for proposals, vendor bid, purchase order, or communication regarding the acquisition or implementation of new or replacement case management, records management, prosecutorial training, electronic discovery or digital evidence systems, January 1, 2020 to present", "synopsis": "An August 18, 2025 request asked for any RFP, vendor bid, purchase order, or communication about acquiring or replacing the office's case management, records management, prosecutorial training, electronic discovery or digital evidence systems since January 1, 2020. On September 8, 2025 the office granted it in part and denied it in part. It certified that no RFP, bid or purchase order exists, and it produced thirteen pages of emails showing that the Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan ran the procurement, that three vendors demonstrated in November 2022, and that ProsecutorByKarpel won 52 of 66 county votes in March 2023. The letter asserts that a fee is owed and refers to an attached FOIA Fee Itemization that is not in the packet, and states no dollar figure anywhere.", "status": "granted_in_part", "status_label": "Granted in part", "submitted": "2025-08-18", "received": "2025-08-19", "response_date": "2025-09-08", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "requester": "Redacted", "fees_quoted": 0, "fees_quoted_note": "No figure stated", "deposit_required": 0, "fees_paid": 0, "fee_waiver_requested": true, "fee_waiver_basis": "MCL 15.234", "fee_note": "No dollar figure was ever supplied. The September 8, 2025 letter states that failing to charge for search, examination, review and redaction “would result in unreasonably high costs to the County,” says those costs are “specifically outlined in the attached FOIA Fee Itemization,” and then encloses no itemization. No page of the twenty-five-page packet states a fee, a deposit, an hourly rate or an estimated number of hours. The only dollar figures in the packet are the $1,000 statutory damages language on the appeal pages and the vendors' own cost estimates inside the produced emails. A waiver was requested under MCL 15.234 and the letter does not address it. Because no fee was ever quantified, this record shows “no figure stated” rather than $0: the office asserted a charge without stating one.", "appealed": false, "appeal_events": [], "appeal_status": "N/A", "appeal_note": "No appeal was filed. The denial of the RFP, bid and purchase-order portion is a certificate of nonexistence, which is appealable, and the communications portion was granted only on condition of an unstated fee. Both would have supported an appeal under MCL 15.240. Neither was taken, and this page does not fault the requester for that choice.", "requested": [ "Any request for proposals (RFP) for case management, records management, prosecutorial training, electronic discovery or digital evidence systems, January 1, 2020 to present", "Any vendor bid or quote for the same systems and period", "Any purchase order for the same systems and period", "Any communication regarding the acquisition or implementation of the same systems and period", "Segregation and release of all reasonably segregable non-exempt material under MCL 15.244", "An itemized fee estimate in advance if charges would exceed $20", "Records delivered electronically by email", "A waiver of all fees under MCL 15.234" ], "provided": [ "A certificate of nonexistence for all requests for proposals, vendor bids and purchase orders", "A statement that the procurement and implementation of the ProsecutorByKarpel program was administered by the Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan", "Thirteen pages of responsive emails, described in the letter as the emails “related to the process of ‘picking’ the system”", "The October 4, 2022 email announcing a day of vendor demonstrations on November 10, 2022: LawBase/OnBase at 1 p.m., Karpel at 2 p.m., Equivant at 3 p.m.", "The March 8, 2023 email from Prosecutor Wickman to the county administrator and IT describing the shift, the added cost and the three-vendor comparison", "The March 10, 2023 email reporting 66 votes cast, 52 for Karpel, 78.78 percent", "The three-vendor budget and feature comparison: Jworks/Equivant, LawBase/OnBase, and Karpel", "A Notice to Extend Response Time on the voluminous-records ground, dated August 19, 2025 and extending the response date to September 8, 2025", "A Notice of Denial checking box 3 (Redaction) and citing MCL 15.243(1)(a) and (1)(iii)", "The county FOIA appeal form, the MCL 15.240 excerpt, and the county's FOIA policies page" ], "withheld": [ "Every request for proposals, vendor bid and purchase order — certified as nonexistent rather than withheld", "The roughly 500 email conversations the letter describes as responsive to the communications portion — granted in principle, but conditioned on a fee that was never stated, so not produced", "The FOIA Fee Itemization the letter refers to — not included anywhere in the packet", "Any record of vendor scoring, committee minutes or a funding application behind the vote — not addressed by the request as written and not produced" ], "keywords": [ "FOIA", "25-202", "Delta County", "Prosecutor", "Lauren Wickman", "case management system", "records management", "RFP", "request for proposals", "vendor bid", "purchase order", "procurement", "ProsecutorByKarpel", "Prosecutor by Karpel", "Karpel", "PAAM", "Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan", "Prosecuting Attorneys Coordinating Council", "PACC", "Dianna Collins", "Ashleigh Young", "Brandon Couvillion", "Equivant", "Jworks", "LawBase", "OnBase", "vendor demonstration", "vote", "66 votes", "52 votes", "78.78 percent", "certificate of nonexistence", "fee itemization", "MCL 15.243", "MCL 15.234", "MCL 15.235", "granted in part" ], "documents": [ { "title": "Determination letter, September 8, 2025", "file": "assets/documents/25-202/25-202-response-redacted.pdf", "type": "RESP", "desc": "The two-page letter granting the request in part and denying it in part: the RFP, bid and purchase-order portion denied as nonexistent with a certificate, the communications portion granted subject to redaction and a fee, and the statement that PAAM administered the ProsecutorByKarpel procurement. Requester name, address, phone and email removed." }, { "title": "Extension notice, notice of denial and appeal forms, September 8, 2025", "file": "assets/documents/25-202/25-202-denial-forms-redacted.pdf", "type": "DOC", "desc": "Six pages: the Notice to Extend Response Time (received August 18, 2025, extended to September 8, 2025), the Notice of Denial checking box 3 and citing MCL 15.243(1)(a) and (1)(iii), the MCL 15.240 excerpt, the county FOIA appeal form, and the county's FOIA policies page. Requester identifiers removed." }, { "title": "Responsive email set, October 2022 to March 2023", "file": "assets/documents/25-202/25-202-responsive-redacted.pdf", "type": "DOC", "desc": "Thirteen pages of emails produced with the determination: the October 4, 2022 announcement of vendor demonstrations, the March 8, 2023 message from Prosecutor Wickman to the county administrator and IT, and the March 10, 2023 vote results, including the three-vendor budget and feature comparison." } ], "infographics": [ { "title": "From the vendor demos to the vote", "type": "interactive_timeline", "anchor": "#fig-timeline-202", "alt": "Interactive timeline from the October 4 2022 announcement of vendor demonstrations, through the November 10 2022 demos and the February 2023 decision to hold a final vote, to the March 8 2023 internal email, the March 10 2023 vote result of 52 of 66 for Karpel, the August 18 2025 request, and the September 8 2025 partial grant." }, { "title": "Three vendors, and what each would have cost", "type": "interactive_scorecard", "anchor": "#fig-vendors-202", "alt": "Interactive scorecard of the three vendors compared in the March 2023 email, filterable by whether the vendor won the county vote, showing each vendor's stated licensing, implementation and ongoing costs and its stated system features." }, { "title": "Four record types asked for, three certified empty", "type": "interactive_bars", "anchor": "#fig-buckets-202", "alt": "Interactive bar chart of the four record types the request named: requests for proposals, vendor bids, purchase orders, and communications. The first three are certified nonexistent; the fourth was granted subject to redaction and a fee that was never stated." } ], "published": "2026-10-25", "updated": "2026-10-25", "featured": true, "watchdog_alerts": [ "The office certified that it holds no request for proposals, vendor bid or purchase order for the case-management system it now runs — and in the same letter produced emails showing that PAAM ran the procurement and that Karpel won 52 of 66 county votes. If the county pays for the system, where is the county's procurement file?", "The letter says the fee is “specifically outlined in the attached FOIA Fee Itemization.” No itemization is in the packet, and no dollar figure appears anywhere in its twenty-five pages. How is a requester supposed to accept, challenge or budget for a charge that was never stated?", "The Notice of Denial checks box 3, “Redaction,” and cites MCL 15.243(1)(a) and (1)(iii). But the RFP portion was denied because the records do not exist, not because anything in them was redacted. Why does the denial form describe a different decision than the letter?", "The communications portion was granted “subject to any necessary redaction” — but only on payment of the unstated fee. Until the fee is stated, the grant is not something a requester can accept. Thirteen pages arrived as a courtesy; the roughly 500 conversations the letter itself describes have not been produced." ], "karpel_note": "This is the first document in the archive that describes how ProsecutorByKarpel was chosen. It states that PAAM — not Delta County — administered the procurement and implementation, and the March 10, 2023 email records the selection vote: 66 votes cast, 52 for Karpel, 78.78 percent. The March 8, 2023 email is Prosecutor Wickman's own, written to the county administrator and the county's IT contact before the vote, laying out the three vendors' costs and saying the Karpel option “appears to be the most popular choice.” None of these documents states an implementation date. The June 2024 go-live used elsewhere in this archive remains an approximation drawn from the contracts and invoices in 25-201, and this page does not assert an exact date.", "tile_title": "No RFP on file — but here are the emails", "tile_synopsis": "Certified: no RFP, no bid, no purchase order. Produced: the emails showing PAAM ran the procurement and Karpel won 52 of 66 county votes.", "badge_label": "Granted in part", "categories": [ "vendor-contracts", "governance-foia-compliance" ], "share_image": "assets/images/share/25-202.jpg" }, { "id": "25-201", "slug": "25-201-prosecutorkarpel-contracts", "title": "FOIA 25-201: ProsecutorByKarpel contracts, invoices, and licensing", "short_title": "ProsecutorByKarpel contracts and invoices", "subject": "Contracts, invoices, and licensing for the office's case management, records, and digital evidence systems, 2020 to present", "synopsis": "An August 18, 2025 request asked for every contract, purchase agreement, invoice, licensing agreement, and renewal document behind the office's case management, records, and digital evidence systems. The office produced a 46-page package covering its new ProsecutorByKarpel system and three WatchGuard invoices — then certified that records for Motorola Video Manager, Axon-Evidence.com, WatchGuard Cloudshare, NextCloud, and its own Adult and Juvenile Case Tracking systems do not exist. It charged no fee and claimed no statutory exemption. The denials rest on a claim of custody, not a claim of nonexistence.", "status": "granted_in_part", "status_label": "Granted in part, denied in part", "submitted": "2025-08-18", "received": "2025-08-19", "response_date": "2025-09-08", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "requester": "Redacted", "fees_quoted": 0, "deposit_required": 0, "fees_paid": 0, "fee_waiver_requested": true, "fee_waiver_basis": "MCL 15.234", "fee_note": "No fee was quoted and none was paid. The response letter assessed no search, review, redaction, copying, or mailing charge. The office also claimed no statutory exemption and applied no redactions, so no redaction labor was billed.", "appealed": false, "appeal_events": [], "requested": [ "All contracts, purchase agreements, invoices, licensing agreements, or renewal documents related to any case management system used by the office, January 1, 2020 to present", "The same records for any records management system", "The same records for any prosecutorial tracking system", "The same records for any electronic discovery platform", "The same records for any digital evidence system", "Segregation and release of all reasonably segregable non-exempt material under MCL 15.244", "An itemized fee estimate in advance if charges would exceed $20", "Records delivered electronically" ], "provided": [ "PAAM and Delta County Prosecutor's Office contract for ProsecutorByKarpel, including master terms, Appendix A client agreement form and cost schedule, Appendix B statewide data-sharing MOU, and Appendix C FBI CJIS Security Addendum", "Karpel invoice 64330, October 26, 2023, $32,587.50", "Karpel invoice 67886, June 30, 2024, $43,662.50", "Karpel invoice 73011, June 25, 2025, $22,150.00", "WatchGuard invoice 4REINV0010222, January 13, 2020, $10,294.06", "WatchGuard invoice 4REINV0012850, May 27, 2021, $18,350.00", "WatchGuard invoice 8CAMORD11257TL, September 23, 2020, $1,408.45 (produced but omitted from the cover letter's list of granted records)" ], "withheld": [ "Records for Motorola Video Manager — certified not to exist, on the ground that the system is maintained by Escanaba Public Safety, Hannahville Tribal Police, and Michigan State Police", "Records for Axon-Evidence.com — certified not to exist on the same custody ground", "Records for WatchGuard Cloudshare — certified not to exist on the same custody ground", "Records for NextCloud — certified not to exist because the software is open source", "Records for the office's former Adult Case Tracking system — certified not to exist", "Records for the office's former Juvenile Case Tracking system — certified not to exist" ], "keywords": [ "FOIA", "25-201", "Delta County", "Prosecutor", "Lauren Wickman", "ProsecutorByKarpel", "Prosecutor by Karpel", "Karpel Solutions", "Karpel Computer Systems", "PAAM", "Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan", "case management system", "records management", "electronic discovery", "eDiscovery", "digital evidence", "WatchGuard", "Motorola Video Manager", "Axon Evidence", "WatchGuard Cloudshare", "NextCloud", "Adult Case Tracking", "Juvenile Case Tracking", "contract", "invoice", "licensing", "procurement", "sole source", "MCL 15.233", "MCL 15.244", "does not exist", "custody", "transparency" ], "documents": [ { "title": "Request letter, August 18, 2025", "file": "assets/documents/25-201/25-201-request-redacted.pdf", "type": "REQ", "desc": "FOIA request as faxed to the Prosecutor's Office, with the segregation demand, fee-estimate request, and electronic-delivery instruction. Requester name, address, phone, and email removed." }, { "title": "Response, denial form, and extension notice", "file": "assets/documents/25-201/25-201-response-redacted.pdf", "type": "RESP", "desc": "The September 8, 2025 response letter, the denial form with only the 'record does not exist' box checked, and the undated extension notice. Requester contact information removed." }, { "title": "ProsecutorByKarpel contract and invoices", "file": "assets/documents/25-201/25-201-contract-and-invoices.pdf", "type": "DOC", "desc": "The 46-page responsive package: contract and master terms, client agreement form, statewide data-sharing MOU, CJIS addendum, three Karpel invoices, and three WatchGuard invoices." } ], "infographics": [ { "title": "Procurement and request timeline", "type": "interactive_timeline", "anchor": "#fig-timeline-201", "alt": "Interactive timeline from the September 2023 contract signature through the June 10 2024 go-live, the August 18 2025 request, the extension notice, and the September 8 2025 partial-grant response." }, { "title": "Contract cost breakdown", "type": "interactive_bars", "anchor": "#fig-cost-201", "alt": "Interactive bar chart of the $65,175 one-time ProsecutorByKarpel cost split into software, installation, professional services, training, and customization, alongside the $11,075 annual support cost and the $98,400 actually invoiced across three invoices." } ], "published": "2026-10-23", "updated": "2026-10-25", "featured": true, "appeal_status": "N/A", "appeal_note": "The requester reports appealing most of these requests. The appeal record has not yet been located and added to this archive, so the appeal status is shown as N/A rather than as “none.”", "watchdog_alerts": [ "The contract was produced. The statement of work, the licensing terms, and the data-migration plan were not. Why is the price public but the scope of what was bought withheld?", "The invoices are itemized by line, but the base hourly wage and the fringe-benefit multiplier are blank. How is a public body's software cost auditable without the rate behind it?", "The public-interest waiver section is blank. Was the waiver considered at all, and if so, what was the reasoning?", "The office disclosed four facts without labelling them as disclosures — including that the system was not fully implemented on schedule. Why are the most consequential facts the ones stated in passing?" ], "karpel_note": "ProsecutorByKarpel went live in June 2024, so the manual and its reporting features are post-go-live documents. This page does not use the manual to judge the 2020–2023 contract period; it uses the manual only where the record concerns the period after go-live.", "tile_title": "ProsecutorByKarpel contracts and invoices", "tile_synopsis": "46 pages produced for the new case management system. Five other systems were certified as records that do not exist.", "badge_label": "Granted in part", "categories": [ "vendor-contracts" ], "share_image": "assets/images/share/25-201.jpg" }, { "id": "25-200", "slug": "25-200-case-management-systems", "title": "FOIA 25-200: The software the office runs on — seven systems named, one of them retired in June 2024", "short_title": "The software the office runs on", "subject": "Names, vendors and versions of every case management, records management, prosecutorial tracking, electronic discovery, digital evidence and body-worn camera system used, formerly used, or planned for use by the office, January 1, 2020 to present", "synopsis": "An August 18, 2025 request asked for the names, vendors and versions of every case management, records management, prosecutorial tracking, electronic discovery, digital evidence and body-worn camera system the office used, formerly used, or planned to use since January 1, 2020. On September 8, 2025 the office granted it in full, at no charge, claiming no exemption and redacting nothing. It named seven systems: ProsecutorByKarpel at version 7.5.03.21.2025, NextCloud, Motorola Video Manager 2025.7.23, WatchGuard Evidence Library 4.4.4, Axon Evidence.com, WatchGuard CloudShare, and the Adult and Juvenile Case Tracking systems it stopped using “until approximately June 10, 2024.” It is the only complete grant in the archive, and the first time the office has put a date on the end of the system that preceded Karpel.", "status": "granted_in_full", "status_label": "Granted in full", "submitted": "2025-08-18", "received": "2025-08-19", "response_date": "2025-09-08", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "requester": "Redacted", "fees_quoted": 0, "deposit_required": 0, "fees_paid": 0, "fee_waiver_requested": true, "fee_waiver_basis": "MCL 15.234", "fee_note": "No fee was quoted and none was paid. The response letter assessed no search, review, redaction, copying or mailing charge, and the office claimed no statutory exemption, so no redaction labor could be billed. The request asked for an itemized estimate only if costs would exceed $20; none was needed.", "appealed": false, "appeal_events": [], "appeal_status": "N/A", "appeal_note": "The response was a full grant, so there was nothing to appeal. The packet nevertheless includes the county's FOIA Appeal Form, the MCL 15.240 excerpt and the appeal-rights paragraph, which the office encloses with every response.", "requested": [ "Names, vendors and versions of all case management systems used, formerly used, or planned for use, January 1, 2020 to present", "The same for all records management systems", "The same for all prosecutorial tracking systems", "The same for all electronic discovery platforms", "The same for all digital evidence portals", "The same for all body-worn camera and evidence management software", "Segregation and release of all reasonably segregable non-exempt material under MCL 15.244", "An itemized fee estimate in advance if charges would exceed $20", "Records delivered electronically by email" ], "provided": [ "ProsecutorByKarpel — identified as the primary case management and records management system, version 7.5.03.21.2025 as of September 8, 2025", "NextCloud — identified as in use, described as open source file and sharing software, with no version supplied", "Motorola Video Manager — version 2025.7.23, administered by Escanaba Public Safety", "WatchGuard Evidence Library — version 4.4.4, administered by the Delta County Sheriff's Office", "Axon Evidence.com — administered by Hannahville Tribal Police, with no version information available to the office", "WatchGuard CloudShare — administered by the Michigan State Police, with no version information available to the office", "Adult Case Tracking and Juvenile Case Tracking — previously used “until approximately June 10, 2024,” administered by the Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan, with no version information now reachable" ], "withheld": [ "Nothing. The office claimed no exemption, applied no redactions, and withheld no record.", "Version numbers for NextCloud, Axon Evidence.com, WatchGuard CloudShare, and the retired Adult and Juvenile Case Tracking systems were not supplied.", "No system described as “planned for use” was identified anywhere in the response." ], "keywords": [ "FOIA", "25-200", "Delta County", "Prosecutor", "Lauren Wickman", "case management system", "records management", "prosecutorial tracking", "electronic discovery", "eDiscovery", "digital evidence", "body-worn camera", "ProsecutorByKarpel", "Prosecutor by Karpel", "Karpel Solutions", "NextCloud", "Motorola Video Manager", "WatchGuard Evidence Library", "WatchGuard CloudShare", "Axon Evidence.com", "Adult Case Tracking", "Juvenile Case Tracking", "PAAM", "Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan", "system inventory", "software version", "vendor", "June 10 2024", "full grant", "no exemption", "MCL 15.233", "MCL 15.244", "transparency" ], "documents": [ { "title": "Request letter and fax cover, August 18, 2025", "file": "assets/documents/25-200/25-200-request-redacted.pdf", "type": "REQ", "desc": "The fax cover letter submitting four separate FOIA requests for individual logging, and the first request in the set, headed “FOIA1-SystemNames.” Requester name, address, phone and email removed." }, { "title": "Response letter and system inventory, September 8, 2025", "file": "assets/documents/25-200/25-200-response-redacted.pdf", "type": "RESP", "desc": "The two-page response granting the request in full and naming each system, vendor and version the office could identify. Requester name removed." }, { "title": "Notice to Extend Response Time", "file": "assets/documents/25-200/25-200-extension-form-redacted.pdf", "type": "EXT", "desc": "The county extension form included in the packet. The handwritten request number, notice date, extension date and estimated time frame are not reliably legible and are not reproduced on this page. Requester contact block removed." }, { "title": "Fax transmission record", "file": "assets/documents/25-200/25-200-fax-receipt-redacted.pdf", "type": "DOC", "desc": "The county's fax platform receipt showing six pages received on August 18, 2025 at 10:09:30 a.m. Eastern, and the notification email that carried it. Sender fax number removed." }, { "title": "Appeal form and statutory excerpt", "file": "assets/documents/25-200/25-200-appeal-form-redacted.pdf", "type": "DOC", "desc": "The Delta County FOIA Appeal Form, the MCL 15.240 excerpt, and the county's FOIA guidelines page, all enclosed with the response." } ], "infographics": [ { "title": "Request and response timeline", "type": "interactive_timeline", "anchor": "#fig-timeline-200", "alt": "Interactive timeline from the June 10 2024 retirement of Adult Case Tracking and Juvenile Case Tracking through the August 18 2025 six-page fax carrying four separate requests, the August 19 2025 receipt, and the September 8 2025 full grant." }, { "title": "The seven systems, and who holds them", "type": "interactive_scorecard", "anchor": "#fig-systems-200", "alt": "Interactive scorecard of the seven systems named in the response, filterable by whether the office administers the system itself or accesses one administered by another agency, and by whether a version number was supplied." }, { "title": "What the request asked for and what came back", "type": "interactive_bars", "anchor": "#fig-answer-200", "alt": "Interactive bar chart of the six system categories requested against the number of systems named in each, showing which categories produced a named system and which produced nothing." } ], "published": "2026-10-25", "updated": "2026-10-25", "featured": true, "watchdog_alerts": [ "The office named the software it runs on, in full, for free, in twenty days. Why does the same office price a conviction rate at $9,548 and correspondence at $63,028.80?", "NextCloud is in use, but the response says no “record” exists about it because the software is open source. A version number exists for any NextCloud installation. Why is there no record of which one the office runs?", "Four of the seven systems are administered by other agencies — Escanaba Public Safety, the Delta County Sheriff, Hannahville Tribal Police and the Michigan State Police. What does the office actually know about the evidence pipeline it prosecutes from?", "The request asked for systems “planned for use.” The response names none. Is anything in the pipeline, and if so, what?", "The office retired Adult and Juvenile Case Tracking “until approximately June 10, 2024.” That is the first date the office has ever put on the end of the system that preceded Karpel. Why has it taken a software-inventory request to get it?" ], "karpel_note": "This is the request that finally dates the transition. The office states that Adult Case Tracking and Juvenile Case Tracking were used “until approximately June 10, 2024,” and that ProsecutorByKarpel is now its primary case management and records management system at version 7.5.03.21.2025. That is the office’s own approximation, not an independent one, and this page treats it as such. It is nevertheless the first time the office has put any date on the end of the predecessor system, and it is consistent with the June 2024 go-live used elsewhere in this archive.", "tile_title": "The software the office runs on", "tile_synopsis": "Seven systems named, versions and all, at no charge and with no exemption claimed. The only complete grant in the archive.", "badge_label": "Granted in full", "categories": [ "evidence-discovery", "governance-foia-compliance" ], "share_image": "assets/images/share/25-200.jpg" }, { "id": "25-197", "slug": "25-197-complaints-against-prosecutors-office", "title": "FOIA 25-197: A request for complaints against the office came back as the office's own civil-rights lawsuits", "short_title": "Complaints against the office", "subject": "Complaints, grievances and formal allegations against the Delta County Prosecutor's Office or its employees, January 2019 to August 2025, and the records of how each was resolved", "synopsis": "A request for every complaint, grievance or formal allegation against the office or its employees since 2019, and the record of how each was resolved. The office treated two of five categories as granted and produced eight federal-court filings from two lawsuits in which Prosecutor Lauren Wickman was a named defendant, including a $60,000 settlement. It certified that no internal grievances and no complaints to the Board of Commissioners exist, and it refused anything sent to oversight bodies or the State Bar under MCR 9.126 without saying whether any such records exist. No intake log, no complaint file and no disposition memo from inside the office was produced.", "status": "granted_in_part", "status_label": "Granted in part, denied in part", "submitted": "2025-08-13", "received": "2025-08-14", "response_date": "2025-09-03", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "requester": "Redacted", "fees_quoted": 0, "deposit_required": 0, "fees_paid": 0, "fee_waiver_requested": true, "fee_waiver_basis": "MCL 15.234", "fee_note": "No fee was quoted and no deposit was required. The request asked for a cost estimate before processing if charges would exceed $20 and asked for a public-interest fee waiver under MCL 15.234. The response assessed no search, review, redaction, copying or mailing charge, so the waiver question never had to be answered.", "appealed": false, "appeal_events": [], "appeal_status": "N/A", "appeal_note": "No appeal is recorded in the documents produced. The 180-day window to sue under MCL 15.240 closed on March 2, 2026, so a court challenge to the denials is no longer available on this record. The appeal status is shown as N/A rather than as “none” because this archive holds only what the office produced.", "requested": [ "All complaints, grievances or formal allegations filed against the Delta County Prosecutor's Office or its employees from January 1, 2019 through the date the request is processed, including records of the resolution, investigation or disposition of each.", "Written complaints submitted by members of the public, law enforcement, court staff or other government agencies.", "Internal grievances filed by Prosecutor's Office employees.", "Complaints submitted to oversight bodies, professional licensing boards, the State Bar of Michigan, or the County Board of Commissioners.", "Records of resolution, investigation or disposition of each complaint, in draft and final form, regardless of any “confidential,” “personnel” or “internal” label.", "For every withholding, the exemption claimed and the person responsible, with segregable non-exempt portions released, as MCL 15.235(5) requires.", "A detailed certification supporting any “no records” answer: the complaint systems, logs and databases searched, the staff and custodians consulted, and the search terms and date ranges used.", "A description of any withheld record by document type, date and general nature, even where the record itself is withheld." ], "provided": [ "Eight federal-court filings named in the response letter. From Kobasic v Delta County and Lauren Wickman: the First Amended Complaint, the defendants' motion for summary judgment, and the Release and Settlement Agreement. From Roberts v Jon Doe Delta County Prosecutor, et al.: the complaint, the First Amended Complaint, the response in opposition to the motion to amend, the district court opinion on the motions to dismiss, and the order and judgment dismissing the case.", "A ninth document the letter does not list: the defendants' response in opposition to the plaintiff's motion for a preliminary injunction in Kobasic (ECF 18), plus five pages of exhibits filed with the amended complaint.", "A response letter dated September 3, 2025, on Prosecutor's Office letterhead and signed by Lauren M. Wickman.", "A Notice of Denial form dated September 3, 2025, with the “Part” box checked, box 1 (exempt, Section 13(1)(h), MCR 9.126) checked, and box 2 (record does not exist) checked.", "A written certification that no internal employee grievances exist.", "A written certification that no complaints to the County Board of Commissioners exist.", "A Notice to Extend Response Time dated August 19, 2025, extending the response date to September 3, 2025.", "Fax transmission records showing the request reached the county on August 13, 2025, in two transmissions." ], "withheld": [ "Complaints and related records submitted to oversight bodies, licensing boards or the State Bar of Michigan — denied under MCR 9.126 and MCL 15.243(1)(h), with no statement whether any such records exist and no description of them.", "Internal employee grievances — the office certifies that no such records exist.", "Complaints to the County Board of Commissioners — the office certifies that no such records exist.", "Any complaint intake log, complaint file, investigation record or disposition memo kept inside the office itself — none was produced.", "The search description the request asked for in support of a nonexistence answer: systems, databases, custodians, search terms and date ranges.", "Any record showing how the two lawsuits were logged, if at all, as complaints against the office." ], "keywords": [ "25-197", "complaints", "grievances", "complaints against prosecutor", "Kobasic", "Kobasic v Delta County", "Turbo", "dangerous dog", "Roberts", "John Roberts", "Roberts v Doe", "settlement", "$60,000", "Release and Settlement Agreement", "federal court", "section 1983", "Western District of Michigan", "MCR 9.126", "MCL 15.243(1)(h)", "Attorney Grievance Commission", "State Bar", "oversight", "Board of Commissioners", "certification of nonexistence", "record does not exist", "employee grievances", "internal grievances", "MCL 15.234", "MCL 15.235", "MCL 15.240", "extension notice", "absolute prosecutorial immunity", "qualified immunity", "Monell", "Wickman", "DeSalvo", "Escanaba", "Delta County", "prosecutor", "transparency", "public records", "FOIA", "accountability", "civil rights" ], "documents": [ { "title": "FOIA Request and Fax Cover Sheet (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-197/25-197-request-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The request as faxed on August 13, 2025, with its cover note and four conditions on how a “no records” answer must be supported. Requester identifiers removed." }, { "title": "Response Letter, Denial Form and Extension Notice (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-197/25-197-response-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The September 3, 2025 letter, the Notice of Denial form with boxes 1 and 2 both checked, and the August 19 extension notice." }, { "title": "Fax Record and Notice Packet (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-197/25-197-fax-and-notices-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Fax transmission records, the county's FOIA policy page, and the statutory excerpts on appeal that accompanied the notice." }, { "title": "Kobasic v Delta County and Wickman — produced filings", "file": "assets/documents/25-197/25-197-kobasic-filings.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "First Amended Complaint with exhibits, the defendants' response on the preliminary injunction, and the summary-judgment motion, as produced by the office." }, { "title": "Roberts v Doe — produced filings", "file": "assets/documents/25-197/25-197-roberts-filings.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Complaint, First Amended Complaint, response to the motion to amend, the district court opinion, and the order and judgment dismissing the case." }, { "title": "Release and Settlement Agreement (Kobasic)", "file": "assets/documents/25-197/25-197-kobasic-settlement.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The four-page settlement agreement, signed and notarized March 16, 2022, with a $60,000 payment and no admission of liability." } ], "infographics": [ { "title": "From two lawsuits to one FOIA: the paper trail", "type": "interactive_timeline", "anchor": "#fig-papertrail", "alt": "Interactive three-track timeline, 2016-2026: Roberts (traffic stop, complaint, dismissal), Kobasic (incident, prosecution, amended complaint, summary judgment, $60,000 settlement), and the FOIA (fax, extension, response)." }, { "title": "Five categories asked for, five different answers", "type": "interactive_scorecard", "anchor": "#fig-scorecard", "alt": "Interactive scorecard of the five request categories: two granted with court filings only, two certified nonexistent, one denied under MCR 9.126." }, { "title": "The response clock, business day by business day", "type": "interactive_clock", "anchor": "#fig-clock", "alt": "Interactive business-day clock: deemed receipt August 14, extension August 19, original deadline August 21, response September 3, outer deadline September 5, 2025." } ], "published": "2026-10-25", "updated": "2026-10-25", "featured": true, "watchdog_alerts": [ "Asked for complaints against the office, the office produced its own federal lawsuits. Both cases are ones in which Prosecutor Lauren Wickman was a named defendant. Is litigation the whole of the complaint record, or just the part that was already public?", "The Notice of Denial checks “exempt” and “record does not exist” at the same time, without saying which answer applies to which category. Which of the five categories was refused, and which was simply empty?", "Two categories were certified as records that do not exist, but the search description the request demanded — systems, custodians, search terms, date ranges — was never given. How can a nonexistence certification be tested without it?", "The State Bar and oversight category was refused under MCR 9.126 without saying whether any responsive records exist. The public cannot tell a lawful withholding from an empty file." ], "tile_title": "The complaints against the office", "tile_synopsis": "Two lawsuits produced, including a $60,000 settlement. Two categories certified as nonexistent, one refused under MCR 9.126, and no complaint log at all.", "badge_label": "Granted in part", "categories": [ "complaints-grievances", "governance-foia-compliance" ], "share_image": "assets/images/share/25-197.jpg" }, { "id": "25-196", "slug": "25-196-county-audits-2019-2024", "title": "FOIA 25-196: Audits of the office, 2019 through 2024 — five county financial statements produced, two fiscal years missing", "short_title": "The audits, 2019–2024", "subject": "Any and all internal or external audits, audit reports, audit findings, or related evaluations conducted on or for the Delta County Prosecutor's Office from January 1, 2019 through December 31, 2024, including financial, operational and compliance audits, audits by internal county staff, independent contractors or state and federal agencies, correspondence transmitting audit results, and audit response plans, corrective action reports and follow-up evaluations.", "synopsis": "A request for every audit of the prosecutor's office over a six-year window, worded to capture financial, operational and compliance reviews from any source. The office took a volume extension to September 3, 2025 and then released five annual county financial statements — fiscal years 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2023 — running 734 pages. Fiscal year 2022 and fiscal year 2024, both inside the requested window, are absent. No cover letter, no exemption citation and no certificate of nonexistence accompanies the release. The statements are audits of Delta County as a whole, not of the prosecutor's office, but each one carries a General Fund budget-and-actual schedule with a line for the prosecuting attorney, which is how the public can see what the office actually spent.", "status": "granted_in_part", "status_label": "Granted in part — five annual county financial statements produced; fiscal years 2022 and 2024 absent from the release; no exemption cited and no certificate of nonexistence", "submitted": "2025-08-13", "received": "2025-08-13", "response_date": "2025-09-03", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "requester": "Redacted", "fees_quoted": 0, "deposit_required": 0, "fees_paid": 0, "fee_waiver_requested": true, "fee_waiver_basis": "MCL 15.234", "fee_note": "No fee was quoted and no deposit was demanded. The request asked that any estimate above $20 be provided before work began; none appears in the release. The request also asked for a fee waiver under MCL 15.234, and the release contains no written decision granting or denying it.", "appealed": false, "appeal_events": [], "appeal_status": "No appeal on file", "appeal_note": "No appeal is on file in this archive. The release contains no denial form and no appeal-rights notice, so the appeal clock described in MCL 15.240 was never started by this response as far as the record shows.", "requested": [ "Any and all internal or external audits, audit reports, audit findings, or related evaluations conducted on or for the Delta County Prosecutor's Office from January 1, 2019 through December 31, 2024.", "Financial audits, operational audits and compliance audits.", "Audits performed by internal county staff, independent contractors, or state and federal agencies.", "Correspondence transmitting audit results to or from the prosecutor's office.", "Audit response plans, corrective action reports and follow-up evaluations.", "All responsive records whether labeled draft, final, internal, confidential or not for public release.", "Records in electronic form as PDF, with an itemized estimate before processing if fees would exceed $20." ], "provided": [ "County of Delta, Michigan — Basic Financial Statements with Supplemental Information, year ended September 30, 2018 (122 pages).", "County of Delta, Michigan — Basic Financial Statements with Supplemental Information, year ended September 30, 2019 (146 pages).", "County of Delta, Michigan — Basic Financial Statements with Supplemental Information, year ended September 30, 2020 (156 pages).", "County of Delta, Michigan — Basic Financial Statements with Supplemental Information, year ended September 30, 2021 (174 pages).", "County of Delta, Michigan — Basic Financial Statements with Supplemental Information, year ended September 30, 2023 (136 pages).", "A Notice to Extend Response Time for Request No. 25-196, extending the response date to September 3, 2025 on the volume ground." ], "withheld": [ "The audit for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2022 — inside the requested window, absent from the release.", "The audit for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2024 — inside the requested window, absent from the release.", "Any audit, review or evaluation of the prosecutor's office itself, as distinct from the county's annual financial statements.", "Any correspondence transmitting audit results to or from the office.", "Any audit response plan, corrective action report or follow-up evaluation.", "Any draft, working paper or preliminary finding." ], "keywords": [ "25-196", "audits", "audit", "financial statements", "fiscal year", "county audit", "comprehensive annual financial report", "general fund", "prosecuting attorney budget", "corrective action", "follow-up evaluation", "independent auditor", "single audit", "findings and responses", "2019", "2020", "2021", "2022", "2023", "2024", "volume extension", "forty business days", "september 3 2025", "no cover letter", "no exemption cited", "missing fiscal year", "budget and actual", "expenditures" ], "documents": [ { "title": "Request letter, August 13, 2025", "file": "assets/documents/25-196/25-196-request-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Three-page faxed request: a cover note setting out four procedural demands, the request itself for all audits of the office from January 1, 2019 through December 31, 2024, and the signature page. Requester name, address, email and phone are redacted, as is the sending fax number." }, { "title": "Notice to Extend Response Time", "file": "assets/documents/25-196/25-196-extension-form-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The county's extension form, request number 25-196, received by fax August 13, 2025, extending the response date to September 3, 2025 under the volume ground. Requester contact details are redacted." }, { "title": "County financial statements, fiscal year ended September 30, 2018", "file": "assets/documents/25-196/25-196-fy2018-audit.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "122 pages. Produced although the year ended before the requested window opened. General Fund budget-and-actual schedule shows the prosecuting attorney line at $572,965 original, $591,067 final, $620,237 actual." }, { "title": "County financial statements, fiscal year ended September 30, 2019", "file": "assets/documents/25-196/25-196-fy2019-audit.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "146 pages. Prosecuting attorney line: $596,740 original, $586,182 final, $557,689 actual." }, { "title": "County financial statements, fiscal year ended September 30, 2020", "file": "assets/documents/25-196/25-196-fy2020-audit.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "156 pages." }, { "title": "County financial statements, fiscal year ended September 30, 2021", "file": "assets/documents/25-196/25-196-fy2021-audit.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "174 pages." }, { "title": "County financial statements, fiscal year ended September 30, 2023", "file": "assets/documents/25-196/25-196-fy2023-audit.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "136 pages. Prosecuting attorney line: $803,567 original, $725,147 final, $663,455 actual." } ], "infographics": [], "charts": [ { "title": "Timeline", "type": "timeline", "anchor": "fig-timeline-196" }, { "title": "Prosecuting attorney expenditure", "type": "bars", "anchor": "fig-cost-196" }, { "title": "Request scorecard", "type": "scorecard", "anchor": "fig-scorecard-196" } ], "published": "2026-10-25", "updated": "2026-10-25", "featured": true, "watchdog_alerts": [ "The request asked for audits of the prosecutor's office. What came back is the county's own annual financial statements — audits of Delta County as a whole. The office did not say whether it has ever been audited as an office, and did not say that it has not. It simply sent the county's statements.", "Two fiscal years inside the requested window are missing. The release runs 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2023. The fiscal year ended September 30, 2022 and the fiscal year ended September 30, 2024 are not in it, and nothing in the release explains the gap. The office produced a 2018 audit that falls outside the window while omitting two that fall inside it.", "There is no cover letter. No denial form. No exemption citation. No certificate of nonexistence. The request asked in advance that a claim of 'no such records' be accompanied by a written description of the search, the custodians consulted and the systems reviewed. The release contains no such certification for any category.", "The request asked specifically for audit response plans, corrective action reports and follow-up evaluations. None was produced. If the county's audits contained no findings requiring a response, that is a fact the office could have stated; it did not.", "The same annual statements the office produced are the documents that show what the office spends. The prosecuting attorney line in the General Fund schedule reads $620,237 in fiscal 2018, $557,689 in fiscal 2019 and $663,455 in fiscal 2023. Those figures were already public in the county's audit. Requests for the office's case statistics and case-processing figures were answered in 25-134, 25-136 and 25-137 with certificates of nonexistence." ], "karpel_note": "ProsecutorByKarpel went live in June 2024, so the audits produced here cover years that predate the system. This page does not fault the office for how it generated records before that date. It concerns what the office released, what it did not, and what it said about the records it holds.", "tile_title": "Five audits produced, two fiscal years missing, no cover letter", "tile_synopsis": "A six-year request for every audit of the prosecutor's office returned five county financial statements — and left out fiscal 2022 and fiscal 2024 without a word of explanation.", "badge_label": "Granted in part", "categories": [ "budget-spending", "governance-foia-compliance" ], "share_image": "assets/images/share/25-196.jpg" }, { "id": "25-195", "slug": "25-195-prosecutorial-reports-2023-2024", "title": "FOIA 25-195: Reports on the office's own work — four case-tracking reports produced, performance reviews certified nonexistent, county reports withheld as attorney-client", "short_title": "Reports on the office's own work, 2023–2024", "subject": "All internal or external reports, evaluations, reviews, assessments, audits, performance appraisals, case statistics, summaries or compilations of prosecutorial work prepared by, for or on behalf of the Delta County Prosecutor's Office during 2023 and 2024.", "synopsis": "A request for the paper trail a prosecutor's office keeps about its own work: reports, evaluations, reviews, assessments, audits, performance appraisals, case statistics, summaries and compilations prepared during January 1, 2023 through December 31, 2024, including drafts and records marked confidential. The office granted the request in part and denied it in part. It produced ten documents, among them two budget memos to the Board of County Commissioners, four Adult Case Tracking reports with run dates of 11/30/2023, a Warrants Authorized by Agency report, a PACC annual survey, and several job descriptions and MDOC statistical excerpts attached to the budget memos. It denied “reports provided to or prepared for county officials” outside those produced, on attorney-client privilege, because the office also serves as civil counsel to the county. It denied performance reviews, employee evaluations and operational assessments as nonexistent, with a certificate of nonexistence. It quoted $5,961.60 with a $2,980.80 deposit and a 270-day timeline to review roughly 2,400 case files.", "status": "granted_in_part", "status_label": "Granted in part and denied in part — ten documents produced; county reports withheld on attorney-client privilege; performance reviews certified nonexistent; $5,961.60 estimated, $2,980.80 deposit, 270 days", "submitted": "2025-08-13", "received": "2025-08-14", "response_date": "2025-09-03", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "requester": "Redacted", "fees_quoted": 5961.6, "deposit_required": 2980.8, "fees_paid": 0, "fee_waiver_requested": true, "fee_waiver_basis": "MCL 15.234", "fee_note": "The office quoted $5,961.60 and demanded a 50% deposit of $2,980.80 before it would begin, with an estimated 270-day timeline from receipt of the deposit. The itemization charges 480 fifteen-minute increments twice: once to locate the records at $6.21 per increment ($2,980.80) and again to redact them at $6.21 per increment ($2,980.80). The estimate is built on a review of approximately 2,400 case files. No fee waiver was granted. The office nonetheless produced ten documents with the response, including four case-tracking reports it says were already generated, which suggests the fee estimate covers work beyond what was actually needed to answer the parts that were granted.", "appealed": false, "appeal_events": [], "appeal_status": "No appeal on file", "appeal_note": "No appeal is on file in this archive. The response letter enclosed a blank FOIA Appeal Form and the appeal-rights statute, but this archive contains no record of an appeal having been filed.", "requested": [ "All internal or external reports, evaluations, reviews, assessments, audits, performance appraisals, case statistics, summaries or compilations of prosecutorial work prepared by, for or on behalf of the Delta County Prosecutor or Prosecutor's Office during January 1, 2023 through December 31, 2024.", "Performance reviews, employee evaluations and operational assessments.", "Annual, mid-year or year-end reports.", "Case summaries or statistical breakdowns by type, disposition or outcome.", "Reports provided to or prepared for county officials, oversight bodies or the public.", "Any compiled data, tables, charts or narrative summaries reflecting prosecutorial work or office activity.", "Drafts and records marked “confidential.”" ], "provided": [ "Budget Memo FY 2024-25, dated July 17, 2024, to the Board of County Commissioners from Prosecutor Wickman, with Attachments A through G.", "Draft Memo FY 2024-25, a near-duplicate of the above with a caseload chart.", "Budget Memo FY 2023-24, dated September 10, 2023, with attached MDOC statistical excerpts, county job descriptions and the PACC 2022 Annual Prosecution Survey.", "Draft Memo FY 2023-24, a near-duplicate of the above.", "Charges on Authorized Misdemeanor Case Report, 01/01/2023–11/30/2023, run date 11/30/2023.", "Charges on Authorized Felony Cases Report, 01/01/2023–11/30/2023, run date 11/30/2023.", "Charges on Authorized Felony Cases Report, 01/01/2023–12/31/2023, run date 11/30/2023.", "Warrants Authorized by Agency, 01/01/2023–11/30/2023, run date 11/30/2023.", "A certificate of nonexistence for performance reviews, employee evaluations and operational assessments.", "A Notice of Denial form dated 09/03/2025 and a Notice to Extend Response Time form." ], "withheld": [ "“Reports provided to or prepared for county officials” outside the documents produced — withheld on attorney-client privilege.", "Performance reviews, employee evaluations and operational assessments — certified nonexistent.", "Any report, evaluation or assessment the office prepared for county officials that it did not choose to produce.", "Any explanation of which records it reviewed before concluding that performance reviews and evaluations do not exist." ], "keywords": [ "25-195", "reports", "evaluations", "performance reviews", "employee evaluations", "operational assessments", "audits", "case statistics", "case summaries", "annual report", "mid-year report", "year-end report", "prosecutorial work", "budget memo", "Board of County Commissioners", "attorney-client privilege", "certificate of nonexistence", "Adult Case Tracking", "Charges on Authorized", "Warrants Authorized by Agency", "PACC survey", "MDOC statistical report", "MCL 15.243(1)(g)", "MCL 15.234", "MCL 15.235", "fee estimate", "deposit", "270 days", "ProsecutorByKarpel", "Emily DeSalvo", "Lauren Wickman", "transparency", "accountability" ], "documents": [ { "title": "FOIA Request (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-195/25-195-request-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The three-page request faxed on August 13, 2025 asking for all reports, evaluations, reviews, assessments, audits, performance appraisals, case statistics, summaries and compilations of prosecutorial work prepared during 2023 and 2024, including drafts and records marked confidential. Requester identifiers removed." }, { "title": "Response Letter (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-195/25-195-response-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The three-page letter dated September 3, 2025 captioned “Re: FOIA Request #25-195,” granting the request in part, listing the ten documents produced, denying county-official reports on attorney-client privilege, certifying performance reviews and evaluations nonexistent, and quoting $5,961.60 with a $2,980.80 deposit and a 270-day timeline. Requester identifiers removed." }, { "title": "Detailed Cost Itemization (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-195/25-195-fee-itemization-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The seven-page itemization dated 09/03/2025. Locate: 7,200 minutes ÷ 15 = 480 increments at $6.21 = $2,980.80. Redact: 480 increments at $6.21 = $2,980.80. Subtotal $5,961.60; 50% deposit $2,980.80; estimated 270 days. Requester identifiers removed." }, { "title": "Notice of Denial (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-195/25-195-denial-form-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The five-page Notice of Denial dated 09/03/2025 for request 25-195, received 08/14/2025. Reason boxes 1 (“Exempt from Disclosure”), 2 (“Record Does Not Exist”) and 3 (“Redaction”) are all checked. Contact: Emily DeSalvo. Requester identifiers removed." }, { "title": "Notice to Extend Response Time (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-195/25-195-extension-form-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The county's extension form for request 25-195, received by fax, with reason box 1 checked — the need to review “a voluminous amount of separate and distinct public records.” Contact: Emily DeSalvo, 906-789-5100. The handwritten dates on the form are not legible enough to rely on and are not asserted on this page. Requester identifiers removed." }, { "title": "Responsive Documents (redacted, 71 pages)", "file": "assets/documents/25-195/25-195-responsive-documents-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The 71 pages produced with the response: the FY 2024-25 and FY 2023-24 budget memos to the Board of County Commissioners and their drafts and attachments; four Adult Case Tracking reports with run dates of 11/30/2023; a Warrants Authorized by Agency report; the PACC 2022 Annual Prosecution Survey; county job descriptions; and MDOC statistical excerpts. Requester identifiers removed." } ], "infographics": [], "charts": [ { "title": "The paper trail", "type": "interactive timeline", "anchor": "papertrail" }, { "title": "What the office produced", "type": "bars", "anchor": "produced" }, { "title": "What was asked and what came back", "type": "scorecard", "anchor": "scorecard" } ], "published": "2026-10-25", "updated": "2026-10-25", "featured": true, "watchdog_alerts": [ "The office produced four Adult Case Tracking reports with run dates of 11/30/2023 — reports that were already sitting in its system. In FOIA 25-134, 25-136 and 25-137 the same office certified that case statistics and case-processing figures did not exist. The records produced here show that at least some of that data was being generated and retained all along.", "The office denied “reports provided to or prepared for county officials” on attorney-client privilege, then produced two budget memos addressed to the Board of County Commissioners. The privilege claim and the production are in the same packet. The office does not explain why some reports to county officials are privileged and others are not.", "The FY 2024-25 budget memo itself offers “final review of any complex FOIA requests” as a service the office would provide if funded — the office proposing to review its own FOIA compliance.", "The office certified that performance reviews, employee evaluations and operational assessments do not exist, but does not describe the search it conducted or say who was asked. A certificate of nonexistence is only as good as the search behind it.", "The office quoted $5,961.60 and a 270-day timeline to review roughly 2,400 case files, then produced ten documents with the response. It does not reconcile the estimate with what it actually produced." ], "karpel_note": "ProsecutorByKarpel went live in June 2024, so the 2023 case-tracking reports produced here predate the system. This page does not fault the office for how it generated those reports in 2023. The point is that the reports existed and were produced on request, which is relevant to earlier requests in which the office said comparable statistics did not exist.", "tile_title": "Four case-tracking reports produced, after three requests were told the data didn't exist", "tile_synopsis": "The office produced four Adult Case Tracking reports with 11/30/2023 run dates, withheld county reports as attorney-client, and certified performance reviews nonexistent.", "badge_label": "Granted in part", "categories": [ "budget-spending", "case-statistics", "personnel-staffing" ], "share_image": "assets/images/share/25-195.jpg" }, { "id": "25-194", "slug": "25-194-prosecutor-correspondence-2024", "title": "FOIA 25-194: Every email and text the Prosecutor sent in 2024 — a $63,028.80 estimate on a request the requester offered to narrow", "short_title": "Prosecutor correspondence, 2024", "subject": "All correspondence to and from Prosecutor Lauren M. Wickman during calendar year 2024 involving law enforcement agencies, attorneys of record, county commissioners or other elected officials, and members of the media.", "synopsis": "A request for every email, letter and text message to or from Prosecutor Lauren Wickman between January 1 and December 31, 2024, in four categories: communications with law enforcement, with defense attorneys and other attorneys of record, with county commissioners or other elected officials about prosecutorial operations, policy or case status, and with the media. The requester asked for emails with attachments and texts with their content, date and time stamps, and sender and recipient identifiers. Critically, the requester offered to accept a log first — date, sender, recipient and subject — to narrow the request before any records were reviewed. The requester asked for electronic delivery, an itemized estimate if costs would exceed $20, a citation to the specific statutory exemption and the name and title of the person responsible under MCL 15.235(5), and release of all reasonably segregable non-exempt portions. The office answered on September 3, 2025 with a letter that calls the request both “denied” and “granted,” invokes thirteen separate exemptions, cites roughly 14,400 email conversations, 50 text conversations and 1,700 case files, and quotes $63,028.80 with a $31,514.40 deposit and a 270-day timeline. It did not produce the log the requester offered to accept, and it did not explain why a log would cost more than the full records.", "status": "granted_in_part", "status_label": "Granted in part and denied in part — exemptions cited; $63,028.80 estimated, $31,514.40 deposit required, 270 days", "submitted": "2025-08-13", "received": "2025-08-14", "response_date": "2025-09-03", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "requester": "Redacted", "fees_quoted": 63028.8, "deposit_required": 31514.4, "fees_paid": 0, "fee_waiver_requested": true, "fee_waiver_basis": "MCL 15.234", "fee_note": "The office quoted $63,028.80 and demanded a 50% deposit of $31,514.40 before it would begin, with an estimated 270-day timeline from receipt of the deposit. The itemization charges the same 2,880 fifteen-minute increments twice: once to locate the records at $6.21 per increment ($17,870.40) and again to redact them at $15.68 per increment ($45,158.40). That is 720 hours to find the records and another 720 hours to redact them, on a request in which the requester offered in writing to accept a log of date, sender, recipient and subject first, precisely to avoid a full-document review. No fee waiver was granted. The $63,028.80 estimate is the second-largest in this archive, behind only FOIA 25-244's $74,520.", "appealed": false, "appeal_events": [], "appeal_status": "No appeal on file", "appeal_note": "No appeal is on file in this archive. A fee-based denial can be appealed to the Delta County Board of Commissioners under MCL 15.240a, and a records denial under MCL 15.240. The response letter enclosed a blank FOIA Appeal Form and the appeal-rights statute, but this archive contains no record of an appeal having been filed.", "requested": [ "All correspondence, including emails, letters and text messages, to or from Prosecutor Lauren Wickman between January 1, 2024 and December 31, 2024, that involves communications with law enforcement agencies.", "The same, for communications with defense attorneys or other attorneys of record in criminal matters.", "The same, for communications with county commissioners or other elected officials regarding prosecutorial operations, policy or case status.", "The same, for communications with members of the media.", "Emails to include their attachments; text messages to include their content, date and time stamps, and sender and recipient identifiers.", "As an alternative first step, a log of the communications — date, sender, recipient and subject — which the requester offered to accept in order to narrow the request.", "Delivery in electronic form, with PDF preferred.", "An itemized written estimate in advance if the cost would exceed $20.", "A citation to the specific statutory exemption relied on and the name and title of the person responsible, per MCL 15.235(5).", "Release of all reasonably segregable non-exempt portions of any withheld record." ], "provided": [ "A four-page response letter dated September 3, 2025, captioned “Re: FOIA Request #25-194,” quoting the request and listing thirteen statutory exemptions.", "A statement that the office would need to review approximately 14,400 email conversations, approximately 50 text message conversations, and approximately 1,700 case files for mail and letter correspondence.", "A detailed cost itemization dated 09/03/2025 quoting $63,028.80 and a $31,514.40 deposit, with a 270-day estimated timeline.", "A Notice of Denial form dated 09/03/2025 checking “Exempt from Disclosure” and “Redaction,” with the contact listed as Emily DeSalvo, 906-789-5100.", "A Notice to Extend Response Time form checking reason box 1, the “voluminous amount of separate and distinct public records” ground.", "The office's FOIA written-policies page, an excerpt of MCL 15.240, and a blank FOIA Appeal Form.", "Zimbra fax receipts dated 08-13-2025 at 8:54 AM showing the two-page request transmitted to the office." ], "withheld": [ "Every responsive email, letter and text message. No correspondence was produced.", "The log of date, sender, recipient and subject that the requester offered to accept as a first step.", "The identity of the specific records the office says are exempt, beyond the categorical exemption list.", "Any explanation of why a log would cost as much as, or more than, the underlying records.", "Any explanation of how the office arrived at 14,400 email conversations, 50 text conversations and 1,700 case files." ], "keywords": [ "25-194", "prosecutor correspondence", "emails", "text messages", "communications", "law enforcement", "defense attorneys", "attorneys of record", "county commissioners", "elected officials", "media", "2024", "log", "date sender recipient subject", "MCL 15.243(1)(a)", "MCL 15.243(1)(h)", "MCL 15.243(1)(g)", "MCL 15.243(1)(b)", "MCL 15.243(1)(s)", "attorney work product", "attorney-client privilege", "Messenger v Ingham County Prosecutor", "MCL 15.234", "MCL 15.235(5)", "MCL 15.244", "segregation", "fee estimate", "deposit", "270 days", "ProsecutorByKarpel", "Emily DeSalvo", "Lauren Wickman", "transparency", "accountability" ], "documents": [ { "title": "FOIA Request (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-194/25-194-request-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The four-page request faxed on August 13, 2025 asking for all 2024 correspondence to or from Prosecutor Wickman in four categories, with the offer to accept a log first, the electronic-delivery request, the $20 estimate threshold, the MCL 15.235(5) demand for the exemption and the responsible person, and the segregation demand. Requester identifiers removed." }, { "title": "Response Letter (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-194/25-194-response-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The four-page letter dated September 3, 2025 captioned “Re: FOIA Request #25-194,” which calls the request both “denied” and “granted,” invokes thirteen exemptions, cites roughly 14,400 email conversations, 50 text conversations and 1,700 case files, and quotes $63,028.80 with a $31,514.40 deposit and a 270-day timeline. Requester identifiers removed." }, { "title": "Detailed Cost Itemization (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-194/25-194-fee-itemization-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The nine-page itemization dated 09/03/2025. Locate: 43,200 minutes ÷ 15 = 2,880 increments at $6.21 = $17,870.40. Redact: 2,880 increments at $15.68 = $45,158.40. Subtotal $63,028.80; 50% deposit $31,514.40; estimated 270 days. Requester identifiers removed." }, { "title": "Notice of Denial (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-194/25-194-denial-form-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The seven-page Notice of Denial dated 09/03/2025 for request 25-194, received 08/14/2025. Reason boxes 1 (“Exempt from Disclosure”) and 3 (“Redaction”) are checked, with “see attachment.” Contact: Emily DeSalvo, 906-789-5100. Requester identifiers removed." }, { "title": "Notice to Extend Response Time (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-194/25-194-extension-form-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The county's extension form for request 25-194, received by fax, with reason box 1 checked — the need to review “a voluminous amount of separate and distinct public records.” Contact: Emily DeSalvo, 906-789-5100. The handwritten dates on the form are not legible enough to rely on and are not asserted on this page. Requester identifiers removed." } ], "infographics": [], "charts": [ { "title": "The paper trail", "type": "interactive timeline", "anchor": "papertrail" }, { "title": "Where the $63,028.80 goes", "type": "bars", "anchor": "cost" }, { "title": "What was asked and what came back", "type": "scorecard", "anchor": "scorecard" } ], "published": "2026-10-25", "updated": "2026-10-25", "featured": true, "watchdog_alerts": [ "The requester offered in writing to accept a log — date, sender, recipient and subject — as a first step to narrow the request before any documents were reviewed. The office never addressed the offer. It quoted a full-document search and redaction instead: 720 hours to locate and another 720 hours to redact.", "The same 2,880 fifteen-minute increments are charged twice: once to find the records at $6.21 per increment and again to redact them at $15.68 per increment. The itemization does not explain why the locate estimate and the redaction estimate are identical, or why a log would not have collapsed both.", "The letter is internally inconsistent about the disposition. One page says the content is “DENIED to the extent that the content … is exempt,” and another says “Your request is GRANTED, subject to any statutory exemptions.” A requester cannot tell from the letter whether the request was granted or denied.", "Thirteen exemptions are listed, but the office does not say which exemption applies to which category of communication, or which records it actually reviewed before deciding. The MCL 15.235(5) demand for the specific exemption and the name and title of the responsible person is answered with a list, not an identification.", "The office estimates 270 days from receipt of the deposit. That is roughly nine months to produce correspondence that the requester offered to receive as a one-line-per-message log." ], "karpel_note": "ProsecutorByKarpel went live in June 2024, so roughly five months of the requested 2024 period predate the system. This page does not fault the office for how it stored correspondence before June 2024. The criticism is that the office never said which months it could search, whether the pre-June-2024 records are reachable at all, or why the volume estimate did not distinguish between the two systems.", "tile_title": "A $63,028.80 quote on a request the requester offered to narrow", "tile_synopsis": "Every 2024 email and text, in four categories. The requester offered to take a log first. The office quoted 1,440 hours of work and a $31,514.40 deposit instead.", "badge_label": "Granted in part", "categories": [ "governance-foia-compliance", "law-enforcement" ], "share_image": "assets/images/share/25-194.jpg" }, { "id": "25-215", "slug": "25-215-average-case-processing-time-2020-2023", "title": "FOIA 25-215: Three answers to one request — two certificates of nonexistence, a grant, and a $13,248 estimate", "short_title": "Case processing times, answered three ways", "subject": "Any records, reports, data or summaries documenting average or median case processing times for criminal cases handled by the office in 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023, measured from case initiation (warrant authorization or charging decision) to final resolution (plea, dismissal or trial verdict)", "synopsis": "A request dated August 9, 2025 and received by fax on September 9, 2025 asked the Delta County Prosecutor's Office for any records, reports, data or summaries documenting average or median case processing times for criminal cases in 2020 through 2023. On September 15, 2025 the office answered the same request three different ways in one letter: it denied the records as nonexistent, denied the reports as nonexistent, and then granted the data subject to redaction and a $13,248 fee estimate with a $6,624 deposit and a 180-day production window. In place of its own processing-time data it produced seven Michigan State Court Administrative Office publications about the courts — clearance rates for the 94th District Court and the 47th Circuit Court from 2006 to 2024, a case-age report, Administrative Order 2011-3 and a case-management guide — and told the requester the request might better be sent to the courts. The same packet contains a second, separate fee itemization of $3,312 for FOIA 25-137.", "status": "granted_in_part", "status_label": "Granted in part", "submitted": "2025-08-09", "received": "2025-09-09", "response_date": "2025-09-15", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "requester": "Redacted", "fees_quoted": 13248, "fees_quoted_note": "$13,248 subtotal, $6,624 deposit", "deposit_required": 6624, "fees_paid": 0, "fee_waiver_requested": true, "fee_waiver_basis": "MCL 15.234", "fee_note": "The September 15, 2025 response attaches a FOIA Fee Itemization totaling $13,248 and requires a 50 percent deposit of $6,624 before any responsive record is produced. The estimate charges 1,066.67 quarter-hour increments to locate the records at $6.21 per quarter hour (an hourly wage of $24.82 including fringe), and the same 1,066.67 increments again to redact them, at the same rate — roughly 266.7 hours on each side, about 533 hours in total. The itemization does not check the $20 indigence discount or the $20 nonprofit discount. The office estimates 180 days from receipt of the deposit to produce the records. A fee waiver was requested under MCL 15.234; the response does not address the waiver request and neither discount box is marked. The same packet carries a second, separate itemization for FOIA 25-137 — 266.67 locate increments and 266.67 redact increments at the same $6.21 rate, a $3,312 subtotal and a $1,656 deposit — presented as a fresh estimate in further response to that earlier request.", "appealed": false, "appeal_events": [], "appeal_status": "N/A", "appeal_note": "No appeal was filed. The two certificates of nonexistence and the fee-conditioned grant would each have supported an appeal under MCL 15.240 — a certificate of nonexistence is a denial for appeal purposes, and a grant conditioned on a fee the requester has not accepted is at least arguably a partial denial. The response itself reproduces the appeal route to the chairperson of the Delta County Board of Commissioners and to the Delta County Circuit Court. No appeal was taken, and this page does not fault the requester for that choice.", "requested": [ "Any records, reports, data or summaries maintained by the office that document average or median case processing times for criminal cases, 2020 through 2023", "A definition of case processing time as the period between case initiation (warrant authorization or charging decision) and final resolution (plea, dismissal or trial verdict)", "Any statistics, summaries or reports the office maintains internally or for external reporting purposes", "Records in electronic form (PDF, Excel or CSV) where available", "A certificate of nonexistence under MCL 15.235(5)(b) if no responsive records exist", "An itemized fee estimate in advance if charges would exceed $20", "A waiver of all fees under MCL 15.234" ], "provided": [ "A determination letter dated September 15, 2025 stating three separate dispositions for the same request", "A certificate of nonexistence for records, reports and summaries documenting average or median case processing times", "A second certificate of nonexistence for statistics, summaries and reports maintained internally or for external reporting", "A grant of “data maintained by the Delta County Prosecutor's Office that document average or median case processing times,” subject to redaction under MCL 15.243(1)(a) and a $13,248 fee estimate", "Clearance Rates for the 94th District Court, 2006 to 2024", "Clearance Rates for the 94th District Court for 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024", "Clearance Rates for the 47th Circuit Court, 2006 to 2024", "Clearance Rates for the 47th Circuit Court for 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024", "Case Age for the 47th Circuit Court Criminal, 2006 to 2024", "Michigan Supreme Court Administrative Order No. 2011-3, as amended", "The Michigan Courts “Case Management for Trial Courts” guidance pages", "A link to the Michigan courts' Interactive Court Data Dashboard", "A Notice of Denial form, request 25-215, date received 09/09/2025, date of notice 09/15/2025", "A FOIA Fee Itemization for 25-215 totaling $13,248 with a $6,624 deposit and a 180-day estimate", "A second FOIA Fee Itemization for 25-137 totaling $3,312 with a $1,656 deposit", "The MCL 15.240 excerpt, the county FOIA appeal form, and the county's FOIA policies page" ], "withheld": [ "Any record the office itself maintains that measures average or median case processing time — certified nonexistent", "Any internal or external statistics, summaries or reports on processing time — certified nonexistent", "The “data” the office granted — not produced, because production is conditioned on a $6,624 deposit that was not paid", "Defendant names, addresses, criminal identification numbers, dates of birth, docket and case numbers, and victim and witness names and addresses — the categories the letter says would be redacted from any located document" ], "keywords": [ "FOIA", "25-215", "Delta County", "Prosecutor", "Lauren Wickman", "case processing time", "average case processing time", "median case processing time", "case processing times 2020 2021 2022 2023", "clearance rate", "case age", "94th District Court", "47th Circuit Court", "D94", "C47", "Michigan State Court Administrative Office", "SCAO", "Interactive Court Data Dashboard", "Administrative Order 2011-3", "case management", "caseflow management", "certificate of nonexistence", "fee itemization", "deposit", "180 days", "MCL 15.234", "MCL 15.235", "MCL 15.240", "MCL 15.243", "25-137", "substantially similar", "ProsecutorByKarpel", "Prosecutor by Karpel", "Karpel", "ACT", "JCT", "Philadelphia District Attorney", "public data dashboard", "granted in part" ], "documents": [ { "title": "Determination letter, September 15, 2025", "file": "assets/documents/25-215/25-215-response-redacted.pdf", "type": "RESP", "desc": "The four-page letter denying the request twice as nonexistent, granting it a third time subject to redaction and a fee, arguing that case processing time is largely outside the prosecutor's control, and listing the seven court-statistics publications the office supplied instead. Requester name and address removed." }, { "title": "Notice of Denial, appeal form and FOIA policies, September 15, 2025", "file": "assets/documents/25-215/25-215-forms-redacted.pdf", "type": "DOC", "desc": "Five pages: the Notice of Denial of FOIA Request for 25-215 with boxes 1, 2 and 3 marked and the redaction description written out, the MCL 15.240 excerpt, the county FOIA appeal form, and the county's FOIA written policies page. Requester name, address, email and zip removed." }, { "title": "FOIA Fee Itemizations, 25-215 and 25-137", "file": "assets/documents/25-215/25-215-fee-itemizations-redacted.pdf", "type": "DOC", "desc": "Fourteen pages containing two separate itemizations. The first, for 25-215, charges 1,066.67 quarter-hour increments to locate and 1,066.67 again to redact at $6.21 per quarter hour, for a $13,248 subtotal and a $6,624 deposit. The second, for 25-137, charges 266.67 increments each side at the same rate, for a $3,312 subtotal and a $1,656 deposit. Neither form marks the indigence or nonprofit discount box." }, { "title": "Original request and fax receipt", "file": "assets/documents/25-215/25-215-request-and-receipt-redacted.pdf", "type": "DOC", "desc": "Five pages: the Zimbra fax-receipt notices showing the request arrived September 9, 2025 at 2:56 p.m., the original August 9, 2025 request with its statement of public interest, and the requester's Exhibit A — a screenshot of the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office public data dashboard offered as a model. Requester signature block removed." }, { "title": "Responsive documents: Michigan court statistics and case-management material", "file": "assets/documents/25-215/25-215-responsive-court-data.pdf", "type": "DOC", "desc": "Thirty pages produced with the response: the Michigan Interactive Court Data Dashboard clearance-rate screens for the 94th District Court and the 47th Circuit Court, 2006 to 2024 and year by year from 2019 to 2024; the 47th Circuit case-age report; Michigan Supreme Court Administrative Order No. 2011-3; and the Michigan Courts case-management guidance pages. None of these is a record of the Prosecutor's Office's own processing time." } ], "infographics": [ { "title": "From the request to the three answers", "type": "interactive_timeline", "anchor": "#fig-timeline-215", "alt": "Interactive timeline from the August 9 2025 request, through the September 9 2025 fax receipt and the September 15 2025 response, to the 180-day production estimate that runs from receipt of the deposit." }, { "title": "94th District Court clearance rates, 2019 to 2024", "type": "interactive_bars", "anchor": "#fig-d94-215", "alt": "Interactive bar chart of the 94th District Court caseload clearance rate for Delta County from 2019 to 2024: 104 percent, 82 percent, 110 percent, 119 percent, 102 percent and 106 percent." }, { "title": "47th Circuit Court felony clearance rates, 2019 to 2024", "type": "interactive_bars", "anchor": "#fig-c47-215", "alt": "Interactive bar chart of the 47th Circuit Court felony clearance rate for Delta County from 2019 to 2024: 78 percent, 93 percent, 104 percent, 121 percent, 99 percent and 98 percent." }, { "title": "One request, three dispositions", "type": "interactive_scorecard", "anchor": "#fig-three-215", "alt": "Interactive scorecard of the three separate dispositions the September 15 2025 letter gave to the same request: records denied as nonexistent, reports denied as nonexistent, and data granted subject to redaction and a fee." } ], "published": "2026-10-26", "updated": "2026-10-26", "featured": true, "watchdog_alerts": [ "One request received three answers in one letter. The office denied “records, reports, data, or summaries” as nonexistent, denied “statistics, summaries, or reports” as nonexistent, and then granted “data” subject to a fee — all describing the same four years of case processing time. If the data exists, what was certified nonexistent? If it does not, what was granted?", "The office certified that it keeps no measure of its own case processing time, then estimated 1,066.67 quarter-hours to locate that data and the same again to redact it — about 533 hours of work, $13,248, and a $6,624 deposit — for records it says do not exist.", "What the office produced instead were seven Michigan State Court Administrative Office publications about the courts, plus a suggestion that the request be sent to the 94th District Court or the 47th Circuit Court. Not one page measures the Prosecutor's Office's own time from charging to resolution.", "The fee itemization leaves both the $20 indigence discount and the $20 nonprofit discount unmarked, and the letter does not address the MCL 15.234 fee waiver the request asked for. A public-interest request about the office's own efficiency is priced at $13,248 with no ruling on the waiver.", "The same packet contains a second, separate fee estimate of $3,312 for FOIA 25-137, a request the office says it already denied and defended on appeal. The office re-priced a request it had already refused, and attached the new price to a different request's response." ], "karpel_note": "The response explains the missing processing-time data by pointing to the office's case-tracking system: “due to the time period being before the adoption of ProsecutorbyKarpel, a review of dockets and calendars from 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023 will be required to generate a case list.” That is the office saying, in its own words, that the switch to ProsecutorByKarpel is why the earlier data is hard to reach. The letter does not state when the system was adopted. This page does not assert an implementation date; the June 2024 go-live used elsewhere in this archive remains an approximation drawn from the contracts and invoices in 25-201.", "tile_title": "One request, three answers, and a $13,248 estimate", "tile_synopsis": "Denied as nonexistent. Denied again as nonexistent. Then granted — for $13,248 and a 180-day wait. What the office produced instead were the court's statistics, not its own.", "badge_label": "Granted in part", "categories": [ "case-statistics", "governance-foia-compliance" ], "share_image": "assets/images/share/25-215.jpg" }, { "id": "25-180", "slug": "25-180-trial-outcomes-2024", "title": "FOIA 25-180: Two boxes checked — the trial records both “already provided” and “do not exist”", "short_title": "2024 criminal trials by type and outcome", "subject": "Number of criminal cases that proceeded to trial in calendar year 2024, broken out by bench trial and jury trial, and by guilty versus not-guilty verdict for each type", "synopsis": "A request for three numbers about calendar year 2024: how many criminal cases ended in a bench trial, how many ended in a jury trial, and how each of those groups split between guilty and not guilty. The request offered to accept whatever existed — internal reports, trial logs, performance summaries, or a CMS extract — asked for electronic delivery, set a $50 ceiling with an advance itemized estimate under MCL 15.234, demanded the specific exemption under MCL 15.243, a description of withheld content sufficient to permit appeal, and segregation under MCL 15.244(1), and asked that the request be forwarded under MCL 15.235(3) if the office did not hold the records. The office answered in four business days, at no charge, with a letter denying the request and each of its three subparts on a certificate of nonexistence. The Notice of Denial checks “All” denied and checks two reason boxes at once: box 1, “Exempt from Disclosure,” with inserted text saying the records “have already been provided in response to FOIA Request 25-135” and citing Densmore v Department of Corrections, and box 2, “Record Does Not Exist.” The exemption subsection line is blank. The 25-135 production the letter points to contains four jury trial sheets with case numbers, verdicts and dates. Both boxes can be true only in the sense that the office holds the underlying records and has not compiled the count — a distinction the letter never draws, and one that MCL 15.233(4) and (5) would require it to draw explicitly.", "status": "denied", "status_label": "Denied in full — certificate of nonexistence plus an exemption box checked; no fee, no pages produced", "submitted": "2025-08-02", "received": "2025-08-04", "response_date": "2025-08-08", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "requester": "Redacted", "fees_quoted": 0, "deposit_required": 0, "fees_paid": 0, "fee_waiver_requested": true, "fee_waiver_basis": "MCL 15.234", "fee_note": "No fee was quoted, no deposit was demanded, and nothing was paid. The requester set a $50 ceiling and asked for a written itemized estimate in advance under MCL 15.234 if processing would exceed it. The office issued no estimate — not for a CMS query, not for a manual count of trial logs, and not for a redacted set of the trial sheets. Compare FOIA 26-22, where the same office quoted $9,548 with a $4,774 deposit to search roughly 3,300 case files, and FOIA 25-129, where it quoted $2,931.12 with a $1,465.56 deposit for 3,544 minutes of work across approximately 886 cases. The office prices this kind of work when it wants to. Here the price was zero, which leaves nothing to accept, nothing to deposit, and nothing to appeal as a fee under MCL 15.240a.", "appealed": true, "appeal_events": [ { "date": "2025-08-18", "type": "Appeal received", "body": "Delta County Board of Commissioners", "outcome": "Received at a regularly scheduled meeting.", "note": "Under MCL 15.240(3) the appeal is not deemed received until the next regularly scheduled meeting. The Board's letter fixes that date as August 18, 2025." }, { "date": "2025-09-02", "type": "Determination", "body": "Delta County Board of Commissioners", "outcome": "Denial upheld at the regular meeting.", "note": "Counting from August 18, 2025 and treating September 1, 2025 (Labor Day) as a legal holiday, September 2 was the tenth business day, so the determination fell on the statutory deadline. The letter does not record a vote count or cite an agenda item." }, { "date": "2025-09-03", "type": "Written notice", "body": "John Malnar, Chair, Delta County Board of Commissioners", "outcome": "One-page letter upholding the denial.", "note": "The written notice is dated the day after the determination. It does not mention the certificate of nonexistence, the exemption box that was also checked on the office's Notice of Denial, or the bench-trial and jury-trial breakdown that was requested." } ], "appeal_status": "Denial upheld by the Board of Commissioners, September 3, 2025", "appeal_note": "The requester appealed the denial, and the Board of Commissioners upheld it. The September 3, 2025 letter records receipt on August 18, 2025 and the determination at the regular meeting on September 2, 2025. It adopts a third formulation — that the records were “deemed to not exist or was already provided” — without saying which applies to which part of the request. The office's own Notice of Denial had checked both an exemption box and a nonexistence box; the Board's letter resolves neither.", "requested": [ "The total number of criminal cases prosecuted by the Delta County Prosecutor's Office that resulted in a bench trial during calendar year 2024.", "The total number of criminal cases that resulted in a jury trial during the same period.", "For each trial type, the number of cases that ended in a guilty verdict and the number that ended in a not-guilty verdict or acquittal.", "The most complete version available of any internal report, trial log, performance summary, or case management system extract containing that information.", "Responsive records in electronic form — PDF, Excel, or other searchable format — by email or secure file transfer.", "Forwarding of the request to the appropriate department or agency under MCL 15.235(3), with notice of the referral, if the office did not maintain some or all of the records.", "A written itemized cost estimate in advance under MCL 15.234 if the estimated cost exceeded $50.", "Citation of the specific exemption relied on under MCL 15.243, a description of the withheld content sufficient to permit appeal, and release of all reasonably segregable non-exempt portions under MCL 15.244(1)." ], "provided": [ "A two-page response letter dated August 8, 2025, captioned “Re: FOIA Request #25-180,” quoting the request verbatim and denying it in full.", "A separate denial paragraph for each of the three subparts — bench trials, jury trials, and the guilty/not-guilty breakdown — each with its own certificate of nonexistence in the statutory language.", "Three references to FOIA Request 25-135 and to Densmore v Department of Corrections, 203 Mich 363 (1994), attached to the bench-trial, jury-trial and verdict-breakdown denials, stating that “the records of the underlying, raw data has already been provided to you in response to FOIA Request 25-135.”", "A Notice of Denial form dated 08/08/2025 with “All” of the request checked as denied, reason box 1 (“Exempt from Disclosure”) checked with the 25-135 cross-reference inserted and the exemption subsection line left blank, reason box 2 (“Record Does Not Exist”) also checked, reason box 3 (Redaction) left unchecked, and Emily DeSalvo named as the contact at 906-789-5100.", "An explanation of the right to appeal to the chairperson of the Delta County Board of Commissioners or to seek judicial review in Delta County Circuit Court, including the reference to attorney fees, costs, disbursements and $1,000 punitive damages.", "One blank FOIA Appeal Form and two pages reproducing MCL 15.240.", "The request itself as received, and one page reproducing the Delta County FOIA policy web page." ], "withheld": [ "The number of 2024 criminal cases that ended in a bench trial — the office says no such record exists.", "The number of 2024 criminal cases that ended in a jury trial — same answer.", "The guilty and not-guilty breakdown for each trial type — same answer.", "Any internal report, trial log, performance summary or CMS extract containing those counts — same answer.", "Every page of every responsive record. The nine-page packet contains no responsive document at all." ], "keywords": [ "25-180", "trial outcomes", "bench trial", "jury trial", "jury verdict", "guilty verdict", "not guilty", "acquittal", "conviction rate", "trial logs", "performance summaries", "case management system", "CMS extract", "2024", "felony", "misdemeanor", "record does not exist", "certificate of nonexistence", "exempt from disclosure", "MCL 15.233(4)", "MCL 15.233(5)", "MCL 15.235(3)", "MCL 15.243", "MCL 15.244", "segregation", "Densmore v Department of Corrections", "25-135", "ProsecutorByKarpel", "Emily DeSalvo", "Lauren Wickman", "Delta County Board of Commissioners", "transparency", "accountability" ], "documents": [ { "title": "FOIA Request (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-180/25-180-request-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The request dated August 2, 2025, asking for 2024 trial counts by type and verdict, with the electronic-delivery request, the MCL 15.235(3) forwarding directive, the $50 ceiling and advance-estimate demand, and the exemption, withheld-content and segregation demands. Requester identifiers removed." }, { "title": "Response Letter and Certificates of Nonexistence (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-180/25-180-response-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The two-page letter dated August 8, 2025 denying the request and each of its three subparts, with a certificate of nonexistence for each and three cross-references to FOIA 25-135 and Densmore v Department of Corrections." }, { "title": "Notice of Denial (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-180/25-180-denial-form-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "“All” denied; box 1, “Exempt from Disclosure,” checked with the 25-135 cross-reference inserted and the subsection line blank; box 2, “Record Does Not Exist,” also checked; box 3, Redaction, unchecked; Emily DeSalvo named as contact." }, { "title": "Board of Commissioners Appeal Decision (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-180/25-180-board-appeal-decision-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The September 3, 2025 letter from Chair John Malnar upholding the denial. It records receipt of the appeal on August 18, 2025 and the determination at the regular meeting on September 2, 2025. It states that the records were “deemed to not exist or was already provided” without saying which applies to which part of the request." } ], "infographics": [], "charts": [ { "title": "The paper trail", "type": "interactive timeline", "anchor": "papertrail" }, { "title": "The two boxes", "type": "side-by-side comparison", "anchor": "contradiction" }, { "title": "What 25-135 actually produced", "type": "record list", "anchor": "prior" }, { "title": "The zeros", "type": "table", "anchor": "zeros" }, { "title": "The pattern this fits", "type": "comparison table", "anchor": "pattern" } ], "published": "2026-10-25", "updated": "2026-10-25", "featured": true, "watchdog_alerts": [ "The Notice of Denial checks box 1, “Exempt from Disclosure,” and box 2, “Record Does Not Exist,” on the same form for the same request. Those are alternative reasons, not cumulative ones: a record is either withheld under an exemption or it does not exist. The exemption subsection line is blank, so the form never identifies which exemption is supposed to apply.", "The letter says the “underlying, raw data has already been provided” in FOIA 25-135 and cites Densmore v Department of Corrections. The 25-135 production does contain four jury trial sheets with case numbers, verdicts and dates. What it does not contain is a compiled count — and the difference between “we gave you the records” and “we have no such record” is exactly the distinction MCL 15.233(4) and (5) require an office to state plainly.", "The response came in four business days, at no charge, with a clean letter that quotes the request verbatim and answers each subpart separately. On timeliness and mechanics this is the office's best FOIA response in the archive. The problem is not speed. It is that the answer says two different things at once.", "The request set a $50 ceiling and asked for an itemized estimate in advance. The office quoted nothing — not a CMS query, not a manual count of trial logs, not a redacted set of the trial sheets. The same office quoted $9,548 for roughly 3,300 case files in FOIA 26-22 and $2,931.12 for approximately 886 cases in FOIA 25-129.", "No page of any responsive record was produced. The nine-page packet is the request, the letter, the denial form, two statutory excerpts, a blank appeal form and a policy printout. Nothing in it tells the public how many 2024 criminal cases in Delta County were decided by a judge and how many by a jury.", "The request covers all twelve months of 2024, the year ProsecutorByKarpel went live. The denial does not say which months the office can report on, does not offer the months after go-live, and does not mention the transition at all." ], "karpel_note": "ProsecutorByKarpel went live in June 2024, and this request covers calendar year 2024, so part of the requested period predates the system. This page does not fault the office for lacking a system-generated trial report before go-live, and it does not assert a specific implementation date. The criticism is that the office never said which months it could report on and never offered the months after go-live.", "tile_title": "Two boxes checked: the trial records both exist and don't", "tile_synopsis": "A four-day, zero-dollar denial that checks “Exempt from Disclosure” and “Record Does Not Exist” on the same form — then points to a 25-135 production that contains four jury trial sheets.", "badge_label": "Denied in full", "categories": [ "charging-decisions" ], "share_image": "assets/images/share/25-180.jpg" }, { "id": "25-139", "slug": "25-139-asset-forfeiture-dismissed-cases-2024", "title": "FOIA 25-139: Forfeitures in cases that ended without a conviction, certified not to exist — while the same office took an extension for the volume of records", "short_title": "Asset forfeiture in dismissed cases, 2024", "subject": "Asset forfeiture actions initiated in calendar year 2024 in which the related criminal case was later dismissed or resulted in no conviction, with docket numbers, property descriptions, filing dates and final outcomes", "synopsis": "A request for records of a specific and uncomfortable category: asset forfeitures the Delta County Prosecutor's Office initiated in calendar year 2024 in which the related criminal case was later dismissed or ended without a conviction. The request asked, for each forfeiture, for the forfeiture docket number, the underlying criminal case number, a description of the property seized, the forfeiture filing date, the disposition of the criminal case, and the final outcome of the forfeiture action — property retained, returned, or sold. It offered to accept “a summary table, spreadsheet, or internal report,” asked for electronic delivery, set a $50 cost ceiling, asked for a written itemized estimate in advance under MCL 15.234, and asked the office to cite any exemption and release all segregable non-exempt portions. The office denied the request in full on a certificate of nonexistence. No pages were produced, no fee was quoted, and no exemption was cited. The Notice of Denial checks “All” denied and reason box 2, “Record Does Not Exist.” The packet contains no extension notice for 25-139 at all — it contains the extension notice for a different request, 25-129.", "status": "denied", "status_label": "Denied in full — certified that the record does not exist; no fee quoted, no pages produced", "submitted": "2025-06-27", "received": "2025-06-27", "response_date": "2025-07-17", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "requester": "Redacted", "fees_quoted": 0, "deposit_required": 0, "fees_paid": 0, "fee_waiver_requested": true, "fee_waiver_basis": "MCL 15.234", "fee_note": "No fee was quoted, no deposit was demanded, and nothing was paid. The requester set a $50 cost ceiling, asked for a detailed written estimate in advance under MCL 15.234 if processing would exceed it, and asked for electronic delivery. The office issued no estimate of any kind. Compare FOIA 25-129, where the same office quoted $2,931.12 and a $1,465.56 deposit for 3,544 minutes of work on roughly 886 cases, and FOIA 26-22, where it quoted $9,548 and a $4,774 deposit to search about 3,300 case files. A zero-dollar answer leaves nothing to itemize under MCL 15.234(2), nothing to deposit under MCL 15.234(8), and nothing to appeal as a fee under MCL 15.240a.", "appealed": true, "appeal_events": [ { "date": "2025-08-05", "type": "Appeal received", "body": "Delta County Board of Commissioners", "outcome": "Received at a regularly scheduled meeting.", "note": "Under MCL 15.240(3) a board or commission is not deemed to have received an appeal until its next regularly scheduled meeting. The Board's letter fixes that date as August 5, 2025, which starts the ten-business-day clock in MCL 15.240(2)." }, { "date": "2025-08-18", "type": "Determination", "body": "Delta County Board of Commissioners", "outcome": "Denial upheld at a special meeting.", "note": "The tenth business day after August 5, 2025 was August 19, 2025, so the determination itself fell inside the statutory period. The letter does not record a vote count or identify which commissioners participated." }, { "date": "2025-08-20", "type": "Written notice", "body": "John Malnar, Chair, Delta County Board of Commissioners", "outcome": "One-page letter upholding the denial.", "note": "The written notice is dated two days after the determination and one day after the ten-business-day deadline. Its only stated reason restates the coordinator's position that the records were “deemed to not exist.” It does not mention the volume-based extension, does not describe any search, and does not identify an exemption." } ], "appeal_status": "Denial upheld by the Board of Commissioners, August 20, 2025", "appeal_note": "The requester appealed the denial and the Board of Commissioners upheld it. The August 20, 2025 letter records receipt of the appeal at the regular meeting on August 5, 2025 and the determination at a special meeting on August 18, 2025. Its only stated reason is that the coordinator determined the records “were deemed to not exist.” It does not mention the ten-business-day extension the office took for the volume of records, does not describe any search, and does not explain how a volume-based extension is consistent with a certification that the record does not exist.", "requested": [ "Any records showing asset forfeiture actions initiated by the Delta County Prosecutor's Office during calendar year January 1, 2024 through December 31, 2024 in which the related criminal case was later dismissed or resulted in no conviction.", "For each such forfeiture, the forfeiture case number or docket number.", "For each such forfeiture, the underlying criminal case number.", "A brief description of the property seized.", "The date the forfeiture was filed.", "The disposition of the related criminal case — dismissed, acquitted, or not prosecuted.", "The final outcome of the forfeiture action — property retained, returned, or sold.", "Any existing “summary table, spreadsheet, or internal report,” which the request said would be acceptable.", "Delivery in electronic form — PDF, Excel, or CSV — by email or secure download link.", "A written, itemized estimate before processing if the cost would exceed $50, as required by MCL 15.234.", "Identification of any specific statutory exemption relied on, and release of all reasonably segregable non-exempt information." ], "provided": [ "A two-page response letter dated July 17, 2025, captioned “Re: FOIA Request #25-139,” quoting the request verbatim and denying it in full.", "A certificate of nonexistence in the statutory language: that after a search, and to the best of the coordinator's knowledge and belief, “the public records requested do not exist within the records of the public body under the name nor any other name reasonably known to the public body.”", "A Notice of Denial form with “All” of the request checked as denied and reason box 2, “Record Does Not Exist,” checked; the exemption box and the redaction box are blank. The signature line on the form is dated 7-18-2025, one day after the cover letter.", "A blank FOIA Appeal Form and the office's FOIA written-policies page, both enclosed with the response.", "A one-page letter from Board of Commissioners Chair John Malnar dated August 20, 2025 upholding the denial on appeal." ], "withheld": [ "Every forfeiture docket number, criminal case number, property description, filing date and outcome — the office says no such record exists.", "Any summary table, spreadsheet, or internal report listing forfeitures — same answer.", "Every page of every responsive record. The eighteen-page packet contains no responsive document at all.", "Any explanation of whether the office searched its own forfeiture files, the Circuit Court file, or both." ], "keywords": [ "25-139", "asset forfeiture", "civil forfeiture", "forfeiture", "seized property", "property retained", "property returned", "property sold", "dismissed", "no conviction", "acquitted", "not prosecuted", "2024", "forfeiture docket", "criminal case number", "record does not exist", "certificate of nonexistence", "MCL 15.233(4)", "MCL 15.235(3)", "MCL 15.244", "segregation", "MCL 750.470a", "Emily DeSalvo", "Lauren Wickman", "Delta County Board of Commissioners", "John Malnar", "transparency", "accountability" ], "documents": [ { "title": "FOIA Request (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-139/25-139-request-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The two-page request faxed on June 27, 2025 asking for 2024 asset forfeiture actions in cases later dismissed or ended without a conviction, with the six data points requested for each case, the $50 cost ceiling, the electronic-delivery request and the segregation demand. Requester identifiers removed." }, { "title": "Response Letter, Certificate of Nonexistence and Notice of Denial (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-139/25-139-response-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The two-page letter dated July 17, 2025 denying the request in full and certifying that the requested records do not exist, followed by the Notice of Denial form (“All” denied, reason box 2 “Record Does Not Exist,” exemption and redaction boxes blank, signature line dated 7-18-2025) and the enclosed appeal form. Requester identifiers removed." }, { "title": "Board of Commissioners Appeal Decision (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-139/25-139-board-appeal-decision-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The August 20, 2025 letter from Chair John Malnar upholding the denial. It records receipt of the appeal on August 5, 2025 and the determination at a special meeting on August 18, 2025. It does not address the forfeiture records, the search, or any exemption." } ], "infographics": [], "charts": [ { "title": "The paper trail", "type": "interactive timeline", "anchor": "papertrail" }, { "title": "What a forfeiture file would contain, and what came back", "type": "scorecard", "anchor": "zeros" }, { "title": "Where a forfeiture record would live", "type": "comparison table", "anchor": "where" }, { "title": "Requests for case data, and what the office said", "type": "comparison table", "anchor": "pattern" } ], "published": "2026-10-25", "updated": "2026-10-25", "featured": true, "watchdog_alerts": [ "The office certified that it has no record of any 2024 asset forfeiture in which the criminal case was later dismissed or ended without a conviction. That is a claim about the office's own files, and the letter does not say what was searched.", "Forfeiture in Michigan is a civil action with its own docket in the circuit court. A certificate that the prosecutor's office has no record is narrower than a claim that no forfeiture case exists — and the letter never draws that distinction.", "The request asked the office to identify any exemption and release segregable portions. The denial cites no exemption and produces no page, so there is nothing to segregate and nothing to review.", "The same requester filed a parallel request for the 2024 civil forfeiture case index from the Circuit Court (FOIA 25-173) and a separate forfeiture-with-dismissal request (FOIA 25-174) on the same day. The office's answer here does not acknowledge that the underlying dockets are public court records.", "The packet is eighteen pages long and contains no responsive document — and it does not even contain an extension notice for this request. The extension notice inside the 25-139 packet belongs to FOIA 25-129." ], "karpel_note": "ProsecutorByKarpel went live in June 2024, and this request covers calendar year 2024, so part of the requested period predates the system. This page does not fault the office for lacking a system-generated forfeiture report before June 2024. The criticism is that the office did not say whether it searched its own forfeiture files at all, or whether the answer would differ for the months after the system went live.", "tile_title": "Forfeitures in cases that fell apart — the office says it has no record", "tile_synopsis": "A request for 2024 forfeiture dockets in cases later dismissed or not convicted. Answer: a certificate of nonexistence, no search described, no exemption cited.", "badge_label": "Denied in full", "categories": [ "case-statistics", "budget-spending" ], "share_image": "assets/images/share/25-139.jpg" }, { "id": "25-137", "slug": "25-137-average-case-processing-time-2024", "title": "FOIA 25-137: The average time from charge to disposition, certified not to exist — after a ten-day extension for “voluminous” records", "short_title": "Average case processing time, 2024", "subject": "Average time from charge authorization to final disposition for criminal cases prosecuted in calendar year 2024, overall and broken down by felony and misdemeanor", "synopsis": "A request for one number and one optional breakdown: the average time from charge authorization to final disposition for every criminal case the Delta County Prosecutor's Office prosecuted in calendar year 2024, with a felony-versus-misdemeanor split if the office had one. The request offered to accept “a summary table, spreadsheet, or internal report,” asked for electronic delivery, set a $50 cost ceiling, asked for a written estimate in advance under MCL 15.234, and asked the office to cite any exemption and release all segregable non-exempt portions under MCL 15.244. The office took a ten-business-day extension on the ground that it needed to review “a voluminous amount of separate and distinct public records,” then denied the request in full on a certificate of nonexistence. No pages were produced, no fee was quoted, no inspection was offered, and no exemption was cited. The Notice of Denial checks “All” denied and reason box 2, “Record Does Not Exist,” while leaving the exemption box and the redaction box blank. The response was timely under MCL 15.235. The contradiction is the extension and the certificate, filed in the same packet.", "status": "denied", "status_label": "Denied in full — certified that the record does not exist; no fee quoted, no pages produced", "submitted": "2025-06-27", "received": "2025-06-27", "response_date": "2025-07-17", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "requester": "Redacted", "fees_quoted": 0, "deposit_required": 0, "fees_paid": 0, "fee_waiver_requested": true, "fee_waiver_basis": "MCL 15.234", "fee_note": "No fee was quoted, no deposit was demanded, and nothing was paid. The requester set a $50 cost ceiling, asked for a detailed written estimate in advance under MCL 15.234 if processing would exceed it, and asked for electronic delivery. The office issued no estimate of any kind. Compare FOIA 25-129, where the same office quoted $2,931.12 and a $1,465.56 deposit for 3,544 minutes of work on roughly 886 cases, and FOIA 26-22, where it quoted $9,548 and a $4,774 deposit to search about 3,300 case files. A zero-dollar answer leaves nothing to itemize under MCL 15.234(2), nothing to deposit under MCL 15.234(8), and nothing to appeal as a fee under MCL 15.240a. In responding to FOIA 25-215 on September 15, 2025 the office attached a second, separate fee itemization for this request: 266.67 locate increments and 266.67 redact increments at $6.21 per quarter hour, a $3,312 subtotal and a $1,656 deposit, presented as a fresh estimate in further response to 25-137. The original 25-137 denial and its zero-fee disposition are unchanged; this is a later estimate for the same records, carried in another request's packet.", "appealed": true, "appeal_events": [ { "date": "2025-08-05", "type": "Appeal received", "body": "Delta County Board of Commissioners", "outcome": "Received at a regularly scheduled meeting.", "note": "Under MCL 15.240(3) a board or commission is not deemed to have received an appeal until its next regularly scheduled meeting. The Board's letter fixes that date as August 5, 2025, which starts the ten-business-day clock in MCL 15.240(2)." }, { "date": "2025-08-18", "type": "Determination", "body": "Delta County Board of Commissioners", "outcome": "Denial upheld at a special meeting.", "note": "The tenth business day after August 5, 2025 was August 19, 2025, so the determination itself fell inside the statutory period. The letter does not record a vote count or identify which commissioners participated." }, { "date": "2025-08-20", "type": "Written notice", "body": "John Malnar, Chair, Delta County Board of Commissioners", "outcome": "One-page letter upholding the denial.", "note": "The written notice is dated two days after the determination and one day after the ten-business-day deadline. Its only stated reason restates the coordinator's position that the records were “deemed to not exist.” It does not mention the volume-based extension, does not describe any search, and does not identify an exemption." } ], "appeal_status": "Denial upheld by the Board of Commissioners, August 20, 2025", "appeal_note": "The requester appealed the denial and the Board of Commissioners upheld it. The August 20, 2025 letter records receipt of the appeal at the regular meeting on August 5, 2025 and the determination at a special meeting on August 18, 2025. Its only stated reason is that the coordinator determined the records “were deemed to not exist.” It does not mention the ten-business-day extension the office took for the volume of records, does not describe any search, and does not explain how a volume-based extension is consistent with a certification that the record does not exist.", "requested": [ "The average time from charge authorization to final disposition for all criminal cases prosecuted by the Delta County Prosecutor's Office during calendar year January 1, 2024 through December 31, 2024.", "The overall average expressed in days.", "If available, a breakdown of that average by felony versus misdemeanor classification.", "Any existing “summary table, spreadsheet, or internal report,” which the request said would be acceptable.", "Delivery in electronic form — PDF, Excel, or CSV — by email or secure download link.", "A detailed written estimate in advance if the cost to process the request would exceed $50, as required by MCL 15.234.", "Identification of any specific statutory exemption relied on, and release of all reasonably segregable non-exempt information, per MCL 15.244." ], "provided": [ "A two-page response letter dated July 17, 2025, captioned “Re: FOIA Request #25-137,” quoting the core of the request — the average-time paragraph, the two bullets and the “summary table” sentence — but omitting the preferred-format paragraph, the $50 cost ceiling and the exemption-and-segregation demand from its own quotation of what was asked.", "A certificate of nonexistence in the statutory language: that after a search, and to the best of the coordinator's knowledge and belief, “the public records requested do not exist within the records of the public body under the name nor any other name reasonably known to the public body.”", "A Notice of Denial form with “All” of the request checked as denied and reason box 2, “Record Does Not Exist,” checked; the exemption box and the redaction box are blank. The signature line on the form is dated 7-18-2025, one day after the cover letter.", "A Notice to Extend Response Time form for request 25-137, with reason box 1 checked — the “voluminous amount of separate and distinct public records” ground. The form records the request as received 6/27/25, is dated 7-2-25, extends the response date to 7/18/25, and states an estimated time frame of 07/18/2025.", "A blank FOIA Appeal Form and the office's FOIA written-policies page, both enclosed with the response.", "A one-page letter from Board of Commissioners Chair John Malnar dated August 20, 2025 upholding the denial on appeal." ], "withheld": [ "The average charge-to-disposition time for 2024 — the office says no such record exists.", "The felony-versus-misdemeanor breakdown — same answer.", "Any summary table, spreadsheet, or internal report containing the figure — same answer.", "Every page of every responsive record. The eighteen-page packet contains no responsive document at all.", "Any explanation of how the office computed the “volume” that justified a ten-day extension, or which records it reviewed in order to conclude that none existed." ], "keywords": [ "25-137", "average case processing time", "charge authorization", "final disposition", "time to disposition", "case processing", "2024", "felony", "misdemeanor", "case statistics", "case outcomes", "dispositions", "record does not exist", "certificate of nonexistence", "MCL 15.233(4)", "MCL 15.234", "MCL 15.235", "MCL 15.244", "segregation", "extension", "voluminous amount of separate and distinct public records", "ProsecutorByKarpel", "case management system", "Emily DeSalvo", "Lauren Wickman", "Delta County Board of Commissioners", "John Malnar", "transparency", "accountability" ], "documents": [ { "title": "FOIA Request (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-137/25-137-request-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The two-page request faxed on June 27, 2025 asking for the average time from charge authorization to final disposition in 2024, overall and by felony/misdemeanor, with the $50 cost ceiling, the electronic-delivery request, the segregation demand and the offer to accept a summary table, spreadsheet or internal report. Requester identifiers removed." }, { "title": "Response Letter, Certificate of Nonexistence and Notice of Denial (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-137/25-137-response-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The two-page letter dated July 17, 2025 denying the request in full and certifying that the requested records do not exist, followed by the Notice of Denial form (“All” denied, reason box 2 “Record Does Not Exist,” exemption and redaction boxes blank, signature line dated 7-18-2025) and the enclosed appeal-rights statute page. Requester identifiers removed." }, { "title": "Notice to Extend Response Time (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-137/25-137-extension-form-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The county's extension form for request 25-137, with reason box 1 checked — the need to review “a voluminous amount of separate and distinct public records.” Received 6/27/25, notice dated 7-2-25, extended to 7/18/25, estimated time frame 07/18/2025. The page that follows is marked “This page left blank on purpose.”" }, { "title": "Board of Commissioners Appeal Decision (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-137/25-137-board-appeal-decision-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The August 20, 2025 letter from Chair John Malnar upholding the denial. It records receipt of the appeal on August 5, 2025 and the determination at a special meeting on August 18, 2025. It does not mention the volume-based extension the office took before certifying that the record does not exist." } ], "infographics": [], "charts": [ { "title": "The paper trail", "type": "interactive timeline", "anchor": "papertrail" }, { "title": "The extension and the certificate", "type": "side-by-side comparison", "anchor": "contradiction" }, { "title": "What was asked and what came back", "type": "scorecard", "anchor": "zeros" }, { "title": "Requests for a number, and what the office said", "type": "comparison table", "anchor": "pattern" } ], "published": "2026-10-25", "updated": "2026-10-25", "featured": true, "watchdog_alerts": [ "The office took a ten-business-day extension because it needed to review “a voluminous amount of separate and distinct public records,” then denied the request in full because there were no responsive records. Both forms are in the same packet. One of them is describing something that did not happen.", "The request asked for a number. The office certified that a record does not exist. Those are different claims, and the letter never distinguishes them — it does not say “no compiled average exists but the underlying case records do,” and it does not invoke MCL 15.233(4), the provision that lets a public body decline to compile a summary or answer a question.", "The office never addressed the measurement question. “Charge authorization” and “final disposition” are both defined in the office's own case records. A denial that treats the request as unanswerable does not say which of the two dates the office cannot produce.", "The response gives no indication whether the answer differs before and after the office's case-management system went live in June 2024. A request covering all of calendar year 2024 spans both sides of that change, and the office said nothing about it.", "The packet is eighteen pages long and contains no responsive document. The office spent more paper explaining that it had nothing than it would have spent producing a two-line average." ], "karpel_note": "ProsecutorByKarpel went live in June 2024, and this request covers calendar year 2024, so roughly five months of the requested period predate the system. This page does not fault the office for lacking a system-generated average before June 2024. The criticism is that the office never said which months it could report on, or whether the system it adopted in June 2024 can compute charge-to-disposition time at all.", "tile_title": "How long does a case take? The office says it doesn't know", "tile_synopsis": "A ten-day extension for the “volume” of records, then a certificate that no records exist. No fee, no pages, no exemption cited.", "badge_label": "Denied in full", "categories": [ "case-statistics" ], "share_image": "assets/images/share/25-137.jpg", "supplemental_fee_estimate": 3312, "supplemental_deposit": 1656, "supplemental_fee_source": "25-215" }, { "id": "25-136", "slug": "25-136-plea-agreements-2024", "title": "FOIA 25-136: The plea-agreement count the office certified does not exist — after taking an extension for the volume of records", "short_title": "Plea agreements offered and accepted in 2024", "subject": "Total number of plea agreements offered and accepted in calendar year 2024, categorized by felony and misdemeanor charges", "synopsis": "A request for one number, in two parts: how many plea agreements the office offered and accepted in calendar year 2024, felony and misdemeanor. The request offered to accept “a simple table, spreadsheet, or internal report,” set a $50 cost ceiling, asked for an advance written estimate, and asked the office to cite any exemption and release all segregable non-exempt portions under MCL 15.244. The office took a ten-business-day extension on the ground that it needed to review “a voluminous amount of separate and distinct public records,” then denied the request in full on a certificate of nonexistence. No pages were produced, no fee was quoted, no inspection was offered, and no exemption was cited. The Notice of Denial checks “All” denied and box 2, “Record Does Not Exist,” while leaving the exemption box and the redaction box blank. The response was timely under MCL 15.235. The contradiction is the extension and the certificate, filed four pages apart in the same packet.", "status": "denied", "status_label": "Denied in full — certified that the record does not exist; no fee quoted, no pages produced", "submitted": "2025-06-27", "received": "2025-06-27", "response_date": "2025-07-17", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "requester": "Redacted", "fees_quoted": 0, "deposit_required": 0, "fees_paid": 0, "fee_waiver_requested": true, "fee_waiver_basis": "MCL 15.234", "fee_note": "No fee was quoted, no deposit was demanded, and nothing was paid. The requester set a $50 ceiling and asked for a detailed written estimate in advance if processing would exceed it. The office issued no estimate of any kind — not for a database query, not for a manual count, and not for a redacted set of the underlying agreements. Compare FOIA 26-22, where the same office quoted $9,548 and a $4,774 deposit to search roughly 3,300 case files, and FOIA 25-129, where it quoted $2,931.12 and a $1,465.56 deposit for 3,544 minutes of work on approximately 886 cases. A zero-dollar answer leaves nothing to itemize under MCL 15.234(2), nothing to deposit under MCL 15.234(8), and nothing to appeal as a fee under MCL 15.240a.", "appealed": true, "appeal_events": [ { "date": "2025-08-05", "type": "Appeal received", "body": "Delta County Board of Commissioners", "outcome": "Received at a regularly scheduled meeting.", "note": "Under MCL 15.240(3) the appeal is not deemed received until the next regularly scheduled meeting. The Board's letter fixes that date as August 5, 2025." }, { "date": "2025-08-18", "type": "Determination", "body": "Delta County Board of Commissioners", "outcome": "Denial upheld at a special meeting.", "note": "The tenth business day after August 5, 2025 was August 19, 2025, so the determination fell inside the statutory period. The letter does not record a vote count or identify which commissioners participated." }, { "date": "2025-08-20", "type": "Written notice", "body": "John Malnar, Chair, Delta County Board of Commissioners", "outcome": "One-page letter upholding the denial.", "note": "The written notice is dated two days after the determination and one day after the ten-business-day deadline. It does not mention the extension the office took for the volume of records, and does not identify an exemption under MCL 15.243." } ], "appeal_status": "Denial upheld by the Board of Commissioners, August 20, 2025", "appeal_note": "The requester appealed the denial, and the Board of Commissioners upheld it. The August 20, 2025 letter records receipt on August 5, 2025 and the determination at a special meeting on August 18, 2025. As with the dismissed-case request, the office took a volume-based extension and then certified that the counts do not exist; the letter addresses neither point.", "requested": [ "The total number of plea agreements offered by the Delta County Prosecutor's Office for calendar year January 1, 2024 through December 31, 2024, categorized by felony charges and misdemeanor charges.", "The total number of plea agreements accepted by the office for the same period, categorized the same way.", "Any existing “simple table, spreadsheet, or internal report showing these counts,” which the request said would be acceptable.", "Delivery in electronic form — PDF, Excel, or CSV — by email or secure download link.", "A detailed written estimate in advance if the cost to process the request would exceed $50.", "Citation of each specific statutory exemption relied on, with all reasonably segregable non-exempt portions released under MCL 15.244." ], "provided": [ "A two-page response letter dated July 17, 2025, captioned “Re: FOIA Request #25-136,” quoting the request verbatim and denying it in full.", "A certificate of nonexistence in the statutory language: that after a search, and to the best of the coordinator's knowledge and belief, “the public records requested do not exist within the records of the public body under the name nor any other name reasonably known to the public body.”", "A Notice of Denial form with “All” of the request checked as denied and reason box 2, “Record Does Not Exist,” checked; reason box 1 (Exempt from Disclosure) and reason box 3 (Redaction) left blank; Emily DeSalvo named as the contact.", "A Notice to Extend Response Time form extending the response date to 7/18/25, with reason box 1 checked — the need to review “a voluminous amount of separate and distinct public records” — and the “Estimated Time Frame to Provide Records” line left blank.", "Two pages reproducing MCL 15.240 in full, and one blank FOIA Appeal Form.", "The county's automated fax-receipt notification for June 27, 2025, showing a receive time of 6.27.2025 08:53:42 AM -04:00, two pages, and a 44 KB attachment.", "The request itself as faxed, and two printouts of the Delta County FOIA policy web page.", "One page reading, in full, “This page left blank on purpose.”" ], "withheld": [ "The total number of plea agreements offered in 2024, felony and misdemeanor — the office says no such record exists.", "The total number of plea agreements accepted in 2024, felony and misdemeanor — same answer.", "Any existing table, spreadsheet, or internal report showing those counts — same answer.", "Every page of every responsive record. The eighteen-page packet contains no responsive document at all." ], "keywords": [ "25-136", "plea agreements", "plea bargains", "plea offers", "pleas accepted", "guilty plea", "no contest", "nolo contendere", "2024", "felony", "misdemeanor", "charging decisions", "dispositions", "conviction rate", "case outcomes", "record does not exist", "certificate of nonexistence", "MCL 15.233(4)", "MCL 15.233(5)", "MCL 15.244", "segregation", "extension", "voluminous amount of separate and distinct public records", "ProsecutorByKarpel", "case management system", "Emily DeSalvo", "Lauren Wickman", "Delta County Board of Commissioners", "transparency", "accountability" ], "documents": [ { "title": "FOIA Request (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-136/25-136-request-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The two-page request faxed on June 27, 2025, asking for the number of plea agreements offered and accepted in 2024, felony and misdemeanor, with the $50 cost ceiling, the segregation demand and the offer to accept a table, spreadsheet or internal report. Requester identifiers removed." }, { "title": "Response Letter and Certificate of Nonexistence (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-136/25-136-response-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The two-page letter dated July 17, 2025 denying the request in full, with the certificate of nonexistence in the statutory language and the explanation of the appeal right." }, { "title": "Notice of Denial (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-136/25-136-denial-form-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "“All” denied; box 2, “Record Does Not Exist,” checked; the exemption box and the redaction box left blank; Emily DeSalvo named as contact." }, { "title": "Notice to Extend Response Time (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-136/25-136-extension-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The extension form extending the response date to July 18, 2025, with reason box 1 checked for “a voluminous amount of separate and distinct public records” and the estimated time frame left blank." }, { "title": "Board of Commissioners Appeal Decision (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-136/25-136-board-appeal-decision-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The August 20, 2025 letter from Chair John Malnar upholding the denial. It records receipt of the appeal on August 5, 2025 and the determination at a special meeting on August 18, 2025. It does not mention the volume-based extension the office took before certifying that the counts do not exist." } ], "infographics": [], "charts": [ { "title": "The paper trail", "type": "interactive timeline", "anchor": "papertrail" }, { "title": "The extension and the certificate", "type": "side-by-side comparison", "anchor": "contradiction" }, { "title": "The zeros", "type": "scorecard", "anchor": "zeros" }, { "title": "Four requests for a number", "type": "comparison table", "anchor": "pattern" } ], "published": "2026-10-23", "updated": "2026-10-25", "featured": true, "watchdog_alerts": [ "The office took a ten-business-day extension because it needed to review “a voluminous amount of separate and distinct public records,” then denied the request in full because there were no responsive records. Both forms are in the same packet, four pages apart. One of them is describing something that did not happen.", "The request asked for a number. The office certified that a record does not exist. Those are different claims, and the letter never distinguishes them — it does not say “no compiled report exists but the underlying plea agreements do,” and it does not cite MCL 15.233(4) or (5), the two provisions that would actually justify declining to compile a count.", "The requester set a $50 ceiling and asked for an advance estimate. The office quoted nothing — not a search, not a database query, not a redacted set of the agreements. The same office quoted $9,548 for 3,300 case files in FOIA 26-22 and $2,931.12 for 886 cases in FOIA 25-129. It knows how to price this work. Here it priced nothing, which leaves the requester with no number to accept, reject, or appeal.", "The Notice of Denial checks “All” denied, checks box 2 (Record Does Not Exist), and leaves both the exemption box and the redaction box blank. No exemption is claimed anywhere in the file. If nothing is exempt, then nothing but the office's own assertion stands between the public and a count of how often cases in this county end in a plea.", "The request covers all twelve months of 2024, the year ProsecutorByKarpel went live. The denial does not say which months the office can report on, does not offer the months after go-live, and does not mention the transition at all. A single certificate for the year answers twelve months with one word.", "The office did not offer inspection. It did not have to — the requester did not ask — but an office that holds the plea agreements and cannot produce a count could still let the public read the files. That offer costs nothing and was never made." ], "karpel_note": "ProsecutorByKarpel went live in June 2024, and this request covers calendar year 2024, so five months of the request predate the system. This page does not fault the office for lacking a system-generated plea report before June 2024. The criticism is that the office never said which months it could report on, never offered the seven months after go-live, and answered twelve months with a single certificate of nonexistence.", "tile_title": "How many plea deals in 2024? The office says it doesn't know", "tile_synopsis": "A ten-day extension for the “volume” of records, then a certificate that no records exist. No fee, no pages, no exemption cited.", "badge_label": "Denied in full", "categories": [ "charging-decisions" ], "share_image": "assets/images/share/25-136.jpg" }, { "id": "25-135", "slug": "25-135-cases-prosecuted-to-trial-2024", "title": "FOIA 25-135: The office denied the 2024 trial summary as a record that “does not exist” — then produced eight case files on the next page", "short_title": "Criminal cases prosecuted to trial in 2024", "subject": "Summary of every criminal case prosecuted to trial in calendar year 2024, with case number, defendant initials, charges, trial outcome and felony/misdemeanor classification", "synopsis": "A request for a five-column summary of every 2024 criminal case the Delta County Prosecutor's Office took to trial — case number, defendant's initials or an anonymized identifier, charges, final trial outcome, and felony or misdemeanor — with an explicit offer to accept “a table or spreadsheet.” Page one of the July 17, 2025 response denies the request because “the record do not exist.” Page two of the same letter grants it in part and lists eight case files, which the office then produced: twenty-four pages of charging documents, jury trial sheets and sentencing forms. Four of the five requested data points are recoverable from those pages. The one column the MCL 15.243(1)(a) privacy exemption actually reaches — the defendant's name or initials — is the only thing withheld, and the request had already offered an anonymized identifier instead. The Notice of Denial checks both “Record Does Not Exist” and “Redaction,” with the Section 13 subsection and the description of separated material left blank. No fee was quoted and nothing was paid. The response was timely under MCL 15.235.", "status": "granted_in_part", "status_label": "Granted in part — 8 case files produced", "submitted": "2025-06-27", "received": "2025-06-27", "response_date": "2025-07-17", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "requester": "Redacted", "fees_quoted": 0, "deposit_required": 0, "fees_paid": 0, "fee_waiver_requested": true, "fee_waiver_basis": "MCL 15.234", "fee_note": "No fee was quoted, no deposit was demanded, and nothing was paid. The requester set a $50 ceiling and asked for an itemized written estimate in advance if processing would exceed it, citing “MCL 15.231” — the requester's own imprecise citation for the estimate-and-deposit provision, which is codified at MCL 15.234. The office issued no estimate of any kind. That is the tell: when this office wants to withhold something it usually prices the search first. FOIA 26-22 drew a $9,548 quote for searching roughly 3,300 case files, FOIA 25-129 drew $2,931.12 for 3,544 minutes of work on about 886 cases, and FOIA 25-133 drew $2,815.20. Here the office quoted nothing, because it did not have to search — it already knew which 2024 cases went to trial and pulled eight files in twenty-four pages. A zero-dollar answer leaves nothing to itemize under MCL 15.234(2), nothing to deposit under MCL 15.234(8), and nothing to appeal as a fee under MCL 15.240a.", "appealed": true, "appeal_events": [ { "date": "2025-08-05", "type": "Appeal received", "body": "Delta County Board of Commissioners", "outcome": "Received at a regularly scheduled meeting.", "note": "Under MCL 15.240(3) the appeal is not deemed received until the next regularly scheduled meeting. The Board's letter fixes that date as August 5, 2025." }, { "date": "2025-08-18", "type": "Determination", "body": "Delta County Board of Commissioners", "outcome": "Denial upheld at a special meeting.", "note": "The tenth business day after August 5, 2025 was August 19, 2025, so the determination fell inside the statutory period. The letter does not record a vote count or identify which commissioners participated." }, { "date": "2025-08-20", "type": "Written notice", "body": "John Malnar, Chair, Delta County Board of Commissioners", "outcome": "One-page letter upholding the denial.", "note": "The written notice is dated two days after the determination and one day after the ten-business-day deadline. It does not mention the eight case files produced with the response, and does not say whether the office searched for a compiled summary or only for individual case records." } ], "appeal_status": "Denial upheld by the Board of Commissioners, August 20, 2025", "appeal_note": "The requester appealed the denial, and the Board of Commissioners upheld it. The August 20, 2025 letter records receipt on August 5, 2025 and the determination at a special meeting on August 18, 2025. It does not mention the eight case files that were produced with the same response, and does not distinguish the compiled summary that was denied from the underlying records that were released.", "requested": [ "A summary of all criminal cases prosecuted to trial by the Delta County Prosecutor's Office between January 1, 2024 and December 31, 2024, excluding simple traffic ticket violations and misdemeanors resolved solely by fine payment without further court proceedings.", "For each case, the case number.", "For each case, the defendant's initials or an anonymized identifier.", "For each case, the charges prosecuted.", "For each case, the final trial outcome — guilty, not guilty, or mistrial.", "For each case, the classification — felony or misdemeanor.", "A table or spreadsheet containing that information, which the request said would be acceptable.", "Delivery in electronic form — PDF, Excel, or CSV — by email or secure download link.", "A detailed written estimate in advance if the cost would exceed $50.", "Identification of any specific statutory exemption relied on, and release of all reasonably segregable non-exempt information, per MCL 15.244." ], "provided": [ "A two-page response letter dated July 17, 2025. Page one denies the request because “the record do not exist.” Page two grants it in part and lists eight case files by case number.", "Twenty-four pages of produced case documents: felony informations, complaints, jury trial sheets, an order of acquittal/dismissal, judgments of sentence, and sentencing on jury verdict forms for eight cases.", "The four jury trial sheets record actual trial dates and verdicts: 23-11012-FH (guilty on Counts 1–3, verdict May 30, 2024), 23-10872-FH (guilty on Count 1, trial July 30–31, 2024), 23-11056-FH (guilty on Counts 1–4, verdict September 25, 2024), and three misdemeanor files with sentencing-on-jury-verdict forms.", "Case numbers, charges, statutes, verdicts and felony/misdemeanor classifications for the produced cases — four of the five requested data points.", "A Notice of Denial with reason box 2, “Record Does Not Exist,” checked and reason box 3, “Redaction,” also checked, with a handwritten privacy rationale; “Part of your request” selected.", "A Notice to Extend Response Time with reason box 1 checked — the “voluminous amount of separate and distinct public records” ground.", "A blank FOIA Appeal Form and the office's FOIA written-policies page." ], "withheld": [ "Defendant names and initials — withheld under MCL 15.243(1)(a), and the only one of the five requested columns the exemption actually reaches.", "Any anonymized identifier substituted for a defendant name, even though the request expressly offered one.", "A compiled five-column summary in table or spreadsheet form — the office produced the underlying files instead of the summary.", "Any explanation of how the office identified the eight cases, whether from a list, a database query, or a prosecutor's recollection.", "Any explanation reconciling page one's certificate of nonexistence with page two's partial grant." ], "keywords": [ "25-135", "cases prosecuted to trial", "trial outcomes", "jury trial", "jury verdict", "guilty", "not guilty", "mistrial", "conviction", "2024", "case outcomes", "dispositions", "felony", "misdemeanor", "record does not exist", "certificate of nonexistence", "granted in part", "redaction", "MCL 15.243(1)(a)", "privacy exemption", "MCL 15.233(4)", "MCL 15.233(5)", "MCL 15.244", "segregation", "extension", "voluminous amount of separate and distinct public records", "ProsecutorByKarpel", "case management system", "Emily DeSalvo", "Lauren Wickman", "Delta County Board of Commissioners", "transparency", "accountability" ], "documents": [ { "title": "FOIA Request (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-135/25-135-request-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The two-page request faxed June 27, 2025, asking for a five-field summary of every 2024 case prosecuted to trial, with the $50 ceiling, the segregation demand and the offer to accept a table or spreadsheet. Requester identifiers removed." }, { "title": "Response Letter, July 17, 2025 (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-135/25-135-response-2025-07-17-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The two-page letter that denies the request on page one as a record that does not exist, then grants it in part on page two and lists eight case files. Requester identifiers removed." }, { "title": "Notice of Denial (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-135/25-135-notice-of-denial-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The county's Notice of Denial form: box 2 “Record Does Not Exist” and box 3 “Redaction” both checked, box 1 empty, “Part of your request” selected, Section 13 subsection and description of separated material left blank. Checkbox states verified at 400 dpi." }, { "title": "Notice to Extend Response Time (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-135/25-135-extension-notice-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The county's extension form with reason box 1 checked — the need to review “a voluminous amount of separate and distinct public records.” The “Specifically, the County must” line is blank, and the two handwritten date fields are not reliably legible in the released copy." }, { "title": "FOIA Appeal Form (as enclosed)", "file": "assets/documents/25-135/25-135-appeal-form.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The blank appeal form the office enclosed with its July 17, 2025 response. No completed appeal appears in the packet." }, { "title": "Produced Case Documents (as released)", "file": "assets/documents/25-135/25-135-case-documents-as-released.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Twenty-four pages covering the eight enumerated cases: felony informations, complaints, jury trial sheets, an order of acquittal/dismissal, judgments of sentence and sentencing-on-jury-verdict forms. The office redacted defendant names, dates of birth and identifiers before release; two defence-counsel e-mail addresses in proofs of service were additionally redacted for this site." }, { "title": "Board of Commissioners Appeal Decision (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-135/25-135-board-appeal-decision-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The August 20, 2025 letter from Chair John Malnar upholding the denial. It records receipt of the appeal on August 5, 2025 and the determination at a special meeting on August 18, 2025. It does not mention the eight case files that were produced alongside the denial." } ], "infographics": [], "charts": [ { "title": "The paper trail", "type": "interactive timeline", "anchor": "papertrail" }, { "title": "Four of five requested columns are in the produced pages", "type": "bar chart", "anchor": "fivecolumns" }, { "title": "Two of four 2024 requests produced records after being denied", "type": "bar chart", "anchor": "pattern" } ], "published": "2026-10-23", "updated": "2026-10-25", "featured": true, "watchdog_alerts": [ "Page one of the July 17, 2025 response denies the request because “the record do not exist.” Page two of the same letter grants it in part and lists eight case files, which the office then produced in twenty-four pages. Both statements are signed by the same prosecutor on the same day.", "The office cited the MCL 15.243(1)(a) privacy exemption, which reaches defendant names and identifiers. It withheld exactly one of the five requested columns — the defendant's initials — and produced the case numbers, charges, verdicts and felony/misdemeanor classifications. The request had already offered an anonymized identifier in place of a name.", "The Notice of Denial checks both “Record Does Not Exist” and “Redaction” on the same form, and selects “Part of your request.” You cannot redact a record that does not exist.", "The Section 13 subsection field and the “brief description of the information that had to be separated or deleted” line are both blank, despite MCL 15.235(5)(a) and (5)(c).", "The office took a ten-business-day extension on the ground that it needed to review “a voluminous amount of separate and distinct public records,” then produced twenty-four pages from eight files and quoted no fee at all.", "The request asked for a summary in five named columns and said a table or spreadsheet was acceptable. The office never explained why it could search its disposition records broadly enough to catch a February 2024 dismissal, but could not produce a table with the one withheld column omitted.", "Three of the produced felony files carry habitual-offender notices that the court reporters' own jury trial sheets say were “not given to the jury for consideration.” The page notes this as a record detail and does not analyze it as a legal question." ], "categories": [ "charging-decisions" ], "share_image": "assets/images/share/25-135.jpg" }, { "id": "25-134", "slug": "25-134-criminal-cases-dismissed-2024", "title": "FOIA 25-134: The dismissed-case count the office certified does not exist — after taking an extension for the volume of records", "short_title": "Criminal cases dismissed in 2024", "subject": "Total number of criminal cases dismissed in calendar year 2024, broken down by felony and misdemeanor", "synopsis": "A request for one number, in two parts: how many criminal cases the Delta County Prosecutor's Office dismissed in calendar year 2024, felony and misdemeanor. The request offered to accept “an internal report, table, or spreadsheet,” asked for electronic delivery, set a $50 cost ceiling, asked for an advance written estimate under MCL 15.234, and asked the office to name any exemption and release all segregable non-exempt portions under MCL 15.244. The office took a ten-business-day extension on the ground that it needed to review “a voluminous amount of separate and distinct public records,” then denied the request in full on a certificate of nonexistence. No pages were produced, no fee was quoted, no inspection was offered, and no exemption was cited. The Notice of Denial checks “All” denied and reason box 2, “Record Does Not Exist,” while leaving the exemption box and the redaction box blank. The response was timely under MCL 15.235. The contradiction is the extension and the certificate, filed in the same packet.", "status": "denied", "status_label": "Denied in full — certified that the record does not exist; no fee quoted, no pages produced", "submitted": "2025-06-27", "received": "2025-06-27", "response_date": "2025-07-17", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "requester": "Redacted", "fees_quoted": 0, "deposit_required": 0, "fees_paid": 0, "fee_waiver_requested": true, "fee_waiver_basis": "MCL 15.234", "fee_note": "No fee was quoted, no deposit was demanded, and nothing was paid. The requester set a $50 ceiling and asked for a detailed written estimate in advance if processing would exceed it. The office issued no estimate of any kind — not for a database query, not for a manual count, and not for a redacted set of case records. Compare FOIA 26-22, where the same office quoted $9,548 and a $4,774 deposit to search roughly 3,300 case files, and FOIA 25-129, where it quoted $2,931.12 and a $1,465.56 deposit for 3,544 minutes of work on approximately 886 cases. A zero-dollar answer leaves nothing to itemize under MCL 15.234(2), nothing to deposit under MCL 15.234(8), and nothing to appeal as a fee under MCL 15.240a.", "appealed": true, "appeal_events": [ { "date": "2025-08-05", "type": "Appeal received", "body": "Delta County Board of Commissioners", "outcome": "Received at a regularly scheduled meeting.", "note": "Under MCL 15.240(3) the appeal is not deemed received until the next regularly scheduled meeting. The Board's letter fixes that date as August 5, 2025." }, { "date": "2025-08-18", "type": "Determination", "body": "Delta County Board of Commissioners", "outcome": "Denial upheld at a special meeting.", "note": "The tenth business day after August 5, 2025 was August 19, 2025, so the determination fell inside the statutory period. The letter does not record a vote count or identify which commissioners participated." }, { "date": "2025-08-20", "type": "Written notice", "body": "John Malnar, Chair, Delta County Board of Commissioners", "outcome": "One-page letter upholding the denial.", "note": "The written notice is dated two days after the determination and one day after the ten-business-day deadline. It does not mention the extension the office took on the ground that a voluminous amount of records had to be reviewed, and does not explain how that is consistent with a certificate of nonexistence." } ], "appeal_status": "Denial upheld by the Board of Commissioners, August 20, 2025", "appeal_note": "The requester appealed the denial, and the Board of Commissioners upheld it. The August 20, 2025 letter records receipt on August 5, 2025 and the determination at a special meeting on August 18, 2025. It does not mention the ten-business-day extension the office took for the volume of records, does not describe any search, and does not explain how a volume-based extension is consistent with a certification that the record does not exist.", "requested": [ "The total number of criminal cases dismissed by the Delta County Prosecutor's Office for calendar year January 1, 2024 through December 31, 2024.", "That total broken down into felony cases dismissed and misdemeanor cases dismissed.", "Any existing “internal report, table, or spreadsheet summarizing these totals,” which the request said would be acceptable.", "Delivery in electronic form — PDF, Excel, or CSV — by email or secure download link.", "A detailed written estimate in advance if the cost to process the request would exceed $50, as required by MCL 15.234.", "Identification of any specific statutory exemption relied on, and release of all reasonably segregable non-exempt information, per MCL 15.244." ], "provided": [ "A two-page response letter dated July 17, 2025, captioned “Re: FOIA Request #25-134,” quoting the request verbatim and denying it in full.", "A certificate of nonexistence in the statutory language: that after a search, and to the best of the coordinator's knowledge and belief, “the public records requested do not exist within the records of the public body under the name nor any other name reasonably known to the public body.”", "A Notice of Denial form with “All” of the request checked as denied and reason box 2, “Record Does Not Exist,” checked; the exemption box and the redaction box are blank.", "A Notice to Extend Response Time form with reason box 1 checked — the “voluminous amount of separate and distinct public records” ground. The extended response date and the estimated time frame are handwritten and not reliably legible in the released copy.", "A blank FOIA Appeal Form, and the office's FOIA written-policies page, both enclosed with the response.", "The county's fax-platform receipt email for the incoming two-page request, and duplicate copies of the request, the policies page and the receipt email." ], "withheld": [ "The total number of criminal cases dismissed in 2024, felony and misdemeanor — the office says no such record exists.", "Any internal report, table, or spreadsheet summarizing those totals — same answer.", "Every page of every responsive record. The eighteen-page packet contains no responsive document at all.", "Any explanation of which months of 2024 the office could report on, or whether the answer differs before and after its case-management system went live in June 2024." ], "keywords": [ "25-134", "criminal cases dismissed", "dismissed cases", "dismissals", "nolle prosequi", "case dismissed", "felony", "misdemeanor", "2024", "case outcomes", "dispositions", "declined", "charging decisions", "record does not exist", "certificate of nonexistence", "MCL 15.233(4)", "MCL 15.233(5)", "MCL 15.244", "segregation", "extension", "voluminous amount of separate and distinct public records", "ProsecutorByKarpel", "case management system", "Emily DeSalvo", "Lauren Wickman", "Delta County Board of Commissioners", "transparency", "accountability" ], "documents": [ { "title": "FOIA Request (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-134/25-134-request-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The two-page request faxed on June 27, 2025, asking for the number of criminal cases dismissed in 2024, felony and misdemeanor, with the $50 cost ceiling, the segregation demand and the offer to accept an internal report, table or spreadsheet. Requester identifiers removed." }, { "title": "Response Letter and Certificate of Nonexistence (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-134/25-134-response-2025-07-17-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The two-page letter dated July 17, 2025 denying the request in full and certifying that the requested records do not exist. No exemption, no fee, no records, no inspection. Requester identifiers removed." }, { "title": "Notice of Denial (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-134/25-134-notice-of-denial-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The county's Notice of Denial form: “All” denied, reason box 2 “Record Does Not Exist” checked, exemption and redaction boxes blank. Checkbox states verified at high resolution." }, { "title": "Notice to Extend Response Time (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-134/25-134-extension-notice-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The county's extension form, with reason box 1 checked — the need to review “a voluminous amount of separate and distinct public records.” The extended date and estimated time frame are handwritten and not legible in the released copy." }, { "title": "FOIA Appeal Form (as enclosed)", "file": "assets/documents/25-134/25-134-appeal-form.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The blank appeal form the office enclosed with its July 17, 2025 response. No completed appeal appears in the packet." }, { "title": "Board of Commissioners Appeal Decision (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-134/25-134-board-appeal-decision-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The August 20, 2025 letter from Chair John Malnar upholding the denial. It records receipt of the appeal on August 5, 2025 and the determination at a special meeting on August 18, 2025. It does not mention the volume-based extension the office took before certifying that the record does not exist." } ], "infographics": [], "charts": [ { "title": "The paper trail", "type": "interactive timeline", "anchor": "papertrail" }, { "title": "The extension and the certificate", "type": "side-by-side comparison", "anchor": "contradiction" }, { "title": "What was asked and what came back", "type": "scorecard", "anchor": "zeros" }, { "title": "Requests for a number, and what the office said", "type": "comparison table", "anchor": "pattern" } ], "published": "2026-10-23", "updated": "2026-10-25", "featured": true, "watchdog_alerts": [ "The office took a ten-business-day extension because it needed to review “a voluminous amount of separate and distinct public records,” then denied the request in full because there were no responsive records. Both forms are in the same packet. One of them is describing something that did not happen.", "The request asked for a number. The office certified that a record does not exist. Those are different claims, and the letter never distinguishes them — it does not say “no compiled report exists but the underlying case records do,” and it does not invoke MCL 15.233(4), the provision that lets a public body decline to compile a summary.", "The office never addressed the measurement question. “Cases dismissed” can mean cases a judge dismissed over the prosecutor's objection, cases the office itself moved to dismiss, or cases disposed of without a conviction. The denial treats the request as if it were unambiguous and unanswerable at the same time.", "The response gives no indication whether the answer differs before and after the office's case-management system went live in June 2024. A request covering all of calendar year 2024 spans both sides of that change, and the office said nothing about it.", "The packet is eighteen pages long and contains no responsive document. Two of those pages say “This page left blank on purpose.” The office spent more paper explaining that it had nothing than it would have spent producing a two-line count." ], "karpel_note": "ProsecutorByKarpel went live in June 2024, and this request covers calendar year 2024, so roughly five months of the request predate the system. This page does not fault the office for lacking a system-generated dismissal report before June 2024. The criticism is that the office never said which months it could report on, or whether the system it adopted in June 2024 can produce this count at all.", "tile_title": "How many cases were dismissed in 2024? The office says it doesn't know", "tile_synopsis": "A ten-day extension for the “volume” of records, then a certificate that no records exist. No fee, no pages, no exemption cited.", "badge_label": "Denied in full", "categories": [ "case-statistics" ], "share_image": "assets/images/share/25-134.jpg" }, { "id": "25-133", "slug": "25-133-charge-counts-2024", "title": "FOIA 25-133: The office certified the monthly count did not exist — then attached an annual one and offered to sell the underlying data for $2,815.20", "short_title": "Monthly felony and misdemeanor charges authorized in 2024", "subject": "A monthly summary for calendar year 2024 showing the total number of felony charges authorized each month and the total number of misdemeanor charges authorized each month", "synopsis": "A request for twenty-four numbers: felony and misdemeanor charges authorized for each month of 2024, in any existing table, spreadsheet or internal report. The office denied it in full on July 17, 2025, certifying that the “monthly summary” does not exist — and then, in the next paragraph of the same letter, attached a “21st Century Report” screening table for the year and called it responsive. The Notice of Denial checks “All” denied. The attached table is annual, not monthly, and counts referrals and screening decisions rather than charge authorizations. On September 2, 2025 the office wrote again: it was willing to provide “the underlying information that would allow for your requested statistical summaries or breakdowns to be calculated,” itemized $2,815.20 in labor across about 1,700 files, demanded a 50% deposit of $1,407.60, and estimated 180 days to deliver. Three-quarters of the bill is redaction of names and dates of birth from records that were only ever needed as counts.", "status": "granted_in_part", "status_label": "Granted in part — one annual screening table produced; monthly counts withheld; $2,815.20 quoted with a $1,407.60 deposit", "submitted": "2025-06-27", "received": "2025-06-27", "response_date": "2025-07-17", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "requester": "Redacted", "fees_quoted": 2815.2, "deposit_required": 1407.6, "fees_paid": 0, "fee_waiver_requested": true, "fee_waiver_basis": "MCL 15.234", "fee_note": "The July 17, 2025 response quoted no fee. The September 2, 2025 supplemental response attached a Detailed Cost Itemization dated 09/02/2025: line 1, labor to locate, about 1,700 files at about one minute each, 113.33 quarter-hour increments at $6.21, $703.80; line 3a, labor to redact, the same 1,700 files at about three minutes each, 5,100 minutes, 340 increments at $6.21, $2,111.40; lines 2, 3b, 4 and 5 all $0. Subtotal $2,815.20. The form states an hourly wage with fringe benefit cost of $24.82, applies a 50% fringe multiplier for $37.23 per hour, and charges $6.21 per quarter hour. Because the estimate exceeded $50, the office demanded a deposit of 50%, or $1,407.60, before producing anything, and estimated 180 days from receipt of the deposit to deliver. Nothing has been paid on this record. Redaction is 75% of the total, and the redaction is of names, dates of birth, addresses, phone numbers and criminal identification numbers from files that were requested only as counts.", "appealed": true, "appeal_events": [ { "date": "2025-08-05", "type": "Appeal received", "body": "Delta County Board of Commissioners", "outcome": "Received at a regularly scheduled meeting.", "note": "Under MCL 15.240(3) the appeal is not deemed received until the next regularly scheduled meeting. The Board's letter fixes that date as August 5, 2025." }, { "date": "2025-08-18", "type": "Determination", "body": "Delta County Board of Commissioners", "outcome": "Denial upheld at a special meeting.", "note": "The tenth business day after August 5, 2025 was August 19, 2025, so the determination fell inside the statutory period. The letter does not record a vote count or identify which commissioners participated." }, { "date": "2025-08-20", "type": "Written notice", "body": "John Malnar, Chair, Delta County Board of Commissioners", "outcome": "One-page letter upholding the denial.", "note": "The written notice is dated two days after the determination and one day after the ten-business-day deadline. Its only stated reason restates the coordinator's position that the records are “deemed to not exist.” It does not mention the annual table that was produced, the monthly counts that were withheld, the $2,815.20 estimate, the $1,407.60 deposit, or the offer to inspect records in person." } ], "appeal_status": "Denial upheld by the Board of Commissioners, August 20, 2025", "appeal_note": "The requester appealed the denial, and the Board of Commissioners upheld it. The August 20, 2025 letter records receipt on August 5, 2025 and the determination at a special meeting on August 18, 2025. It gives one reason: the coordinator determined the records “were deemed to not exist.” It does not address the annual screening table that was produced, the monthly counts that were withheld, or the $2,815.20 quote for the underlying data.", "requested": [ "A monthly summary covering January 1, 2024 through December 31, 2024 showing the total number of felony charges authorized each month.", "The same monthly summary showing the total number of misdemeanor charges authorized each month.", "Any existing table, spreadsheet, or internal report containing those counts by month, which the request said would be acceptable.", "Delivery in electronic form — Excel, CSV, or PDF.", "A written, itemized estimate in advance if the cost to process the request would exceed $50, per MCL 15.234.", "Redaction of any exempt material rather than wholesale withholding, per MCL 15.244, and a response within the time required by MCL 15.235." ], "provided": [ "A two-page response letter dated July 17, 2025 denying the request because “a ‘monthly summary’ as requested does not exist,” with a certificate of nonexistence in the statutory language.", "In the same letter, a “21st Century Report” titled “Timeframe Examined: 1/1/2024 through 12/31/2024,” containing Table 1, “Screening decision for referrals received between” the two dates: 1,408 total referrals, 6 under review, 309 declined, 1,093 charged, broken out by adult and juvenile severity.", "A Notice of Denial dated July 17, 2025 with “All” checked and reason box 2, “Record Does Not Exist,” checked; the exemption box and the redaction box left blank; Emily DeSalvo named as contact.", "A Notice to Extend Response Time with an estimated time frame of 07/18/2025.", "A supplemental response letter dated September 2, 2025 captioned to FOIA 25-133 and 25-175, offering “the underlying information that would allow for your requested statistical summaries or breakdowns to be calculated” subject to MCL 15.243(1)(a).", "A Detailed Cost Itemization dated 09/02/2025: $703.80 to locate, $2,111.40 to redact, $2,815.20 subtotal, $1,407.60 deposit, 180-day estimated time frame.", "A supplemental Notice of Denial dated 09/02/2025 checking “Part” and reason box 3, Redaction, under MCL 15.243(1)(a), describing the separated material as “victim names/contact information, dates of birth, names, phone numbers, addresses, criminal identification numbers.”", "Two pages reproducing MCL 15.240, a blank FOIA Appeal Form, the county's fax-receipt notification for June 27, 2025, the request as faxed, and printouts of the Delta County FOIA policy page." ], "withheld": [ "The monthly felony charge authorization count for each of the twelve months of 2024.", "The monthly misdemeanor charge authorization count for each of the twelve months of 2024.", "Any existing table, spreadsheet, or internal report containing those counts by month.", "The underlying 1,700 case files and any derived count, pending a $1,407.60 deposit and a 180-day production period.", "Defendant names, victim names and contact information, dates of birth, addresses, phone numbers and criminal identification numbers in the underlying files, withheld under MCL 15.243(1)(a)." ], "keywords": [ "25-133", "monthly summary", "charges authorized", "felony charges", "misdemeanor charges", "charging decisions", "screening decisions", "referrals", "21st Century Report", "2024", "monthly counts", "case statistics", "record does not exist", "certificate of nonexistence", "supplemental response", "detailed cost itemization", "fee estimate", "deposit", "180 days", "1700 files", "redaction", "MCL 15.233(4)", "MCL 15.233(5)", "MCL 15.234", "MCL 15.240a", "MCL 15.243(1)(a)", "MCL 15.244", "segregation", "ProsecutorByKarpel", "case management system", "Emily DeSalvo", "Lauren Wickman", "Delta County Board of Commissioners", "transparency", "accountability" ], "documents": [ { "title": "FOIA Request (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-133/25-133-request-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The two-page request faxed on June 27, 2025, asking for monthly felony and misdemeanor charge authorizations for 2024, offering to accept any existing table, spreadsheet or internal report, setting a $50 cost ceiling, and invoking MCL 15.244 and MCL 15.235. Requester identifiers removed." }, { "title": "Response Letter, July 17, 2025 (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-133/25-133-response-2025-07-17-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The two-page letter denying the request because the monthly summary “does not exist,” certifying nonexistence, and then attaching “a summary of the total ‘screening decision for referrals’” previously created." }, { "title": "Notice of Denial, July 17, 2025 (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-133/25-133-denial-2025-07-17-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "“All” checked; reason box 2, “Record Does Not Exist,” checked; the exemption box and the redaction box left blank; Emily DeSalvo named as contact." }, { "title": "21st Century Report, Table 1", "file": "assets/documents/25-133/25-133-21st-century-report-table1.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The one-page annual screening table attached to the July 17 letter: 1,408 referrals, 6 under review, 309 declined, 1,093 charged, by adult and juvenile severity. Annual, not monthly; referrals, not charge authorizations." }, { "title": "Supplemental Response Letter, September 2, 2025 (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-133/25-133-supplemental-2025-09-02-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The two-page letter captioned to FOIA 25-133 and 25-175 offering the underlying information needed to calculate the requested summaries, requiring a 50% deposit, and estimating 180 days from receipt of the deposit." }, { "title": "Detailed Cost Itemization, September 2, 2025", "file": "assets/documents/25-133/25-133-cost-itemization-2025-09-02.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Lines 1 through 5: $703.80 to locate about 1,700 files at one minute each; $2,111.40 to redact them at three minutes each; $2,815.20 subtotal; 50% deposit of $1,407.60; 180-day estimated time frame." }, { "title": "Supplemental Notice of Denial, September 2, 2025 (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-133/25-133-supplemental-denial-2025-09-02-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "“Part” checked; reason box 3, Redaction, checked under MCL 15.243(1)(a); separated material described as victim names and contact information, dates of birth, names, phone numbers, addresses and criminal identification numbers." }, { "title": "Board of Commissioners Appeal Decision (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-133/25-133-board-appeal-decision-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The August 20, 2025 letter from Chair John Malnar upholding the denial. It records receipt of the appeal on August 5, 2025 and the determination at a special meeting on August 18, 2025. It does not mention the annual screening table that was produced or the $2,815.20 quote for the monthly counts." } ], "infographics": [], "charts": [ { "title": "The paper trail", "type": "interactive timeline", "anchor": "papertrail" }, { "title": "The denial and the attachment", "type": "side-by-side comparison", "anchor": "contradiction" }, { "title": "The table that was attached", "type": "data table and scorecard", "anchor": "table1" }, { "title": "Where the $2,815.20 comes from", "type": "interactive bar chart", "anchor": "fees" }, { "title": "113 hours of work, 180 days of waiting", "type": "interactive bar chart", "anchor": "arithmetic" }, { "title": "Five requests for a number", "type": "comparison table", "anchor": "pattern" } ], "published": "2026-10-23", "updated": "2026-10-25", "featured": true, "watchdog_alerts": [ "The office certified that the “monthly summary” does not exist, and then in the next paragraph of the same letter attached a summary for the same year and called it responsive. The letter never explains why one summary exists and the other does not, and the Notice of Denial in that packet checks “All” denied when a document had in fact been produced.", "The table that was attached is annual, not monthly, and counts referrals and screening decisions rather than “charges authorized.” The request asked for “each month” twice and said any table “that includes these counts by month” would do. The one thing the request was designed to reveal — the shape of the year — is the one thing the table cannot show.", "Seven weeks later the office conceded the underlying data exists, offering “the underlying information that would allow for your requested statistical summaries or breakdowns to be calculated.” That is a different position from the July certificate, and the office never acknowledges the shift.", "The bill is $2,815.20 for twenty-four numbers. Three-quarters of it — $2,111.40 — is redaction of names, dates of birth, addresses and identification numbers from 1,700 files that were only ever needed as counts. A count can be produced without a single name, as the office's own annual table proves.", "The office priced 4 minutes per file across 1,700 files: 6,800 minutes, 113.33 hours, about fourteen eight-hour workdays. It then estimated 180 calendar days to deliver — roughly 128 working days, or nine times the labor it had just measured to the quarter hour.", "The September 2, 2025 letter misstates its own dates, reciting that the 25-133 request was received on July 27, 2025 and responded to on July 7, 2025. That is a response twenty days before receipt, and neither date matches the July 17 letter in the same file set." ], "karpel_note": "ProsecutorByKarpel went live in June 2024, and this request covers calendar year 2024, so five months of the request predate the system. This page does not fault the office for being unable to produce a system-generated monthly report for January through May 2024. The criticism is that the office answered all twelve months with a single certificate, never said which months it could report on, never offered the seven months after go-live, and later priced a manual search of 1,700 files without explaining why the same system that produced the annual table could not produce a monthly one.", "tile_title": "Certified the monthly count didn't exist — then attached an annual one and billed $2,815.20", "tile_synopsis": "“Monthly summary does not exist,” certified — with a yearly screening table attached to the same letter. Then $2,815.20 for the underlying data, a $1,407.60 deposit, and 180 days.", "badge_label": "Granted in part", "categories": [ "case-statistics" ], "share_image": "assets/images/share/25-133.jpg" }, { "id": "25-129", "slug": "25-129-arraignment-to-disposition-times", "title": "FOIA 25-129: Arraignment-to-disposition times the office certified do not exist, then priced at $2,931.12", "short_title": "Case-duration data, the 886 cases, and the Board appeal", "subject": "Average and median days from arraignment to disposition, felony and misdemeanor, calendar year 2024", "synopsis": "A request for the office's average and median days from arraignment to disposition in 2024, the single longest case, and any existing summary report by charge level or resolution method. The office denied two of the four items as records that do not exist, issued a certificate of nonexistence, granted the longest-case item subject to a fee, and never answered the offer to inspect records in person. In the same packet it quoted $2,931.12 for 118.1 hours of work on approximately 886 cases — billing 3,544 minutes to locate arraignment and disposition dates it said it did not have, then a second identical 3,544 minutes to redact records it said contained nothing exempt. The requester appealed to the Delta County Board of Commissioners. The Board received the appeal at its regular meeting on August 5, 2025, upheld the denial at a special meeting on August 18, 2025, and issued a one-page letter on August 20, 2025 that restates the coordinator's conclusion without addressing the 886 cases or the quote.", "status": "granted_in_part", "status_label": "Granted in part — two items denied as nonexistent; $2,931.12 quote on the third", "submitted": "2025-06-26", "received": "2025-06-27", "response_date": "2025-07-17", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "requester": "Redacted", "fees_quoted": 2931.12, "deposit_required": 1465.56, "fees_paid": 0, "fee_waiver_requested": true, "fee_waiver_basis": "MCL 15.234", "fee_note": "The itemization dated July 17, 2025 bills two labor lines at 3,544 minutes each — 236 increments of fifteen minutes at $6.21, built on an hourly wage with fringe of $24.82. Line 1 is “reviewing approximately 886 cases to determine arraignment date, disposition date, and sentencing records” at $1,465.56. Line 3a is “separate and redact” at $1,465.56. The subtotal is $2,931.12, the required fifty percent deposit is $1,465.56, and estimated delivery is 120 days. No payment was made. The waiver, indigence and nonprofit boxes are blank, the “available on website” box is marked “None,” and the “date paid” field is blank.", "appealed": true, "appeal_events": [ { "date": "2025-08-05", "type": "Appeal received", "body": "Delta County Board of Commissioners", "outcome": "Received at a regularly scheduled meeting.", "note": "Under MCL 15.240(3) a board or commission is not deemed to have received an appeal until its next regularly scheduled meeting. The Board's letter fixes that date as August 5, 2025, which starts the ten-business-day clock in MCL 15.240(2)." }, { "date": "2025-08-18", "type": "Determination", "body": "Delta County Board of Commissioners", "outcome": "Denial upheld at a special meeting.", "note": "The tenth business day after August 5, 2025 was August 19, 2025, so the determination itself fell inside the statutory period. The letter does not record a vote count or identify which commissioners participated." }, { "date": "2025-08-20", "type": "Written notice", "body": "John Malnar, Chair, Delta County Board of Commissioners", "outcome": "One-page letter upholding the denial.", "note": "The written notice is dated two days after the determination and one day after the ten-business-day deadline. Its only stated reason restates the coordinator's position that the records are “deemed to not exist.” It does not mention the 886 cases, the $2,931.12 quote, the unanswered inspection offer, or any exemption." } ], "appeal_status": "Denial upheld by the Board of Commissioners, August 20, 2025", "appeal_note": "This is the only request in the archive with a Board of Commissioners appeal decision in hand. The appeal was received at the Board's regular meeting on August 5, 2025, the denial was upheld at a special meeting on August 18, 2025, and Chair John Malnar signed the written notice on August 20, 2025.", "requested": [ "The average number of days from arraignment to disposition for felony cases disposed in calendar year 2024, and the median.", "The same average and median for misdemeanor cases disposed in calendar year 2024.", "The single longest duration from arraignment to disposition in 2024, identified by case number.", "Any existing summary report, dashboard, or data table breaking those durations down by charge level or by method of resolution.", "An opportunity to inspect any responsive records in person, with copies of specific pages requested afterward.", "A waiver of fees, and an itemized estimate before any work was performed." ], "provided": [ "A response letter dated July 17, 2025, signed by Emily DeSalvo as FOIA Coordinator, on letterhead naming Lauren M. Wickman as Chief Prosecuting Attorney.", "A Notice of Denial form on which only “Part of your request” is checked, and only box 2, “Record Does Not Exist,” is checked.", "A certificate of nonexistence covering the duration statistics and the summary report.", "A grant, subject to fee, of the longest-single-case item.", "A fee itemization dated July 17, 2025 quoting $2,931.12 with a $1,465.56 deposit and a 120-day estimate.", "A Board of Commissioners letter dated August 20, 2025, signed by Chair John Malnar, upholding the denial." ], "withheld": [ "The average and median arraignment-to-disposition times for 2024, felony and misdemeanor — the office says no such record exists.", "Any existing summary report, dashboard or data table by charge level or resolution method — also said not to exist.", "The longest single case in 2024 — granted in principle, but only on payment of a deposit that was never paid, so no record was produced.", "Any answer at all to the offer to inspect records in person.", "The 886 case files the office said it would have to review, which it priced at $3.31 per case for both passes." ], "keywords": [ "25-129", "arraignment", "disposition", "arraignment to disposition", "average days", "median days", "case duration", "case processing time", "felony", "misdemeanor", "2024", "longest case", "summary report", "dashboard", "data table", "charge level", "method of resolution", "record does not exist", "certificate of nonexistence", "MCL 15.233(1)", "MCL 15.233(5)", "MCL 15.234(2)", "MCL 15.234(8)", "MCL 15.234(13)", "MCL 15.235(2)", "MCL 15.235(5)", "MCL 15.240(2)", "MCL 15.240(3)", "MCL 15.244", "Board of Commissioners", "appeal", "John Malnar", "special meeting", "886 cases", "3,544 minutes", "2,931.12", "1,465.56", "deposit", "120 days", "in-person inspection", "segregation", "redaction", "ProsecutorByKarpel", "June 2024", "Wickman", "DeSalvo", "Escanaba", "Delta County", "transparency", "watchdog" ], "documents": [ { "title": "FOIA Request (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-129/25-129-request-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The two-page request faxed on June 26, 2025, with the four numbered items and the offer to inspect records in person. Requester identifiers removed." }, { "title": "Response Letter, Notice of Denial, Certificate and Itemization (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-129/25-129-response-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The July 17, 2025 response letter, the Notice of Denial form, the certificate of nonexistence, and the eight-line cost itemization quoting $2,931.12 and a $1,465.56 deposit." }, { "title": "Board of Commissioners Appeal Decision (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-129/25-129-board-denial-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The August 20, 2025 letter from Chair John Malnar upholding the denial, recording receipt of the appeal on August 5, 2025 and the determination at a special meeting on August 18, 2025." }, { "title": "Notice to Extend Response Time (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-129/25-129-extension-form-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The county's extension form for request 25-129, with reason box 1 checked — the need to review “a voluminous amount of separate and distinct public records.” It records the request as received 6/27/25 and is dated 7/2/25; the extended response date and estimated time frame are handwritten and not reliably legible in the released copy. This form was misfiled inside the FOIA 25-139 response packet and is reproduced here with the request it actually belongs to." } ], "infographics": [], "charts": [ { "title": "The paper trail", "type": "interactive timeline", "anchor": "papertrail" }, { "title": "The certificate and the 886 cases", "type": "side-by-side comparison", "anchor": "contradiction" }, { "title": "The two-pass quote", "type": "interactive bar chart", "anchor": "fees" } ], "published": "2026-10-23", "updated": "2026-10-25", "featured": true, "watchdog_alerts": [ "The office certified that the arraignment and disposition dates do not exist as a record, then quoted 3,544 minutes to review approximately 886 cases “to determine arraignment date, disposition date, and sentencing records.” If those dates can be located case by case, why can they not be averaged?", "The same 3,544 minutes is billed twice: once to locate the dates, once to “separate and redact” the very records the office said contained nothing to withhold. No exemption is cited anywhere in the packet, and no redaction box is checked. What was redacted?", "The request offered to let the requester come in and inspect records in person, which would have cost the office almost nothing. The response never mentions the offer. Why was the cheapest option ignored?", "The Board of Commissioners upheld the denial in a one-page letter that restates the coordinator's conclusion and says nothing about the 886 cases, the $2,931.12, or the missing inspection answer. What did the Board actually review?" ], "karpel_note": "ProsecutorByKarpel went live in June 2024. This request covers calendar year 2024, which straddles that date, so part of the year predates the system. This page does not fault the office for lacking a system-generated duration report for the months before June 2024. The criticism is that the office simultaneously said the data could not be produced and priced a 59-hour manual review of 886 cases containing it — and that it did so for a period in which a case management system was in place for at least half the year.", "tile_title": "Case-duration data: denied, then $2,931.12", "tile_synopsis": "Two of four items denied as nonexistent, then billed 118.1 hours to find dates the office said it did not have. The Board upheld it.", "badge_label": "Granted in part", "categories": [ "case-statistics" ], "share_image": "assets/images/share/25-129.jpg" }, { "id": "25-118", "slug": "25-118-final-case-outcomes-jan-feb-2025", "title": "FOIA 25-118: Final case outcomes for January and February 2025", "short_title": "Final case outcomes, Jan–Feb 2025", "subject": "Existing records showing how criminal cases concluded between January 1 and February 28, 2025", "synopsis": "A June 18, 2025 request asked the Delta County Prosecutor's Office for existing records showing how every criminal case concluded in the first two months of 2025 — verdicts, dismissals, pleas, deferrals, and declines. The office extended its deadline, then quoted $1,041.60 built on 42 hours of labor, including 30 hours of redaction, and demanded a $520.80 deposit before producing a single page.", "status": "pending", "status_label": "Fee estimate issued", "submitted": "2025-06-18", "received": "2025-06-18", "response_date": "2025-06-25", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "requester": "Redacted", "fees_quoted": 1041.6, "deposit_required": 520.8, "fees_paid": 0, "fee_waiver_requested": true, "fee_waiver_basis": "MCL 15.234", "fee_note": "Estimate dated June 25, 2025: $297.60 to locate (48 increments) plus $744.00 to redact (120 increments) at $6.20 per quarter hour, an effective $24.80 per hour with no fringe multiplier. Deposit of $520.80 equals exactly 50% of the total, the maximum permitted by MCL 15.234(8). No copying or mailing charged, consistent with email delivery. No records produced; deposit status not documented.", "appealed": false, "appeal_events": [], "requested": [ "Final resolutions of all criminal cases — felonies and misdemeanors — resolved between January 1 and February 28, 2025", "Jury verdicts, guilty or not guilty", "Dismissals", "Plea agreements", "Deferred or diverted resolutions", "Declined charges, if documented" ], "provided": [], "withheld": [], "keywords": [ "FOIA", "25-118", "Delta County", "Prosecutor", "Lauren Wickman", "case outcomes", "dispositions", "plea agreement", "dismissal", "verdict", "declined charges", "deferred", "diversion", "fee estimate", "deposit", "redaction", "labor cost", "MCL 15.234", "MCL 15.240a", "Ashleigh Young", "January 2025", "February 2025", "case files", "transparency" ], "documents": [ { "title": "Request letter, June 18, 2025", "file": "assets/documents/25-118/25-118-request-redacted.pdf", "type": "REQ", "desc": "Two-page FOIA request as faxed to the Prosecutor's Office. Requester name, address, phone, and email removed." }, { "title": "Extension notice, June 20, 2025", "file": "assets/documents/25-118/25-118-extension-notice-redacted.pdf", "type": "EXT", "desc": "Notice extending the response time to July 9, 2025, citing voluminous records. Requester contact block removed." }, { "title": "Cost itemization, June 25, 2025", "file": "assets/documents/25-118/25-118-fee-itemization-redacted.pdf", "type": "FEE", "desc": "Detailed fee estimate totaling $1,041.60 with a $520.80 good-faith deposit. Transcribed from the seven-page form." } ], "infographics": [ { "title": "Fee estimate breakdown", "type": "interactive_bars", "anchor": "#fig-fee-breakdown", "alt": "Interactive bar chart of the $1,041.60 fee estimate: $297.60 for twelve hours of search labor and $744.00 for thirty hours of redaction labor, with a $520.80 deposit shown as half the total." }, { "title": "Procedural timeline", "type": "interactive_timeline", "anchor": "#fig-timeline-118", "alt": "Interactive timeline from the June 18 2025 fax through the June 20 extension notice and June 25 fee estimate to the July 9 extended deadline and August 12 2025 deposit deadline." } ], "published": "2026-10-23", "updated": "2026-10-25", "featured": true, "appeal_status": "N/A", "appeal_note": "The requester reports appealing most of these requests. The appeal record has not yet been located and added to this archive, so the appeal status is shown as N/A rather than as “none.”", "watchdog_alerts": [ "The office quoted $1,041.60 to produce records of case outcomes for two months. Why does the public have to pay to see how its own criminal cases ended?", "The estimate bills 48 increments and 120 increments but never explains what a single increment corresponds to. What is the unit of work being charged for?", "January and February 2025 fall after the June 2024 go-live, so the case-management system should already hold these outcomes. Why is a manual search-and-redaction project needed at all?", "The deposit is exactly 50% of the estimate, which is the statutory ceiling. Was any lower deposit considered, or was the maximum taken as the default?" ], "karpel_note": "January and February 2025 fall after the June 2024 go-live, so the Karpel manual applies in full to this request and its reporting features are a fair benchmark.", "tile_title": "Case outcomes for January and February 2025", "tile_synopsis": "Deadline extended, then a $1,041.60 quote and a $520.80 deposit demanded before a single page is produced.", "badge_label": "Pending", "categories": [ "case-statistics", "charging-decisions" ], "share_image": "assets/images/share/25-118.jpg" }, { "id": "25-94", "slug": "25-94-prosecutor-case-outcome-statistics", "title": "Prosecutor Case Outcome Statistics, 2021–2025", "short_title": "Case Outcome Statistics", "subject": "Criminal case filings, trial outcomes, dismissals, plea agreements, felony/misdemeanor breakdowns, and internal performance reports", "synopsis": "A May 2025 request sought five years of prosecutorial outcome data from the Delta County Prosecutor's Office. The office released three years of warrant counts by police agency, but said the case-outcome and performance records do not exist.", "status": "granted_in_part", "status_label": "Granted in Part", "submitted": "2025-05-23", "received": "2025-05-27", "response_date": "2025-06-05", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "requester": "Requester name and contact details redacted", "fees_quoted": 0, "fees_paid": 0, "fee_waiver_requested": true, "fee_waiver_basis": "MCL 15.234", "fee_note": "No fee estimate, deposit, or invoice appears in the released records.", "appealed": true, "appeal_events": [ { "date": "2025-06-17", "type": "Appeal received", "body": "Delta County Board of Commissioners", "outcome": "Received at a regularly scheduled meeting.", "note": "Under MCL 15.240(3) a board or commission is not deemed to have received an appeal until its next regularly scheduled meeting. The Board's letter fixes that date as June 17, 2025." }, { "date": "2025-06-17", "type": "Determination", "body": "Delta County Board of Commissioners", "outcome": "Partial denial upheld the same day the appeal was received.", "note": "The tenth business day after June 17, 2025 was July 1, 2025, so the determination fell well inside the statutory period. The letter does not record a vote count or identify which commissioners participated." }, { "date": "2025-06-27", "type": "Written notice", "body": "John Malnar, Chair, Delta County Board of Commissioners", "outcome": "One-page letter upholding the partial denial.", "note": "The written notice is dated ten calendar days after the determination and four days before the July 1 deadline. It is the only document in the record that separates the four items of the request and states which were produced and which were withheld." } ], "requested": [ "The total number of criminal cases filed from January 1, 2021 to the present (or from the date Prosecutor Wickman assumed office, if later).", "The number of cases resulting in guilty verdicts at trial, not-guilty verdicts at trial, dismissals, and plea agreements.", "A breakdown of felony versus misdemeanor case outcomes, if available.", "Any internal performance reports or case disposition summaries related to Prosecutor Wickman or the office as a whole." ], "provided": [ "A three-page 'Warrants Authorized by Agency' report for calendar year 2021 (run date November 10, 2023).", "A three-page 'Warrants Authorized by Agency' report for calendar year 2022 (run date November 30, 2023).", "A three-page 'Warrants Authorized by Agency' report for January 1 through November 30, 2023 (run date November 30, 2023)." ], "withheld": [ "Total number of criminal cases filed in 2024 or 2025 — the office says no such document currently exists.", "Guilty verdicts, not-guilty verdicts, dismissals, and plea agreements — the office says no such document currently exists.", "Felony versus misdemeanor case-outcome breakdown — the office says no such document currently exists.", "Internal performance reports or case disposition summaries — the office says no such document currently exists." ], "keywords": [ "Lauren Wickman", "Delta County Prosecutor", "case outcomes", "criminal cases filed", "guilty verdicts", "not guilty verdicts", "dismissals", "plea agreements", "plea deals", "felony", "misdemeanor", "warrants authorized", "prosecution statistics", "performance reports", "case disposition summaries", "FOIA 25-94", "transparency" ], "documents": [ { "title": "FOIA Request (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-94/25-94-request-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Original request dated May 23, 2025; personal identifiers removed." }, { "title": "Agency Response and Denial Notice (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-94/25-94-response-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "June 5, 2025 response, denial form, and extension form; personal identifiers removed." }, { "title": "Warrants Authorized by Agency, 2021–2023 (redacted transcription)", "file": "assets/documents/25-94/25-94-warrants-2021-2023-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Clean transcription of the three released reports; no personal information." }, { "title": "Board of Commissioners Appeal Decision (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-94/25-94-board-appeal-decision-redacted.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The June 27, 2025 letter from Chair John Malnar upholding the partial denial. It records receipt of the appeal at the June 17, 2025 regular meeting, confirms that item 1 was produced for 2021 through 2023 and withheld for 2024 and 2025, upholds denial of items 2, 3 and 4 in full, and records the Prosecutor's stated intention to produce the 2024 and 2025 records later." } ], "infographics": [ { "title": "Warrants authorized by agency, 2021–2023", "type": "interactive_bars", "anchor": "#fig-warrants-94", "alt": "Interactive stacked bar chart of warrants authorized in Delta County for 2021, 2022 and 2023, split into felony and misdemeanor counts, totaling 2,704 warrants." }, { "title": "FOIA 25-94 timeline", "type": "interactive_timeline", "anchor": "#fig-timeline-94", "alt": "Interactive timeline of FOIA request 25-94 from the May 23, 2025 fax through the June 5, 2025 partial grant and denial." } ], "published": "2025-06-06", "updated": "2026-10-25", "featured": true, "appeal_status": "Partial denial upheld by the Board of Commissioners, June 27, 2025", "appeal_note": "The requester appealed the partial denial, and the Board of Commissioners decided the appeal. The June 27, 2025 letter records receipt at the June 17, 2025 regular meeting and upholds the denial of items 2, 3 and 4 in full, and of item 1 for 2024 and 2025. It confirms that item 1 was produced for 2021, 2022 and 2023, and records the Prosecutor's stated intention to produce the 2024 and 2025 records later. The letter does not describe the search, cite an exemption, or set a date for the promised production.", "watchdog_alerts": [ "The office says it keeps no case-outcome statistics, yet it produced three years of warrant reports. If warrants can be counted by year, why can outcomes not be?", "The 2023 warrant report stops on November 30, 2023. Why is December missing from a full-year report?", "The request asked how cases concluded from 2021 through 2025. The office answered with warrant counts, which measure what police requested, not what the prosecutor did. Where is the record of what happened to the cases?", "Four categories were denied as nonexistent. Is there a signed certificate of nonexistence for each, as the act requires?" ], "karpel_note": "2021 through May 2024 predates the Karpel go-live, so the absence of system-generated outcome reports for those years is expected and is not treated here as a failure. The open question is what records exist from June 2024 onward.", "tile_title": "Five years of case outcome statistics", "tile_synopsis": "Three years of warrant counts by police agency released. Case-outcome and performance records: said not to exist.", "badge_label": "Granted in part", "categories": [ "case-statistics", "charging-decisions" ], "share_image": "assets/images/share/25-94.jpg" }, { "id": "25-277", "slug": "25-277-no-annual-report-the-34-720-query", "title": "FOIA 25-277: No annual statistical report exists, the underlying data does, and the office prices it at $34,720", "short_title": "No report, but a $34,720 query", "subject": "All annual statistical reports, year-end reports and similar summary documents containing prosecutorial data on clearance rates and backlog statistics, and on conviction and acquittal rates, January 2020 to the present", "synopsis": "A request dated November 24, 2025, faxed at 5:52:24 p.m. on November 25, clarified by a second fax at 7:59:42 the same evening to fix the period at January 2020 to present, and received November 26. It asked for two things: any annual statistical report, year-end report or similar summary document containing prosecutorial data on clearance rates and backlog statistics, and the same class of document as to conviction and acquittal rates. The office granted both categories in part. It certified that no annual statistical report, year-end report or similar summary document exists, citing MCL 15.233(4) and (5) and Densmore v Department of Corrections, 203 Mich 363 (1994), for the proposition that FOIA does not require the creation of a new record. In the same letter it granted 'the underlying information that would allow for the compilation of the statistics requested' and priced that at $34,720.00 with a $17,360.00 deposit and a 180-day estimate. The itemization charges 4,000 quarter-hour increments at $6.20 to locate and 1,600 increments at $6.20 to redact, on a handwritten method of 'approximately 1000 cases/year (6 YEARS requested)' at ten minutes per file to locate and four minutes per file to redact. Unlike FOIA 25-254, that arithmetic is internally consistent: 6,000 files at ten minutes is 4,000 increments and 6,000 at four minutes is 1,600. The challenge therefore moves upstream, to the volume premise itself, which the office has used in five responses and has never derived from a count. The office also volunteered definitions of 'clearance rate' and 'backlog,' the latter in five case categories, which describe a countable dataset and sit awkwardly beside the manual-review premise. The request asked for a public-interest fee waiver under MCL 15.234; the waiver section of the county's form is blank. The packet omits the notice to extend the letter says was filed, and omits the Fee Appeal Form and the text of MCL 15.240a that were included in the 25-254 packet.", "status": "granted_in_part", "status_label": "Granted in part — no statistical report exists; the underlying data is granted at a $34,720 estimate built on a volume figure the office has never counted", "submitted": "2025-11-25", "received": "2025-11-26", "response_date": "2025-12-18", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "requester": "Redacted", "fees_quoted": 34720.0, "deposit_required": 17360.0, "fees_paid": 0, "fee_waiver_requested": true, "fee_waiver_basis": "MCL 15.234", "fee_note": "The office quoted $34,720.00 on the county's Detailed Cost Itemization form and required a 50 percent good-faith deposit of $17,360.00 before any work would begin, with a 180-day estimate. Line 1, labor to locate, is $24,800.00: 4,000 increments at $6.20. Line 3a, labor to redact, is $9,920.00: 1,600 increments at $6.20. Lines 2, 3b, 4 and 5 — review for separation, other redactions, copying and other — are all $0.00. The hourly wage is $24.82 with fringe benefits, billed at $6.20 per quarter-hour increment, which is $24.82 divided by four and rounded down. The handwritten justification reads 'reviewing approximately 1000 cases/year (6 YEARS requested) to locating files/cases meeting criteria described. Approximately 10 minutes per file,' and for redaction, 'information of a personal nature that could clearly constitute a violation of an individual's privacy (MCL 15.243(1)(a)). Will appear in all documents located. Approximately 4 minutes per file.' Unlike FOIA 25-254, this arithmetic is internally consistent. Six thousand files at ten minutes is 60,000 minutes, which is 4,000 quarter-hour increments, which is $24,800.00. Six thousand files at four minutes is 24,000 minutes, which is 1,600 increments, which is $9,920.00. Total labor is 84,000 minutes, or 1,400 hours, which at $24.82 an hour is $34,748.00 — within $28 of the subtotal, the difference being the rounding of $6.205 down to $6.20. The defect is not the multiplication but the premise: 'approximately 1000 cases/year' is asserted, never counted, and appears in FOIA 25-215, 25-244, 25-254, 26-22 and here. The 1,400 hours also do not reconcile with the 180-day estimate: 1,400 hours over 180 calendar days is 7.8 hours a day seven days a week, and over roughly 128 business days it is 10.9 hours a day. The request asked for a public-interest fee waiver under MCL 15.234, with a written justification and a non-commercial certification. The Public Interest section of the itemization is entirely blank: no waiver box checked, no reduction percentage entered, and no written reason for refusing one anywhere in the packet. Nothing has been paid.", "appealed": false, "appeal_events": [], "appeal_status": "N/A", "appeal_note": "No appeal is recorded in the documents produced. The packet encloses a reproduction of MCL 15.240 at pages 7 and 9 and a blank FOIA Appeal Form at page 8, so the general appeal mechanism is documented. It does not include the Fee Appeal Form or the text of MCL 15.240a, both of which were in the 25-254 packet eight weeks earlier, so the fee appeal mechanism was not documented in this envelope. The 180-day window to sue under MCL 15.240 runs from the December 18, 2025 response, so a court challenge to the certificate or to the fee remains available on this record. The appeal status is shown as N/A rather than 'none' because this archive holds only what the office produced.", "requested": [ "FOIA 25-277 — annual and year-end statistical reports containing prosecutorial data, January 2020 to the present, in two categories.", "Category 1: all annual statistical reports, year-end reports and similar summary documents containing prosecutorial data on clearance rates and backlog statistics.", "Category 2: the same class of document as to conviction and acquittal rates.", "A public-interest fee waiver under MCL 15.234, with a written public-interest justification and a certification of non-commercial purpose." ], "provided": [ "A response letter dated December 18, 2025, on the letterhead of Lauren M. Wickman, Prosecuting Attorney and Civil Counsel, naming Beth Wickwhite as Chief Assistant Prosecutor and Deputy Civil Counsel and Lauren Mattson as Assistant Prosecutor, signed by Emily DeSalvo as FOIA Coordinator with a contact number of 906-789-5100.", "An acknowledgment that the request was dated November 24, 2025 and received by the Delta County Prosecutor's Office on November 26, 2025.", "A statement that a notice to extend response time was 'filed December 3, 2025.' The notice itself is not included in the packet.", "A certificate of nonexistence for both categories, stating that no 'annual statistical report,' 'year-end report,' or similar summary document containing prosecutorial data exists within the records of the public body, and certifying that after a search the records 'do not exist within the records of the public body under the name nor any other name reasonably known to the public body.'", "A citation to MCL 15.233(4) and (5) and to Densmore v Department of Corrections, 203 Mich 363 (1994), for the proposition that FOIA does not require a public body to create a new record.", "A grant, in the same letter, of 'the underlying information that would allow for the compilation of the statistics requested,' conditioned on payment of the fee estimate.", "The office's own definitions of 'clearance rate' — 'the number of cases charged vs the number of cases resolved with a conviction' — and of 'backlog,' the latter divided into five case categories: authorized and pending court; pending in court; sent for further information or investigation; denied; in review.", "Disclosure of three prior productions invoked in support of the response: FOIA 25-215 (Delta County Court backlog information), FOIA 25-94 (a Screening Decision table for January 1 to December 31, 2024, plus a document provided July 7, 2025 covering January 1 to July 3, 2025), and FOIA 25-195 (statistical information provided to the Board of Commissioners).", "A Notice of Denial form recording the request as received 11/26/2025 and the notice date as 12/18/2025, with Reason 2 (Record Does Not Exist) and Reason 3 (Redaction) checked.", "A seven-page Detailed Cost Itemization dated December 18, 2025: $24,800.00 to locate at 4,000 increments, $9,920.00 to redact at 1,600 increments, a $34,720.00 subtotal, a $17,360.00 deposit, a 180-day estimate, and a disclosed hourly rate of $24.82 with fringe.", "Reproductions of MCL 15.240 at pages 7 and 9, a blank FOIA Appeal Form at page 8, and the county's written FOIA policies and forms notice at page 10.", "Both TelNet fax portal receipts and the original request with its one-page clarification." ], "withheld": [ "Any annual statistical report, year-end report or similar summary document on clearance rates, backlog statistics, conviction rates or acquittal rates. The office certified that no such record exists.", "The underlying data from which the statistics could be compiled, which the office concedes exists and offers to assemble, withheld behind a $34,720.00 estimate and a $17,360.00 deposit.", "Personal information redacted under MCL 15.243(1)(a), which the itemization asserts 'will appear in all documents located' and prices at 1,600 increments — a determination made before the review it depends on.", "The notice to extend response time that the letter says was filed December 3, 2025. It is not in the packet, so the extension is asserted but not documented.", "The Fee Appeal Form and the text of MCL 15.240a, both of which were included in the 25-254 packet eight weeks earlier and neither of which appears here.", "The public-interest fee waiver. The request asked for one in writing under MCL 15.234; the county's own itemization form leaves the waiver section blank, granting nothing and explaining nothing." ], "keywords": [ "25-277", "25-215", "25-94", "25-195", "25-254", "annual statistical report", "year-end report", "statistical report", "summary document", "clearance rate", "clearance rates", "backlog", "backlog statistics", "backlog categories", "conviction rate", "acquittal rate", "conviction and acquittal rates", "prosecutorial data", "case statistics", "case management data", "performance statistics", "certificate of nonexistence", "record does not exist", "Densmore v Department of Corrections", "203 Mich 363", "MCL 15.233(4)", "MCL 15.233(5)", "create a new record", "underlying information", "compilation", "query", "data extraction", "Detailed Cost Itemization", "fee estimate", "deposit", "180 days", "quarter-hour increment", "increments", "hourly rate", "fringe benefits", "approximately 1000 cases per year", "unmeasured premise", "volume assumption", "fee waiver", "public interest waiver", "MCL 15.234", "MCL 15.234(7)", "MCL 15.240", "MCL 15.240a", "MCL 15.243(1)(a)", "fee appeal", "Notice of Denial", "Emily DeSalvo", "Lauren M. Wickman", "Delta County Prosecutor", "ProsecutorByKarpel", "Board of Commissioners" ], "documents": [ { "title": "Response Letter (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-277/25-277-response-letter.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The December 18, 2025 cover letter, five pages: the certificate of nonexistence for both categories, the citation to MCL 15.233(4) and (5) and Densmore, the grant of 'the underlying information that would allow for the compilation of the statistics requested,' the assertion that a notice to extend was filed December 3, 2025, the office's definitions of clearance rate and backlog, the three prior productions invoked, and the $34,720.00 estimate with a $17,360.00 deposit and a 180-day timeframe. Requester identifiers removed." }, { "title": "Notice of Denial, Appeal Form and County FOIA Policy (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-277/25-277-denial-and-appeal-forms.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The Notice of Denial form recording the request as received 11/26/2025 and the notice date as 12/18/2025, with Reason 2 (Record Does Not Exist) and Reason 3 (Redaction) checked; the text of MCL 15.240; the blank FOIA Appeal Form; a second copy of MCL 15.240; and the county's written FOIA policies and forms notice. No Fee Appeal Form and no MCL 15.240a text. Requester identifiers removed." }, { "title": "Request, Clarification and Fax Receipts (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-277/25-277-request-and-fax-receipts.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The two-page request dated November 24, 2025, the TelNet fax portal receipt for the 5:52:24 p.m. transmission on November 25, 2025, the one-page 'UPDATE' clarification fixing the period at January 2020 to present, and the second receipt for the 7:59:42 p.m. transmission that evening. Requester identifiers removed." }, { "title": "Detailed Cost Itemization (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-277/25-277-fee-itemization.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The seven-page Detailed Cost Itemization dated December 18, 2025: $24,800.00 to locate at 4,000 increments, $9,920.00 to redact at 1,600 increments, a $34,720.00 subtotal, a $17,360.00 deposit, a 180-day estimate, and a disclosed rate of $24.82 an hour with fringe billed at $6.20 per quarter hour. The handwritten justification reads 'reviewing approximately 1000 cases/year (6 YEARS requested)' at ten minutes per file to locate and four minutes per file to redact. The Public Interest waiver section is blank. Requester identifiers removed." } ], "infographics": [], "charts": [], "published": "2026-10-30", "updated": "2026-10-30", "featured": true, "watchdog_alerts": [ "The office certifies that no annual statistical report exists, then grants 'the underlying information that would allow for the compilation of the statistics requested' in the same letter. A certificate and a grant cannot both be the operative answer to the same request.", "The $34,720.00 estimate rests on a single unmeasured premise: 'approximately 1000 cases/year (6 YEARS requested).' That figure has now appeared in FOIA 25-215, 25-244, 25-254, 26-22 and 25-277. In none of those responses does the office show a count, a query output or a docket total behind it.", "The office volunteered a five-category definition of 'backlog' — authorized and pending court, pending in court, sent for further information or investigation, denied, in review — which describes status fields in a case-management system. It then priced the answer as a manual review of 6,000 files at ten minutes apiece.", "The Notice of Denial checks Reason 2 (Record Does Not Exist) and Reason 3 (Redaction) at once, and Reason 3 describes a redaction 'to be conducted after payment of the fee estimate.' One box describes something that has happened; the other describes something that has not.", "The itemization asserts that personal information under MCL 15.243(1)(a) 'will appear in all documents located' — a categorical exemption finding about 6,000 files the office has not yet examined, since the redaction follows payment.", "The 180-day estimate does not reconcile with the labor it prices. 1,400 hours over 180 calendar days is 7.8 hours a day seven days a week; over roughly 128 business days it is 10.9 hours a day, for one person working on this request alone.", "The request asked for a public-interest fee waiver under MCL 15.234, with a written justification and a non-commercial certification. The waiver section of the county's own form is blank — the fourth consecutive response in this archive in which a waiver was requested and never decided in writing.", "The packet omits the notice to extend that the letter says was filed December 3, 2025, and omits the Fee Appeal Form and the text of MCL 15.240a that were included in the 25-254 packet eight weeks earlier. The form a requester would need to challenge this invoice was not in the envelope.", "Three prior productions are invoked — 25-215, 25-94 and 25-195 — but the best they cover is 2024 and part of 2025. Four of the six requested years, 2020 through 2023, are not accounted for by any production the letter describes." ], "tile_title": "No annual report, but a $34,720 query", "tile_synopsis": "The office says no statistical report exists — then offers to compile the statistics for $34,720, using a case count it has never counted. Its own five-category backlog definition suggests the numbers are a query away.", "badge_label": "Granted in part", "categories": [ "case-statistics", "governance-foia-compliance", "charging-decisions" ], "share_image": "assets/images/share/25-277.jpg", "karpel_note": "ProsecutorByKarpel went live in June 2024. This request covers January 2020 to the present, so part of the window predates the system, and nothing on this page faults the office for how those earlier years were kept. The point is narrower and it is about the years the system covers. The office defined 'backlog' in five case categories and defined 'clearance rate' as a ratio of cases charged to cases resolved with a conviction. Those are status and outcome fields. A system that holds them can count them. Yet the itemization prices the answer as a manual review of 6,000 case files at ten minutes apiece, which is the cost of reading paper, not the cost of running a query. The letter does not name Karpel, does not describe a search of it, and does not say whether the system was opened. It prices a file review instead." }, { "id": "25-278", "slug": "25-278-plea-bargaining-never-tracked-62-trials", "title": "FOIA 25-278: The office says it never tracked plea bargaining — then bills $23,146.66 for a 4,000-file review it says is already covered by another invoice", "short_title": "Plea bargaining, never tracked — and billed twice", "subject": "Plea bargaining practices, January 1, 2022 to present: databases, logs and reports tracking plea offers made, cases resolved by plea, cases proceeding to trial and acceptance or rejection rates; case-management exports and data fields on plea offer details, charges before and after the offer, sentencing ranges offered and final plea outcome; policies, manuals, SOPs, memoranda, checklists and training on standardized offers, sentencing ranges, enhancement, reduction and withdrawal guidelines and mandatory minimums; templates and form letters for plea offers and withdrawal notices; KPI reports on plea resolution rates, prosecutor performance, trial-to-plea ratios and timeliness; statistical reports to external agencies; and records concerning system migration delays", "synopsis": "A request dated November 25, 2025, faxed at 6:01:58 p.m. that evening, four pages, received November 26 and answered December 18, 2025 — the same day, by the same coordinator, as FOIA 25-277. It asked six numbered questions about how the office plea bargains, plus a note on system migration delays. The office granted one element in full (the number of cases that proceed to trial, produced as a four-year table totaling 62), granted two items in part, and denied three outright. It certified that it keeps no record of how many plea offers it makes, no acceptance or rejection rates, no policies and no metrics. It conceded that 'the underlying data that would allow for the number to be derived is available and in the possession of the Prosecutor's Office,' and then explained that the old case-tracking system never had a field for plea bargaining and that staff do not enter plea detail into ProsecutorByKarpel. It produced two blank forms, SCAO Form MC 414 and a People's Notification of Revocation of Plea Offer template, and priced the rest at $23,146.66 with an $11,573.33 deposit — while a footnote on every line of the itemization concedes that paying the 25-277 estimate would capture these documents and make this estimate 'moot.'", "status": "granted_in_part", "status_label": "Granted in part — 62 trials produced from the calendar; plea-offer data certified not to exist; a $23,146.66 estimate the office says is moot if the twin invoice is paid", "submitted": "2025-11-25", "received": "2025-11-26", "response_date": "2025-12-18", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "requester": "Redacted", "fees_quoted": 23146.66, "deposit_required": 11573.33, "fees_paid": 0, "fee_waiver_requested": true, "fee_waiver_basis": "MCL 15.234", "fee_note": "The office quoted $23,146.66 on the county's Detailed Cost Itemization form and required a 50 percent good-faith deposit of $11,573.33 before any work would begin, with a 180-day estimate. Line 1, labor to locate, is $16,533.33: 4,000 files at 10 minutes each, or 2,666.66 quarter-hour increments at $6.20. Line 3a, labor to redact, is $6,613.33: 4,000 files at 4 minutes each, or 1,066.66 increments at $6.20. Lines 2, 3b, 4 and 5 are all $0.00. The hourly wage is $24.82 with fringe benefits, billed at $6.20 per quarter-hour increment. The handwritten justification for line 1 reads 'approximately 1000 cases/year (4 YEARS requested) to locate the request in this particular instance. Approximately 10 minutes per file.' For line 3a it reads 'information of a personal nature that could clearly constitute a violation of an individual's privacy (MCL 15.243(1)(a)). Will appear on all documents located. Approximately 4 minutes per file.' The arithmetic is internally correct, unlike FOIA 25-254. The Public Interest waiver section is blank. Footnotes 4, 7, 9, 11, 13 and 15 repeat on every line: 'should payment be made on the estimate related to FOIA Request 25-277, the documents in this request would be captured in that review, making this estimate moot.'", "appealed": false, "appeal_events": [], "appeal_status": "N/A", "appeal_note": "No appeal is recorded in the documents produced. The packet reproduces MCL 15.240 at pages 17 and 19 and includes a blank FOIA Appeal Form at page 18, so the general appeal mechanism is documented. It does not include the Fee Appeal Form or the text of MCL 15.240a, so the fee appeal mechanism was not documented in this envelope — the same omission as in 25-277. The response notes that a prior substantially similar request, FOIA 25-178, was appealed to the Delta County Board of Commissioners and the denial upheld, and that FOIA 25-136 was also appealed to the Board and upheld. The 180-day window to sue under MCL 15.240 runs from the December 18, 2025 response, so a court challenge to the certificates or to the fee remains available on this record.", "requested": [ "FOIA 25-278 — plea bargaining practices, January 1, 2022 to present, in six numbered items across three groups plus a note on system migration delays.", "Group A, item 1: databases, logs or reports tracking the number of plea offers made, the number resolved by plea, the number proceeding to trial, and acceptance or rejection rates.", "Group A, item 2: any export, report or data field from the case-management system showing plea offer details, charges before and after the offer, sentencing ranges offered, and the final plea outcome.", "Group B, item 3: policies, manuals, SOPs, memoranda, checklists or training materials on standardized plea offers, sentencing ranges, enhancement, reduction and withdrawal guidelines, and mandatory minimums.", "Group B, item 4: templates or form letters for plea offers or for notices withdrawing a plea offer.", "Group C, item 5: KPI reports on plea resolution rates, prosecutor performance tied to plea bargaining, trial-to-plea ratios, and timeliness or efficiency.", "Group C, item 6: statistical reports sent to external agencies — MPACC, DTMB, grant entities — concerning plea bargaining or case outcomes.", "Note on System Migration Delays: all data exports, backups and legacy extractions; all documentation of migration status, including what data has not been imported and why; and any record indicating that plea-bargaining, Brady/Giglio or case-tracking fields were rendered inaccessible.", "Format of production: native electronic format, Excel or CSV preferred.", "A public-interest fee waiver under MCL 15.234(1), with a written public-interest justification and a certification of non-commercial purpose.", "Segregability under MCL 15.243(4), and a certificate of service dated November 25, 2025 naming Emily DeSalvo." ], "provided": [ "A response letter dated December 18, 2025, on the letterhead of Lauren M. Wickman, Prosecuting Attorney and Civil Counsel, naming Beth Wickwire as Chief Assistant Prosecutor and Deputy Civil Counsel and Lauren Mattson as Assistant Prosecutor, signed by Emily DeSalvo as FOIA Coordinator with a contact number of 906-789-5100.", "An acknowledgment that the request was dated November 25, 2025, faxed at 6:01:58 p.m., and received by the Delta County Prosecutor's Office on November 26, 2025.", "A Notice to Extend Response Time dated December 3, 2025, extending the response period 'for no more than 10 business days' — present in the packet at page 28, unlike FOIA 25-277, where the same sentence appeared and the notice was absent.", "The trial count granted under item A(1): District Court 1, 6, 5, 6; Probate Court 10, 9, 3, 3; Circuit Court 7, 4, 4, 4 for 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025; totals 18, 19, 12 and 13; 62 across four years, 'Trials through December 18, 2025.' The office states the counts come from 'a review of the internal calendar of the Prosecutor's Office.'", "The office's definition of what the trial count includes: 'any jury trials in District, Circuit or Probate Court, any Abuse/Neglect Proceedings categorized as trials, or any entries of pleas as charged on the day of trial.'", "SCAO Form MC 414, Plea Agreement / Sentence Agreement (Rev. 1/21), pages 37–38, produced as responsive to item B(4).", "People's Notification of Revocation of Plea Offer (template), page 39, produced as responsive to item B(4).", "A concession under item A(1) that 'the underlying data that would allow for the number to be derived is available and in the possession of the Prosecutor's Office.'", "An explanation of why plea-offer data does not exist: 'Prior to the transition to ProsecutorbyKarpel, the in-house case tracking system did not document plea offer details in anyway. That information was not transitioned from one system to the other, because it simply did not exist. Moreover, plea detail information is not entered directly into ProsectuorbyKarpel.'", "A volunteered paragraph on the migration: 'the data transition or migration was completed in June 2024,' with field mismatches, more fields in ProsecutorByKarpel than in the prior system, and 'mistakes and issues being found with the migrated information on nearly a weekly basis.'", "A statement that 'the old case tracking system did not have data fields related to the tracking of plea-bargaining or Brady/Giglio. This information was never inputted into that system, so there was no information to migrate.'", "Disclosure of three prior substantially similar requests — FOIA 25-94, 25-136 and 25-178 — with 25-136 and 25-178 noted as appealed to the Delta County Board of Commissioners and upheld." ], "withheld": [ "Any record tracking the number of plea offers made, the number of cases resolved by plea, or acceptance or rejection rates of plea offers, for any period. The office certified that no such record exists.", "Any export, report or data field from the case-management system showing plea offer details, charges before and after the offer, sentencing ranges offered, or the final plea outcome. The office states that no such export, report or field exists.", "All policies, manuals, SOPs, memoranda, checklists and training materials on standardized plea offers, sentencing ranges, enhancement, reduction and withdrawal guidelines, and mandatory minimums. Denied as records that do not exist; the office notes this is identical to FOIA 25-178, which was appealed and upheld.", "All KPI reports on plea resolution rates, prosecutor performance, trial-to-plea ratios, and timeliness or efficiency. Denied as records that do not exist.", "All statistical reports sent to external agencies such as MPACC, DTMB or grant entities concerning plea bargaining or case outcomes. Denied as records that do not exist.", "All records concerning system migration delays: data exports, backups, legacy extractions, documentation of migration status and of data not imported, and any record showing plea-bargaining, Brady/Giglio or case-tracking fields rendered inaccessible. Each of the three sub-items was denied as a record that does not exist, with a certificate; a footnote states 'this was confirmed with the IT Department.'", "The underlying plea-offer data itself, which the office concedes exists but does not keep in a data field, withheld behind a $23,146.66 estimate and an $11,573.33 deposit — an estimate the office says is moot if the 25-277 estimate is paid.", "Personal information redacted under MCL 15.243(1)(a), which the itemization asserts 'will appear on all documents located' and prices at 1,066.66 increments — a determination the Notice of Denial confirms would be made 'after payment of the fee estimate.'" ], "keywords": [ "25-278", "25-277", "25-94", "25-136", "25-178", "plea bargaining", "plea bargain", "plea offer", "plea offers", "plea agreement", "plea resolution", "acceptance rate", "rejection rate", "trial-to-plea ratio", "trials", "trial count", "62 trials", "sentencing range", "sentencing ranges", "mandatory minimum", "enhancement", "reduction", "withdrawal of plea offer", "revocation of plea offer", "SCAO Form MC 414", "Plea Agreement and Sentence Agreement", "People's Notification of Revocation of Plea Offer", "case management system", "ProsecutorByKarpel", "system migration", "data migration", "Brady/Giglio", "KPI", "performance metrics", "MPACC", "DTMB", "certificate of nonexistence", "record does not exist", "underlying data", "MCL 15.233(4)", "MCL 15.233(5)", "MCL 15.234", "MCL 15.240", "MCL 15.240a", "MCL 15.243(1)(a)", "fee waiver", "cost itemization", "double invoice", "moot estimate", "internal calendar", "approximately 1000 cases per year" ], "documents": [ { "title": "Response Letter (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-278/25-278-response-letter.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The December 18, 2025 cover letter, fifteen pages: the item-by-item disposition of all six numbered items and the migration note, the trial table totaling 62, the concession that the underlying data exists, the explanation that plea detail was never captured, the volunteered migration paragraph, the prior-request cross-references, and the $23,146.66 estimate with an $11,573.33 deposit." }, { "title": "Notice of Denial and Appeal Forms (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-278/25-278-denial-and-appeal-forms.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Five pages: the Notice of Denial for request 25-278 (received 11/26/2025, notice 12/18/2025), two reproductions of MCL 15.240, and a blank FOIA Appeal Form. The redaction reason states that 'any determination of the exact exemptions would be conducted after payment of the fee estimate.'" }, { "title": "Fee Itemization and Extension Notice (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-278/25-278-fee-itemization-and-extension.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Ten pages: the seven-page Detailed Cost Itemization ($16,533.33 locate, $6,613.33 redact, $23,146.66 subtotal, $11,573.33 deposit, 180-day estimate, blank waiver section, and the 'moot' footnote on every line), the Notice to Extend Response Time dated December 3, 2025, a blank page, and the county FOIA policies notice." }, { "title": "Request and Fax Receipt (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-278/25-278-request-and-fax-receipt.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Six pages: the TelNet fax portal receipt showing transmission at 6:01:58 p.m. on November 25, 2025, four pages to 906-789-5197, and the four-page request with its six numbered items, format-of-production section, fee waiver request, segregability provision, certification and certificate of service." }, { "title": "Responsive Forms (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-278/25-278-responsive-forms.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Three pages: SCAO Form MC 414, Plea Agreement / Sentence Agreement (Rev. 1/21), and the People's Notification of Revocation of Plea Offer template — the two responsive records produced under item B(4)." } ], "infographics": [], "charts": [], "published": "2026-10-30", "updated": "2026-10-30", "featured": true, "watchdog_alerts": [ "The office issued two invoices the same day, to the same requester, for what its own footnote says is one review. FOIA 25-277 is $34,720.00; FOIA 25-278 is $23,146.66. Together, $57,866.66, with $28,933.33 in deposits. On every line of the 25-278 itemization the office concedes that paying the 25-277 estimate 'would capture' these documents and make this estimate 'moot' — and billed for both anyway.", "The office certified that it keeps no record of how many plea offers it makes, no record of how many cases resolve by plea, and no acceptance or rejection rates — then conceded in the same letter that 'the underlying data that would allow for the number to be derived is available and in the possession of the Prosecutor's Office.'", "The one substantive production — 62 trials across four years — the office obtained by reading 'the internal calendar,' not by reviewing 4,000 files. Yet the itemization prices a 4,000-file review at $23,146.66. The review that was billed is not the review that was performed.", "The office's own paragraph explains that 'the old case tracking system did not have data fields related to the tracking of plea-bargaining or Brady/Giglio,' and that plea detail is still not entered into ProsecutorByKarpel. The absence of plea data is a records-management choice, not a search result — and it is buried under a certificate of nonexistence.", "The 'approximately 1000 cases/year' premise behind the invoice has now appeared in six responses in this archive — 25-215, 25-244, 25-254, 26-22, 25-277 and 25-278 — without ever being derived from a count, a query output or a docket total.", "The Public Interest fee waiver section on the itemization is blank — for the second time in one day, for the same requester — and the packet omits the Fee Appeal Form and the text of MCL 15.240a." ], "tile_title": "Plea bargaining, never tracked — and billed twice", "tile_synopsis": "The office says it never kept plea-offer data, then bills $23,146.66 for a 4,000-file review its own footnote calls moot if the twin invoice is paid. The one thing it produced — 62 trials — it got from a calendar, not the files.", "badge_label": "Granted in part", "categories": [ "charging-decisions", "case-statistics", "governance-foia-compliance" ], "share_image": "assets/images/share/25-278.jpg", "karpel_note": "ProsecutorByKarpel went live in June 2024, and this request covers January 1, 2022 to the present, so roughly two and a half years of the window predate the system. Nothing on this page faults the office for how those earlier years were kept. The office's own paragraph is narrower and more useful: it says the old system never had a field for plea bargaining, so there was nothing to migrate, and that staff still do not enter plea detail into ProsecutorByKarpel. The absence of plea-offer data therefore runs continuously across the before and the after. That is a records-management fact the office volunteered, and it is the honest answer to a request the formal certificate answered with the word 'none.'" }, { "id": "25-279", "slug": "25-279-personnel-and-resource-data-granted-on-paper-billed-in-three-parts", "title": "FOIA 25-279: The office granted the personnel and budget records on paper — then sent three invoices totaling $34,673.79 and none of the records", "short_title": "Granted on paper, billed in three parts", "subject": "Personnel and resource data, fiscal years 2020 through 2024 plus current year-to-date: organizational charts, staffing reports, position classification lists, vacancy and time-to-fill data, part-time and full-time breakdowns and contract staff; attorney caseload assignment reports, case distribution statistics, workload balance reports, productivity metrics, specialization reports and performance evaluation summaries; training records, professional development budgets, CLE records, conference attendance, certification training and internal training programs with rosters and effectiveness metrics; annual budgets, quarterly and monthly expenditure reports, operating expense breakdowns, capital expenditure records, overtime records and audit reports; and grant applications, awards, expenditure reports, compliance reports, performance metrics and administration costs", "synopsis": "A request dated November 25, 2025, faxed at 8:16:12 p.m. that evening, received November 26 and answered December 18, 2025. It asked for five categories of personnel, caseload, training, budget and grant records for fiscal years 2020 through 2024. The office extended the deadline once, on a form dated December 4, 2025, citing a voluminous amount of separate and distinct records. It then issued a forty-eight-page letter that says GRANTED, or GRANTED IN PART, on almost every line — and enclosed no responsive records at all. What it enclosed instead was a Notice of Denial, two reproductions of MCL 15.240, a blank appeal form, a policy notice, and three separate Detailed Cost Itemizations: Attachment A at $176.96, Attachment B at $34,432.00 and Attachment C at $64.83, for a combined $34,673.79 and a combined deposit of $17,336.89. Along the way the office put its own scale on the record — 8 employees, 3 attorneys, 4 clerks and support staff, 1 victim advocate, 12 to 15 vacancies — and admitted that its fiscal year 2024 and 2025 audits 'have not been completed yet.'", "status": "granted_in_part", "status_label": "Granted in part on paper — dozens of records listed as enclosed and none enclosed; three cost itemizations totaling $34,673.79", "submitted": "2025-11-25", "received": "2025-11-26", "response_date": "2025-12-18", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "requester": "Redacted", "fees_quoted": 34673.79, "deposit_required": 17336.89, "fees_paid": 0, "fee_waiver_requested": true, "fee_waiver_basis": "MCL 15.234", "fee_note": "The office issued three separate Detailed Cost Itemizations dated 12/18/2025 for one request. Attachment A covers vacancy, hiring and turnover records: 12 to 15 files at 20 minutes each, 16 quarter-hour increments at $10.13, for $162.08 of locate labor; plus 24 increments of redaction labor at $6.20, printed as $14.88. Subtotal $176.96, deposit $88.48, 30 days. Attachment B covers the caseload questions: 1,000 cases a year for six years, 6,000 files at 10 minutes each, 4,000 quarter-hour increments at $6.20 for $24,800.00 of locate labor; plus 1,600 increments of redaction labor at $6.20, printed as $9,632.00. Subtotal $34,432.00, deposit $17,216.00, 180 days. Attachment C covers office-wide monthly and quarterly expenditure reports: 72 months and 24 quarters, 96 records, at $10.13 per quarter-hour increment, printed as $64.83. Subtotal $64.83, deposit $32.41, 30 days. The three subtotals add to $34,673.79 and the three deposits to $17,336.89. The Public Interest waiver section is blank on all three. The arithmetic does not reconcile on any of the three: 24 increments at $6.20 is $148.80, not the $14.88 printed on Attachment A; 1,600 increments at $6.20 is $9,920.00, not the $9,632.00 printed on Attachment B; and 96 minutes at $10.13 per quarter-hour, rounded down as the form requires, is 6 increments or $60.78, not the $64.83 printed on Attachment C. Each of the three errors runs in the requester's favour and none of them is explained.", "appealed": false, "appeal_events": [], "appeal_status": "N/A", "appeal_note": "No appeal is recorded in the documents produced. The packet reproduces MCL 15.240 twice, at pages 50 and 52, and includes a blank FOIA Appeal Form at page 51. It does not include the Fee Appeal Form or the text of MCL 15.240a, so the fee appeal mechanism is again undocumented in this envelope — the same omission as in FOIA 25-277 and 25-278. The letter states the appeal route in terms: 'If you disagree with this decision, you may submit an appeal to the chairperson of the Delta County Board of Commissioners, or seek judicial review in the Delta County Circuit Court.' The 180-day window to sue under MCL 15.240 runs from the December 18, 2025 response, so a court challenge to the certificates and to the three estimates remains available on this record.", "requested": [ "FOIA 25-279 — personnel and resource data from the Delta County Prosecutor's Office, in five numbered categories, for fiscal years 2020 through 2024, plus current fiscal year-to-date and, if available, the prior fiscal year as a baseline.", "Category 1, Staffing Level Data: organizational charts current and historical; staffing reports by department, division and role; position classification lists with job titles, grades and salary ranges; vacancy reports and time-to-fill statistics; part-time versus full-time breakdowns by department; and contract staff information including temporary and seasonal employees.", "Category 2, Attorney Caseload Data: caseload assignment reports showing the average number of cases per attorney; case distribution statistics by case type, complexity and attorney experience level; workload balance reports comparing caseloads across attorneys or divisions; productivity metrics including cases opened, closed and pending per attorney; specialization reports; and non-confidential performance evaluation summaries related to caseload management.", "Category 3, Training and Professional Development Data: training records showing courses attended by staff, dates and costs; professional development budgets allocated and spent by fiscal year; continuing legal education records including hours completed; conference attendance records including event names, locations and expenses; certification and specialization training; and internal training programs with attendance rosters and effectiveness metrics.", "Category 4, Budget and Expenditure Data: annual budget documents with line-item allocations by department; quarterly and monthly expenditure reports showing actual spending against budget; operating expense breakdowns by category; capital expenditure records; overtime and additional compensation records by department and employee category; and audit reports related to financial operations and budget compliance.", "Category 5, Grant Funding Data: grant applications to federal, state and private sources; grant awards including amounts, sources and award periods; grant expenditure reports; grant compliance reports submitted to funding agencies; performance metrics required for grant reporting; and grant administration costs including staff time allocated to grant management.", "Specific data points: total employees by department; attorney versus support staff ratios; salary ranges and average compensation by role; turnover rates; aggregate non-confidential diversity and demographic statistics; average cases per attorney by month, quarter and year; case distribution by offense type and severity; time allocation statistics; specialization and cross-assignment patterns; total training budget and actual expenditures; training hours per employee category; external versus internal training costs; training effectiveness assessments; total annual budget by fiscal year; expenditure breakdown by functional category; cost per case handled; resource utilization and efficiency metrics; total grant funding by source and year; grant-funded positions and programs; matching fund requirements and compliance; and grant performance outcomes.", "Format of production: electronic format, with data sets in Excel or CSV and reports in PDF; data organized by fiscal year and department; all supporting schedules and appendices.", "Advance notice of any fee above a stated threshold, and separation of non-exempt portions if any portion is claimed exempt.", "A public-interest fee waiver under MCL 15.234(1), supported by written public-interest justifications on fiscal accountability, resource management, performance evaluation, transparency and comparative analysis, and a certification of non-commercial purpose.", "An express offer of cooperation: 'If the Office Claims This Request Is Burdensome' — 'please do not deny the request. I am fully willing to re-submit these categories as separate, individual FOIA requests so long as you identify which portions you believe require separate processing. This is not a waiver of my rights under FOIA; it is simply an offer of cooperation to facilitate timely compliance.'", "A certificate of service dated November 25, 2025 naming Emily DeSalvo, FOIA Coordinator, edesalvo@deltacountymi.org, 310 Ludington Street, Suite 237, Escanaba MI 49829, fax 1-906-789-5197." ], "provided": [ "A response letter dated December 18, 2025, on Delta County Prosecutor's Office letterhead naming Lauren M. Wickman as Prosecuting Attorney and Civil Counsel, Beth Wickwire as Chief Assistant Prosecutor and Deputy Civil Counsel, and Lauren Mattson as Assistant Prosecutor, signed by Emily DeSalvo as FOIA Coordinator with a contact number of 906-789-5100.", "An acknowledgment that the request was dated November 25, 2025 and received by the office on November 26, 2025, and a statement that 'An extension was filed on December 3, 2025 by the Public Body.'", "A Notice to Extend Response Time for FOIA Request dated 12-4-2025, with Reason 1 checked: 'The County needs to search for, collect, or appropriately examine or review a voluminous amount of separate and distinct public records pursuant to your request.' The form notes that 'Only one extension may be taken per FOIA request' and directs questions to Emily DeSalvo at 906-789-5100.", "A written hierarchy of the attorney positions in the office for 2020 through 2025, produced in prose after the office certified that no organizational chart has ever existed: 2020 and 2021, Prosecuting Attorney Brett Gardner, Chief Assistant Lauren M. Wickman, Assistant Andrew Hayse; 2022 in four phases, ending with Lauren M. Wickman as Prosecuting Attorney and Beth Wickwire as Chief Assistant from November 2022; 2023 unchanged; 2024 adding Lauren Mattson as Assistant from August; 2025 unchanged.", "A statement that sworn Oaths of Office from 2022 and 2024 were produced for Wickman, Wickwire and Mattson, and that 'No Oaths of Office were located prior to 2022.'", "A list of current staffing by role: Prosecuting Attorney; Chief Assistant Prosecuting Attorney; Assistant Prosecuting Attorney; Trial Clerk and Office Manager; Misdemeanor Intake Clerk; Circuit Court and Abuse/Neglect Intake Clerk; Felony and Juvenile Intake Clerk; Victim Witness Coordinator.", "A position classification list with approval dates running from 2009 to 2024, including Chief Prosecuting Attorney (01-03-2012 and 08-16-2022), Assistant Prosecuting Attorney (01-03-2012, 03-19-2019 and 08-16-2022), Victim Witness Coordinator (04-2009 and 06-05-2018), Misdemeanor Clerk/Office Manager (05-01-2012), Intake Clerk (10-06-2015), Legal Assistant (10-11-2016), Felony Intake Clerk (09-18-2018), Child and Youth Victim Advocate (06-04-2019 and 06-15-2021), Circuit Court and Evidence Clerk (01-21-2020), Victim Outreach Coordinator (11-02-2021), Child and Youth Advocate (11-02-2021), Program Director of the Delta Regional Advocacy Center (11-02-2021), Community Outreach and Forensic Interviewer (11-02-2021), Family Advocate (10-08-2019, 08-04-2020, 10-06-2020 and 11-02-2021), Program Coordinator (10-08-2019), Felony/Probate Intake Clerk (05-17-2022), Chief Assistant Prosecuting Attorney (08-16-2022), Trial Clerk and Office Manager (11-19-2024), Misdemeanor Intake Clerk (11-19-2024), Felony and Juvenile Intake Clerk (11-19-2024) and Circuit Court and Abuse/Neglect Intake Clerk (11-19-2024).", "A statement repeated on each classification list: 'the Delta Regional Advocacy Center was under the umbrella of the Prosecutor's Office through 2022. However, they then became a separate, independent entity and are no longer affiliated directly with the Prosecutor's Office.'", "A statement that the office 'is only staffed with full time employees at this time,' and that there are 'approximately 12-15 vacancies in time frame requested,' held by Delta County Administration 'in the vault' and requiring substantial work to retrieve.", "A direction to the county's public meeting archive at https://deltacountymi.gov/board-agendas/ as the place where vacancy and hiring information may be found without charge.", "Identification of three contract engagements: an Independent Contractor Agreement with James Miller; an Independent Contract Agreement with Norman Moore; and a PAAM invoice for an intern in 2024, with the note that the intern was not a county employee, was anticipated to start in May 2024, never worked in the office, and that the payment made to PAAM was returned.", "Training records by person, listed by course and date: roughly twenty-eight entries for Prosecutor Wickman, roughly fourteen for Chief Assistant Wickwire, roughly thirteen for Assistant Prosecutor Mattson, roughly eight for Paige Tardiff and roughly thirty for Erin Wery, including Michigan Victim Advocacy Network transcripts for 2023, 2024 and 2025.", "A statement that all staff attended the internal ProsecutorbyKarpel 'go-live' training from June 10 to 14, 2024, and a Karpel refresh on July 14, 2025, neither with a certificate, and that certificates for departed employees 'could not be located.'", "A list of thirteen travel and training authorizations with invoices, including Vulnerable Adult Financial Exploitation (04/25/2024), the 96th Annual Conference (August 24-27, 2023), the Mid-Winter Conference (February 28-29, 2024), the MSU College of Law Job Fair (February 1-2, 2024), the MSP Arson Prosecution School (April 28 to May 3, 2024), NCFI Computer Forensics (October 6-11, 2024), NCFI Advanced Computer Forensic (November 16-22, 2025), PAAM APA Basic Training (June 2-6, 2025), Mid-Winter Conference and New PA School (February 11-14, 2025), Crash to Courtroom (October 21-23, 2025) and Forensic Interviewing (May 20-22, 2025).", "A list of six conference attendances with locations and dates: PAAM Winter Conference, Traverse City, February 28 to March 1, 2024; PAAM Annual Conference, Mackinac Island, August 20-23, 2022; PAAM Winter Conference, Traverse City, February 11-14, 2025; Prosecutor Staff Development Conference, virtual, April 29-30, 2021; PACC Office Managers' Conference, virtual, November 3-4, 2021; and Prosecutor Staff Development Conference, virtual, April 19-20, 2022, the last three noted as having no expenses.", "A statement that 'the State Bar of Michigan does not have a \"CLE\" requirement for attorneys.'", "A statement that 'due to the size of the Prosecutor's Office there is no ability for one attorney to specialize in one area. All attorneys are cross-trained.'", "A list of Delta County budgets for fiscal years 2019/2020, 2020/2021, 2021/2022, 2022/2023, 2023/2024, 2024/2025 and 2025/2026, offered as the responsive document for the annual budget, operating expense, capital expenditure, overtime and salary-range questions.", "Grant records offered as responsive: the 2022-2026 CVRP contract, grant application, fiscal end-of-year report, financial status reports and allocation letters; the 2022 VOCA grant application, grant agreement, subgrant award, financial status reports, PAR sheets and timesheets; and the CESF grant application, award letter, financial status reports and grant extensions.", "Certificates of nonexistence for two grant periods: 'no documents or records are in the possession of the Prosecutor's office prior to 2022 for either the CVRP Grant, or VOCA Grant,' and 'no receipt of the VOCA Grant occurred after 2022.'", "Job descriptions for grant-funded positions: Victim Witness Coordinator (06-05-2018 and 04-2009), Child and Youth Victim Advocate (06-04-2019 and 06-15-2021), Victim Outreach Coordinator (11-02-2021), Child and Youth Advocate (11-02-2021), Program Director of the Delta Regional Advocacy Center (11-02-2021), Community Outreach and Forensic Interviewer (11-02-2021), Family Advocate (10-08-2019, 08-04-2020, 10-06-2020 and 11-02-2021) and Program Coordinator (10-08-2019).", "A statement of current headcount: 'there are currently 8 employees employed by the Delta County Prosecutor's Office,' comprising 'currently 3 attorneys, 4 clerks/support staff, and 1 victim advocate.'", "A volunteered description of the office's demographics, offered after denying that any demographic record exists: 'the current demographics of the Prosecutor's Office is as follows: 25 to 50 year old, Caucasian, non-Hispanic, females.'", "An admission that the county's audits are behind: 'a review of records reveals the audits from Fiscal Year 2024 and 2025 have not been completed yet and, therefore, do not exist.'", "A refusal to reproduce records produced in earlier requests, citing the absence of 'good cause': the internal ProsecutorbyKarpel training materials, which the office says were 'previously provided to you in response to FOIA Request 25-203,' and the audit reports, which the office says were 'previously provided pursuant to FOIA Request 25-196.'" ], "withheld": [ "Every responsive record the letter describes as enclosed. The 74-page packet contains the forty-eight-page letter, the Notice of Denial, two reproductions of MCL 15.240, a blank appeal form, a policy notice and three cost itemizations. It contains no budget, no contract, no oath of office, no job description, no travel authorization, no training certificate, no grant report and no position list. The letter says 'please find the following documents' on dozens of lines; the pages that follow are invoices.", "Vacancy, hiring and turnover records for the 12 to 15 vacancies the office acknowledges, held by Delta County Administration 'in the vault,' withheld behind Attachment A: $176.96 with an $88.48 deposit.", "Caseload assignment reports, case distribution statistics, workload balance reports, productivity metrics and specialization patterns, all of which the office says could be derived from underlying records but does not keep as records, withheld behind Attachment B: $34,432.00 with a $17,216.00 deposit and a 180-day estimate.", "Office-wide quarterly and monthly expenditure reports, which the office says would require 'additional work,' withheld behind Attachment C: $64.83 with a $32.41 deposit.", "Any organizational chart, on the ground that 'The office has never maintained or created an \"organizational chart\"' — followed immediately by a prose hierarchy for six years, which is the information the chart would have contained.", "Any specialization report, on the ground that 'The Delta County Prosecutor's Office is too small to provide for \"specializations.\"'", "Any performance evaluation summary related to caseload management, on the ground that no such record exists.", "Any time allocation statistics, on the ground that no such record exists.", "Any training effectiveness assessment or outcome measure, on the ground that no such record exists.", "Any cost-per-case figure, resource utilization rate or efficiency metric, on the ground that no such record exists.", "Any internal training program materials beyond those already produced in FOIA 25-203, refused on the ground that 'no good cause has been established on why the same documents should be produced.'", "Any audit report, refused on the ground that the audits were 'previously provided pursuant to FOIA Request 25-196' and that 'no good cause has been established why the same documents should be provided a second time' — with the separate admission that the fiscal year 2024 and 2025 audits do not yet exist.", "Any aggregate demographic or diversity record, on the ground that no such record exists — followed by a volunteered four-word description of the workforce.", "Personal information redacted under MCL 15.243(1)(a) and MCL 15.243(1)(b)(iii), which the Notice of Denial describes as 'defendant names, victim or witness names, addresses, dates of births, telephone numbers, credit card information,' and which the itemizations assert 'will appear on all documents located' — a determination the Notice of Denial says would be made 'after payment of the fee estimate.'" ], "keywords": [ "25-279", "25-277", "25-278", "25-203", "25-196", "personnel data", "resource data", "staffing level data", "organizational chart", "position classification", "vacancy", "time to fill", "turnover", "headcount", "8 employees", "3 attorneys", "4 clerks", "victim advocate", "caseload", "caseload assignment", "workload balance", "productivity metrics", "specialization", "performance evaluation", "training records", "CLE", "continuing legal education", "professional development", "conference attendance", "travel authorization", "budget", "expenditure report", "operating expense", "capital expenditure", "overtime", "audit", "grant funding", "CVRP", "VOCA", "CESF", "PAAM", "Delta Regional Advocacy Center", "Oaths of Office", "James Miller", "Norman Moore", "ProsecutorByKarpel", "Karpel go-live", "June 10 to 14, 2024", "cross-trained", "too small", "demographics", "Caucasian", "non-Hispanic", "fiscal year 2024 and 2025 audits", "certificate of nonexistence", "record does not exist", "good cause", "burdensome", "offer of cooperation", "three invoices", "Attachment A", "Attachment B", "Attachment C", "cost itemization", "approximately 1000 cases per year", "6 YEARS requested", "6,000 files", "MCL 15.234", "MCL 15.235", "MCL 15.240", "MCL 15.240a", "MCL 15.243(1)(a)", "MCL 15.243(1)(b)(iii)", "fee waiver", "public interest" ], "documents": [ { "title": "Response Letter (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-279/25-279-response-letter.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The December 18, 2025 cover letter, forty-eight pages: the item-by-item disposition of all five categories and every specific data point, the six-year prose hierarchy of attorney positions, the position classification lists back to 2009, the training records by person, the thirteen travel authorizations, the conference list, the budget and grant inventories, the headcount of 8 employees and 3 attorneys, the volunteered demographic description, the admission that the fiscal year 2024 and 2025 audits do not exist, and the refusals under FOIA 25-203 and 25-196." }, { "title": "Notice of Denial and Appeal Forms (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-279/25-279-denial-and-appeal-forms.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Five pages: the Notice of Denial for request 25-279 (received 11/26/2025, notice 12/18/2025, delivered by fax), two reproductions of MCL 15.240, a blank FOIA Appeal Form, and the county's FOIA policy notice. The redaction reason states that 'any determination of the exact exemptions would be conducted after payment of the fee estimate.'" }, { "title": "Fee Itemizations A, B and C (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-279/25-279-fee-itemizations.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Twenty-one pages, three complete Detailed Cost Itemizations dated 12/18/2025. Attachment A, pages 54-60: $176.96, deposit $88.48, 30 days, for vacancy and turnover files. Attachment B, pages 61-67: $34,432.00, deposit $17,216.00, 180 days, for a 6,000-file caseload review. Attachment C, pages 68-74: $64.83, deposit $32.41, 30 days, for office-wide expenditure reports. The Public Interest waiver section is blank on all three." }, { "title": "Request and Fax Receipt (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-279/25-279-request-and-fax-receipt.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Six pages: the TelNet fax portal notice recording transmission at 8:16:12 p.m. on November 25, 2025, four pages to 906-789-5197, followed by the request itself with its five numbered categories, the time period, the specific data points, the format and organization requirements, the public-interest justifications, the offer to split the request if the office calls it burdensome, the non-commercial certification and the certificate of service." }, { "title": "Notice to Extend Response Time (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/25-279/25-279-extension-notice.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Nine pages: the county's Notice to Extend Response Time for FOIA Request, dated 12-4-2025, with Reason 1 checked — the need to search for, collect or review 'a voluminous amount of separate and distinct public records' — the statement that only one extension may be taken per request, the contact line for Emily DeSalvo, and the accompanying county forms and policy notice." } ], "infographics": [], "charts": [], "published": "2026-10-30", "updated": "2026-10-30", "featured": true, "watchdog_alerts": [ "The letter says GRANTED, or GRANTED IN PART, on nearly every line, and says 'please find the following documents' dozens of times. The 74-page packet contains no responsive documents. What it contains is a Notice of Denial, a blank appeal form, a policy notice and three cost itemizations totaling $34,673.79, with $17,336.89 in deposits demanded before any of the granted records are produced.", "One request, three invoices. The office split 25-279 into three priced workstreams — Attachment A at $176.96, Attachment B at $34,432.00 and Attachment C at $64.83 — and set three different clocks: 30 days, 180 days and 30 days. Nothing in the letter explains why one request became three invoices.", "The arithmetic does not reconcile on any of the three attachments. Attachment A prints $14.88 where 24 increments at $6.20 is $148.80. Attachment B prints $9,632.00 where 1,600 increments at $6.20 is $9,920.00. Attachment C prints $64.83 where 96 minutes rounded down to 6 increments at $10.13 is $60.78. All three errors run in the requester's favour and none is explained.", "The caseload estimate rests on a premise that has now drifted. In FOIA 25-277 and 25-278 the itemization said 'approximately 1000 cases/year (4 YEARS requested).' Here it says 'approximately 1000 cases/year (6 YEARS requested),' producing 6,000 files. The request asked for fiscal years 2020 through 2024 plus the current year. The file count grew; the basis for it did not.", "The office put its own scale on the record: 8 employees, of whom 3 are attorneys, 4 are clerks or support staff and 1 is a victim advocate. It says the office is 'too small to provide for specializations' and that 'there is no ability for one attorney to specialize in one area.' It then priced a manual review of 6,000 files at $34,432.00 to answer a question about how those three attorneys divide their work.", "The requester offered, in writing, to split the request into separate FOIAs if the office would identify which portions required separate processing. The office did not identify any. It issued three estimates instead.", "The office admitted that 'the audits from Fiscal Year 2024 and 2025 have not been completed yet and, therefore, do not exist.' A prosecutor's office two fiscal years behind on audit is a budget-oversight fact the office volunteered in a FOIA response.", "The office denied that any demographic record exists, then volunteered the workforce description in prose: '25 to 50 year old, Caucasian, non-Hispanic, females.' The same pattern as the migration admission in 25-278 — a certificate of nonexistence followed by the substance.", "The Public Interest fee waiver section is blank on all three itemizations, for the third consecutive request from this requester, and the packet again omits the Fee Appeal Form and the text of MCL 15.240a." ], "tile_title": "Granted on paper, billed in three parts", "tile_synopsis": "Forty-eight pages of GRANTED, and not one record enclosed. Instead: three cost itemizations totaling $34,673.79, an 8-employee office, a 6,000-file estimate, and an admission that two years of audits do not exist.", "badge_label": "Granted in part", "categories": [ "personnel-staffing", "budget-spending", "case-statistics", "governance-foia-compliance" ], "share_image": "assets/images/share/25-279.jpg", "karpel_note": "ProsecutorByKarpel went live in June 2024, and this request covers fiscal years 2020 through 2024 plus the current year, so most of the window predates the system. Nothing on this page faults the office for how those earlier years were kept, and nothing here asserts a date for the system's implementation beyond the office's own statement that staff attended a 'go-live' training from June 10 to 14, 2024. The relevant point is narrower. The office says the internal Karpel training materials were already produced under FOIA 25-203 and refuses to produce them again for want of 'good cause.' That is a records-access position, not a records-management one, and it is the office's own choice." }, { "id": "26-21", "slug": "26-21-conviction-count-amended-response", "title": "FOIA 26-21: A count of convictions the office says does not exist — then a quiet amendment that changed the number behind the bill", "short_title": "The amendment that corrected nothing it admitted", "subject": "The total number of criminal convictions secured by the Delta County Prosecutor's Office from the prosecutor's election date through December 31, 2025, in aggregate numerical form only, with no individual case information requested", "synopsis": "A one-page request dated January 30, 2026, faxed at 12:29:53 p.m. Eastern and received February 2, asking for a single number: the office's total criminal convictions from January 1, 2023 through December 31, 2025. It asked for aggregate data only, a fee waiver under MCL 15.234, and an itemized estimate before any work. On February 5 the office answered 'GRANTED IN PART, DENIED IN PART,' certified that no document containing the total exists, cited the no-duty-to-create provision at MCL 15.233(5), issued a certificate of nonexistence under MCL 15.233(1), and offered to sell the underlying case files so the requester could compile the total himself: $9,548.00, a $4,774.00 deposit, and a 270-day estimate. Then, on February 12, the office sent a two-page amendment. It changed one thing. Where the original said the office processes 'approximately 1,500 files per year (2023, 2024, 2025),' the amendment says 'approximately 1,100 files per year.' Nothing else changed — not the denial, the statute, the certificate, the fee, the deposit, the 270 days, both footnotes, the appeal paragraph, or even the two typographical errors. At the itemization's own 3-minute and 4-minute rates and $6.20 quarter-hour charge, 1,500 files per year implies $13,020.00 and a $6,510.00 deposit; the office quoted $9,548.00 and $4,774.00. The amendment corrected a number that had contradicted the office's own invoice by $3,472.00, and said nothing about having corrected it.", "status": "denied", "status_label": "Denied as a compilation — no count produced; fee of $9,548.00 quoted for underlying files; amended response revised the volume figure without explanation", "submitted": "2026-01-30", "received": "2026-02-02", "response_date": "2026-02-05", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "requester": "Redacted", "fees_quoted": 9548, "deposit_required": 4774, "fees_paid": 0, "fee_waiver_requested": true, "fee_waiver_basis": "MCL 15.234", "fee_note": "The Detailed Cost Itemization dated with the February 5 response prices a review of approximately 1,100 files per year across three years, or 3,300 files. Line 1: 3 minutes per file, 660 quarter-hour increments at $6.20, for $4,092.00. Line 3a: 4 minutes per file (two documents per file), 880 increments at $6.20, for $5,456.00. Subtotal $9,548.00, deposit $4,774.00 at 50 percent, delivery estimate 270 days, amount paid $0.00. The itemization prints an hourly wage with fringe of $24.82 and a charge per quarter hour of $6.20; $24.82 divided by four is $6.205, which rounds to $6.21, not $6.20. The fee-waiver section, with two checkboxes and an 'After Waiver: $____' line, is blank. Footnote 2 states that the itemization 'is identical to the FOIA Fee Itemization related to FOIA Request 25-21' and that a deposit on either 25-21 or 25-22 'would be considered applicable to both' — naming request numbers that do not appear in this archive, where the requests are 26-21 and 26-22. The February 5 letter stated the office processes approximately 1,500 files per year; at the itemization's own rates that volume produces a subtotal of $13,020.00 and a deposit of $6,510.00, a $3,472.00 discrepancy against the $9,548.00 actually quoted. The February 12 amendment changed the stated volume to 1,100 files per year and left the fee unchanged.", "appealed": false, "appeal_events": [], "appeal_status": "N/A", "appeal_note": "No appeal is recorded in the documents produced. The packet reproduces MCL 15.240 twice, includes a blank FOIA Appeal Form, and states the appeal route in terms: a requester who disagrees may appeal to the chairperson of the Delta County Board of Commissioners or seek judicial review in the Delta County Circuit Court. The amendment creates two possible appeal clocks. Under MCL 15.240 the appeal period runs 30 days from the notice of denial: March 22, 2026 if the February 5 letter controls, April 8, 2026 if the February 12 amendment controls. The disclosure deadline under MCL 15.240(6) is 180 days after the appeal period: August 4 or August 11, 2026, depending on which letter governs. The statute provides no mechanism for an amended response, so which letter is operative is unresolved on the face of the record. The packet again omits the Fee Appeal Form and the text of MCL 15.240a.", "requested": [ "FOIA 26-21 — the total number of criminal convictions secured by the Delta County Prosecutor's Office from the prosecutor's election date through December 31, 2025.", "The request sought only aggregate numerical data and expressly disclaimed any request for individual case information.", "A public-interest fee waiver under MCL 15.234.", "An itemized estimate of any fee before the office began processing the request, so the requester could decide whether to proceed.", "A certificate of service dated January 30, 2026, naming Emily DeSalvo, FOIA Coordinator, 310 Ludington Street, Suite 237, Escanaba MI 49829, fax 1-906-789-5197." ], "provided": [ "A response letter dated February 5, 2026, on Delta County Prosecutor's Office letterhead, headed 'GRANTED IN PART, DENIED IN PART,' finding that no document containing the requested aggregate total exists and that compiling one would require creating a new record.", "A citation to MCL 15.233(5), the provision relieving a public body of any duty to make a compilation, summary, or new record.", "A formal certificate of nonexistence under MCL 15.233(1), certifying that the requested record does not exist under the office's procedures and guidelines.", "An offer to provide the total 'in the form of the underlying information that would allow for your own compiling,' priced in the attached itemization.", "Footnote 1 in both letters, resolving the election-date ambiguity: 'Prosecutor Wickman was elected in November 2022 General Election, and was sworn in for her term starting on January 1, 2023.'", "A Notice of Denial form recording Request No. 26-21, Date Received 02/02/2026, Date of This Notice 02/05/2026, and contact Emily DeSalvo at 906-789-5100.", "A Detailed Cost Itemization: line 1 at 660 quarter-hour increments and $4,092.00; line 3a at 880 increments and $5,456.00; subtotal $9,548.00; deposit $4,774.00; 270 days; hourly wage with fringe $24.82; charge per quarter hour $6.20.", "Footnote 2 of the itemization, stating that it is identical to the itemization for FOIA Request 25-21 and that a deposit on either 25-21 or 25-22 applies to both.", "Two pages of MCL 15.240, a blank FOIA Appeal Form, and a FOIA Written Policies notice.", "Two IPFone fax notifications and the request as received.", "An amended response letter dated February 12, 2026, changing the stated volume from 'approximately 1,500 files per year (2023, 2024, 2025)' to 'approximately 1,100 files per year (2023, 2024, 2025)' and changing nothing else." ], "withheld": [ "The total number of criminal convictions, on the ground that no document containing the total exists and that compiling it would require creating a new record under MCL 15.233(5).", "The underlying case files that would allow the requester to compile the total himself, withheld behind a $9,548.00 fee and a $4,774.00 deposit.", "Any determination on the requested fee waiver; both letters are silent and the itemization's waiver section is blank.", "Any explanation of why the February 5 letter was amended, why the volume figure changed from 1,500 to 1,100, or what the correct basis for either figure is.", "Any explanation of the 270-day delivery estimate.", "Any accounting that separates what was charged for request 26-21 from what was charged for request 26-22, given footnote 2's provision that one deposit satisfies both.", "Any identification of the employee classification behind the $24.82 hourly wage with fringe, or confirmation that it is the lowest-paid employee capable of the task under MCL 15.234(2).", "Any statement of the date on which an unpaid deposit would cause the request to be treated as abandoned under MCL 15.234(13)." ], "keywords": [ "26-21", "26-22", "26-20", "25-21", "25-22", "conviction count", "total convictions", "aggregate data", "compilation", "no duty to create", "MCL 15.233(5)", "MCL 15.233(1)", "certificate of nonexistence", "record does not exist", "amended response", "amendment", "1,500 files per year", "1,100 files per year", "3,300 files", "4,500 files", "9,548.00", "4,774.00", "13,020.00", "6,510.00", "3,472.00", "270 days", "detailed cost itemization", "6.20 per quarter hour", "24.82 hourly wage", "fee waiver", "MCL 15.234", "MCL 15.235", "MCL 15.240", "MCL 15.240a", "MCL 15.243(1)(a)", "Notice of Denial", "shared itemization", "deposit", "public interest", "Emily DeSalvo", "Delta County Prosecutor" ], "documents": [ { "title": "Response Letter (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/26-21/26-21-response-letter.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The February 5, 2026 cover letter, headed GRANTED IN PART, DENIED IN PART: the finding that no aggregate total exists, the citation to MCL 15.233(5), the certificate of nonexistence under MCL 15.233(1), the offer to sell the underlying files, and footnote 1 resolving the election date to January 1, 2023." }, { "title": "Notice of Denial and Appeal Forms (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/26-21/26-21-denial-and-appeal-forms.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Five pages: the Notice of Denial for request 26-21 (received 02/02/2026, notice 02/05/2026), two reproductions of MCL 15.240, a blank FOIA Appeal Form, and the county's FOIA written-policies notice." }, { "title": "Detailed Cost Itemization (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/26-21/26-21-fee-itemization.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Seven pages: the itemization pricing approximately 1,100 files per year across three years at 3 minutes and 4 minutes per file and $6.20 per quarter hour, for a subtotal of $9,548.00, a deposit of $4,774.00, and a 270-day estimate. Includes the blank fee-waiver section and footnote 2 naming requests 25-21 and 25-22." }, { "title": "Request and Fax Record (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/26-21/26-21-request-and-fax-record.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Three pages: the IPFone fax notifications recording transmission at 12:29:53 p.m. Eastern on January 30, 2026, and the request as received, asking for the total number of criminal convictions from the prosecutor's election date through December 31, 2025." }, { "title": "Amended Response Letter (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/26-21/26-21-amended-response-letter.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The two-page February 12, 2026 amended response letter. It changes the stated volume from 'approximately 1,500 files per year (2023, 2024, 2025)' to 'approximately 1,100 files per year (2023, 2024, 2025)' and changes nothing else — not the denial, the statute, the certificate, the fee, the deposit, the 270 days, both footnotes, the appeal paragraph, or the two typographical errors." } ], "infographics": [], "charts": [], "published": "2026-10-30", "updated": "2026-10-30", "featured": true, "watchdog_alerts": [ "The office sent an amended response seven days after its original — and the amendment changed one number. Where the February 5 letter said the office processes 'approximately 1,500 files per year,' the February 12 letter says 'approximately 1,100 files per year.' Nothing else changed, including the two typographical errors that appear identically in both versions.", "The original letter contradicted its own attached invoice by $3,472.00. At the 1,500 files per year the February 5 letter stated, the itemization's own 3-minute and 4-minute rates at $6.20 per quarter hour produce $13,020.00 and a $6,510.00 deposit — not the $9,548.00 and $4,774.00 the office quoted. The amendment moved the stated volume to match the invoice, not the invoice to match the volume.", "The office justified the fee by volume. Volume fell 27 percent between the two letters. The fee did not move at all. Either the fee was never computed from the volume, or the volume was never the real basis for the charge.", "Footnote 2 of the itemization states that it 'is identical to the FOIA Fee Itemization related to FOIA Request 25-21' and that a deposit on either 25-21 or 25-22 'would be considered applicable to both.' Neither 25-21 nor 25-22 appears in this archive; the requests on file are 26-21 and 26-22. One invoice was made to serve two different requests.", "The fee waiver was requested under MCL 15.234. Both letters are silent on it, and the itemization's waiver section — two checkboxes and an 'After Waiver' line — is blank. This is the third consecutive file from this requester in which a waiver was requested and never decided.", "The Notice of Denial records the correct dates — received 02/02/2026, notice 02/05/2026 — but its item 3 anticipates a redaction that never occurred, because no records were produced.", "The 270-day delivery estimate is stated without explanation, and the itemization does not give the date on which an unpaid deposit would cause the request to be treated as abandoned under MCL 15.234(13).", "The denial of the count itself may be lawful: a total is a calculation, and MCL 15.233(5) relieves the office of any duty to create one. The amendment is a different matter — a correction that changes a number without admitting the earlier number was wrong." ], "tile_title": "The amendment that corrected nothing it admitted", "tile_synopsis": "A count of convictions the office says does not exist, priced at $9,548. Then, seven days later, an amendment that quietly changed the volume figure behind the bill — and said nothing about why.", "badge_label": "Denied", "categories": [ "case-statistics", "governance-foia-compliance" ], "share_image": "assets/images/share/26-21.jpg", "karpel_note": "ProsecutorByKarpel went live in June 2024, and this request covers January 1, 2023 through December 31, 2025, so part of the window predates the system. Nothing on this page faults the office for how records were kept before the system existed, and nothing here asserts a date for its implementation beyond the office's own statement that staff attended a 'go-live' training from June 10 to 14, 2024. The relevant point is narrower. The office says a count of convictions would require creating a new record. Whether a case-management system can produce such a count as a query, rather than as a new document, is a question the record leaves open — and a question the office has not addressed." }, { "id": "26-29", "slug": "26-29-inherited-case-conviction-count", "title": "FOIA 26-29: A count of inherited convictions the office could not locate — priced at $1,033.33 for the work of counting", "short_title": "A number the office could count, priced at the cost of counting it", "subject": "The total number of inherited criminal cases that ultimately resulted in conviction, in aggregate numerical form only, with no individual case information requested", "synopsis": "A one-page request dated February 5, 2026, faxed at 4:03:33 p.m. Eastern and received February 6, asking for a single number: how many criminal cases the office inherited — cases pending or in progress when Prosecutor Wickman took office — ultimately ended in conviction. It asked for aggregate data only, a fee waiver under MCL 15.234, and stated that if no such calculation is maintained the office should simply say no responsive record exists, because the request did not require creation of a new record. On February 12 the office answered in three moves. It said it could not locate any record containing the total. It interpreted ‘inherited’ on its own authority, drawing the definition from a different request, 26-28 — which asked for cases pending or in progress at the transition and is now in this archive — and offered to search again only if the requester clarified afterward. And it granted the underlying data subject to segregation, then priced it: $1,033.33, a $516.66 deposit at 50 percent, and an estimate of 180 days in the letter and 270 days in the itemization. The pricing baseline was 500 files, against approximately 800 to 1,000 the office says are open at any one time. The itemization’s own arithmetic, at its own stated rounding rule, produces $409.20 on line 3a rather than the $413.33 it printed — a $4.13 overcharge on a form that says partial increments must be rounded down. The fee-waiver section was blank for the fifth consecutive file.", "status": "denied", "status_label": "No count produced — office could not locate a record; underlying data granted subject to segregation and priced at $1,033.33 with a $516.66 deposit", "submitted": "2026-02-05", "received": "2026-02-06", "response_date": "2026-02-12", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "requester": "Redacted", "fees_quoted": 1033.33, "deposit_required": 516.66, "fees_paid": 0, "fee_waiver_requested": true, "fee_waiver_basis": "MCL 15.234", "fee_note": "The Detailed Cost Itemization dated February 12, 2026 prices a review of 500 files. Line 1: 3 minutes per file, 1,500 minutes, 100 quarter-hour increments at $6.20, for $620.00. Line 3a: 2 minutes per file, 1,000 minutes, 66.66 increments at $6.20, for $413.33. Subtotal $1,033.33. Deposit $516.66 at 50 percent. Amount paid $0.00. The itemization prints an hourly wage with fringe of $24.82 and a charge per quarter hour of $6.20; $24.82 divided by four is $6.205, which rounds to $6.21, not $6.20 — a rounding that favors the requester by one cent per increment. The form’s own instruction states that all partial time increments must be rounded down. At that rule, 500 files at 2 minutes is 1,000 minutes, or 66.67 quarter-hour increments, which rounds down to 66 increments and $409.20, not the $413.33 printed — a $4.13 overcharge. The deposit of $516.665 is truncated to $516.66, which favors the requester. The fee-waiver section, with two checkboxes and an ‘After Waiver: $____’ line, is blank. The response letter states the office will need approximately 180 days from receipt of the deposit; the itemization states 270 days. Both are dated the same day.", "appealed": false, "appeal_events": [], "appeal_status": "N/A", "appeal_note": "No appeal is recorded in the documents produced. The packet reproduces MCL 15.240, includes a blank FOIA Appeal Form and a blank ‘FOIA Appeal Form — To Appeal an Excess Fee,’ and reproduces MCL 15.240a, the excess-fee appeal provision. Under MCL 15.240 the appeal period runs 30 days from the notice of denial, which would place the deadline at March 14, 2026; the disclosure deadline under MCL 15.240(6) would fall 180 days after the appeal period. The excess-fee appeal under MCL 15.240a runs on a separate track, and the packet supplies the form for it but not a stated deadline. Because the office both denied a record and quoted a fee, two different appeal routes were available on the same response, and the packet does not say which governs which part.", "requested": [ "FOIA 26-29 — the total number of inherited criminal cases that ultimately resulted in conviction.", "The request sought only aggregate numerical data and expressly disclaimed any request for individual case information.", "A public-interest fee waiver under MCL 15.234.", "A statement that no responsive record exists if no such calculation is maintained, the request expressly stating that it did not require creation of a new record.", "An itemized estimate of any fee before the office began processing the request, so the requester could decide whether to proceed.", "A certificate of service dated February 5, 2026, naming Emily DeSalvo, FOIA Coordinator, 310 Ludington Street, Suite 237, Escanaba MI 49829, fax 1-906-789-5197." ], "provided": [ "A response letter dated February 12, 2026, on Delta County Prosecutor’s Office letterhead, reporting that a review of existing records ‘cannot located any record’ providing the requested total.", "An interpretation of ‘inherited criminal cases’ as cases ‘pending or in progress at the time the current prosecutor assumed office,’ attributed to the language of FOIA Request 26-28, with an offer to conduct additional searches if the requester clarified.", "A grant of the underlying data ‘subject to any necessary separation of exempt from non-exempt information,’ on the theory that the requester could compile the total himself.", "A finding that failing to charge would result in unreasonably high costs to the county beyond those typically incurred, invoking the statutory basis for charging above the ordinary fee.", "A pricing baseline of 500 files, derived from an estimate of approximately 800 to 1,000 files open at any one time, with the final amount to be adjusted to the actual number of responsive files located.", "A Notice of Denial form recording Request No. 26-29, Date Received 02/06/2026, Date of This Notice 02/12/2026, and contact Emily DeSalvo at 906-789-5100.", "A Detailed Cost Itemization: line 1 at 100 quarter-hour increments and $620.00; line 3a at 66.66 increments and $413.33; subtotal $1,033.33; deposit $516.66; 270 days; hourly wage with fringe $24.82; charge per quarter hour $6.20.", "Two pages of MCL 15.240, a blank FOIA Appeal Form, a blank ‘FOIA Appeal Form — To Appeal an Excess Fee,’ MCL 15.240a, and a FOIA Written Policies notice.", "Two IPFone fax notifications and the request as received." ], "withheld": [ "The total number of inherited cases that resulted in conviction, on the ground that no record containing the total could be located.", "The underlying case files that would allow the requester to compile the total himself, withheld behind a $1,033.33 fee and a $516.66 deposit.", "Any determination on the requested fee waiver; the letter is silent and the itemization’s waiver section is blank.", "Any explanation of why ‘inherited’ was defined by reference to a different request, 26-28, rather than by asking the requester before searching.", "Any explanation of why the pricing baseline is 500 files here and 3,300 files in 26-21, or how either figure relates to the 800 to 1,000 open files the office describes.", "Any reconciliation of the 180-day estimate in the letter with the 270-day estimate in the itemization.", "Any identification of the employee classification behind the $24.82 hourly wage with fringe, or confirmation that it is the lowest-paid employee capable of the task under MCL 15.234(2).", "Any statement of the date on which an unpaid deposit would cause the request to be treated as abandoned under MCL 15.234(13)." ], "keywords": [ "26-29", "26-28", "26-21", "26-30", "26-20", "26-22", "inherited cases", "conviction count", "aggregate data", "compilation", "no duty to create", "MCL 15.233(5)", "certificate of nonexistence", "record does not exist", "500 files", "800 to 1000 files", "1,033.33", "516.66", "620.00", "413.33", "409.20", "4.13 overcharge", "180 days", "270 days", "detailed cost itemization", "6.20 per quarter hour", "24.82 hourly wage", "rounded down", "fee waiver", "MCL 15.234", "MCL 15.235", "MCL 15.240", "MCL 15.240a", "Notice of Denial", "excess fee appeal", "deposit", "public interest", "unreasonably high cost", "Emily DeSalvo", "Delta County Prosecutor" ], "documents": [ { "title": "Response Letter (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/26-29/26-29-response-letter.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The February 12, 2026 cover letter: the finding that no record containing the total could be located, the interpretation of ‘inherited’ drawn from request 26-28, the grant of the underlying data subject to segregation, the unreasonably-high-cost finding, the 500-file baseline, and the 180-day estimate." }, { "title": "Notice of Denial and Authorities (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/26-29/26-29-denial-form-and-authorities.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Two pages: the Notice of Denial for request 26-29 (received 02/06/2026, notice 02/12/2026) and a reproduction of MCL 15.240." }, { "title": "Detailed Cost Itemization (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/26-29/26-29-fee-itemization.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Seven pages: the itemization pricing 500 files at 3 minutes and 2 minutes per file and $6.20 per quarter hour, for a subtotal of $1,033.33, a deposit of $516.66, and a 270-day estimate. Includes the blank fee-waiver section and the instruction that partial time increments must be rounded down." }, { "title": "Request and Fax Record (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/26-29/26-29-request-and-fax-record.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Three pages: the IPFone fax notifications recording transmission at 4:03:33 p.m. Eastern on February 5, 2026, and the request as received, asking for the total number of inherited criminal cases that resulted in conviction." }, { "title": "Fee Appeal Form and Policies (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/26-29/26-29-fee-appeal-form-and-policies.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Three pages: a blank ‘FOIA Appeal Form — To Appeal an Excess Fee,’ the text of MCL 15.240a, and the county’s FOIA written-policies notice." } ], "infographics": [], "charts": [], "published": "2026-10-30", "updated": "2026-10-30", "featured": true, "watchdog_alerts": [ "The office priced the work of counting at $1,033.33 and asked for $516.66 up front — to answer a request that asked for one number. The request had already told the office that if no such calculation is maintained, it should simply say so.", "The itemization’s own arithmetic does not match its own rule. The form states that all partial time increments must be rounded down. At 500 files and 2 minutes per file, that is 1,000 minutes, or 66.67 quarter-hour increments, which rounds down to 66 increments and $409.20. The form printed 66.66 increments and $413.33 — a $4.13 overcharge.", "The letter says the office needs approximately 180 days. The itemization attached to it says 270 days. Both are on the office’s paper, dated the same day, and neither acknowledges the other.", "The office defined the word ‘inherited’ itself, by reference to a different request — 26-28 — which asked for cases pending or in progress at the transition and is now in this archive, searched against that definition, found nothing, and then offered to search again if the requester meant something else. The requester was never asked before the search.", "The pricing baseline is 500 files here, 3,300 files in 26-21, and 6,000 files in 25-279 — for the same category of work at the same office in overlapping periods. The record does not explain why the baseline moves.", "The fee waiver was requested under MCL 15.234. The letter is silent on it and the itemization’s waiver section — two checkboxes and an ‘After Waiver’ line — is blank. This is the fifth consecutive file in which a waiver was requested and never decided.", "The letter carries the same two typographical errors as the 26-21 correspondence — ‘great than fifty dollars’ and ‘the responsible, nonexempt public records’ — plus a new one, ‘cannot located.’ The template is not being proofread between mailings." ], "tile_title": "A number the office could count, priced at the cost of counting it", "tile_synopsis": "One number was requested. The office could not locate it, defined the key word itself, and then quoted $1,033.33 to let the requester count — on an invoice whose own arithmetic is $4.13 off.", "badge_label": "Denied", "categories": [ "case-statistics", "governance-foia-compliance" ], "share_image": "assets/images/share/26-29.jpg", "karpel_note": "ProsecutorByKarpel went live in June 2024, and this request concerns cases pending before January 1, 2023 that resolved afterward, so the underlying records predate the system by design. Nothing on this page faults the office for how records were kept before the system existed. The relevant point is narrower. The office says a count of convictions among inherited cases is not a record it maintains. Whether a case-management system can produce such a count as a query, rather than as a new document, is a question the record leaves open — and the office, which priced the search at 500 files, has not addressed." }, { "id": "26-30", "slug": "26-30-cases-initiated-densmore-refusal", "title": "FOIA 26-30: Eight documents, one number, and a Densmore refusal built on a premise the record does not fully support", "short_title": "Eight documents, one number, and a door that closes twice", "subject": "The total number of criminal cases initiated by the Delta County Prosecutor’s Office from the prosecutor’s election date through December 31, 2025", "synopsis": "A one-page request dated February 6, 2026, faxed at 9:49:14 a.m. Eastern and received February 9, asking for a single number: how many criminal cases the office initiated from the prosecutor’s election date through December 31, 2025. On February 12 the office answered without quoting any fee. It identified eight responsive documents by title and date range — two 21st Century Reports, a Warrants Authorized by Agency report, two budget request memos with attachments, and three Charges on Authorized case reports. It then declined to produce any of them, on the ground that they had already been provided in FOIA 25-94 and FOIA 25-195 and that the requester had supplied no justification for a second copy, citing Densmore v. Department of Corrections, 203 Mich 363 (1994). Separately, it certified that no document exists containing the aggregate total, invoking MCL 15.233(5) and issuing a certificate of nonexistence — then added that the aggregate total ‘can be gleaned from the previously provided documents.’ The letter therefore says, in one document, that the number is not a record, that the number is derivable from eight records, and that the office will not produce those records. Six of the eight match what 25-195 actually produced. The two 21st Century Reports do not appear in either prior release, and the Board of Commissioners’ June 27, 2025 decision on the 25-94 appeal records that the 2024 and 2025 periods were being denied at that time, not produced.", "status": "denied", "status_label": "Denied — no aggregate total produced; eight responsive documents identified but not reproduced under a Densmore prior-production rationale; no fee quoted", "submitted": "2026-02-06", "received": "2026-02-09", "response_date": "2026-02-12", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "requester": "Redacted", "fees_quoted": 0, "deposit_required": 0, "fees_paid": 0, "fee_waiver_requested": true, "fee_waiver_basis": "MCL 15.234", "fee_note": "No fee was quoted, estimated, or demanded. The response is a pure denial: it identifies eight responsive documents, declines to reproduce them, and certifies that no document containing the aggregate total exists. There is no cost itemization, no deposit, no delivery estimate, and no fee-waiver section in the packet — which is itself notable, because a fee waiver was requested under MCL 15.234 and the office neither granted nor denied it. Where no fee is charged, the waiver question is moot in practice, but the record still contains no decision on it.", "appealed": false, "appeal_events": [], "appeal_status": "N/A", "appeal_note": "No appeal is recorded in the documents produced. The packet reproduces MCL 15.240 twice, includes a blank FOIA Appeal Form, and states the appeal route in terms: a requester who disagrees may appeal to the chairperson of the Delta County Board of Commissioners or seek judicial review in the Delta County Circuit Court. Under MCL 15.240 the appeal period runs 30 days from the notice of denial, which would place the deadline at March 14, 2026, and the disclosure deadline under MCL 15.240(6) 180 days after the appeal period. Because the refusal rests on a prior-production rationale rather than an exemption, an appeal would test a factual premise — whether all eight documents were in fact produced — as much as a legal one.", "requested": [ "FOIA 26-30 — the total number of criminal cases initiated by the Delta County Prosecutor’s Office from the prosecutor’s election date through December 31, 2025.", "The request sought only aggregate numerical data and expressly disclaimed any request for individual case information.", "A public-interest fee waiver under MCL 15.234.", "A statement that no responsive record exists if no such calculation is maintained, the request expressly stating that it did not require creation of a new record.", "A certificate of service dated February 6, 2026, naming Emily DeSalvo, FOIA Coordinator, 310 Ludington Street, Suite 237, Escanaba MI 49829, fax 1-906-789-5197." ], "provided": [ "A response letter dated February 12, 2026, on Delta County Prosecutor’s Office letterhead, identifying eight responsive documents by title and date range.", "A refusal to reproduce those eight documents, on the ground that they had already been provided in FOIA 25-94 and FOIA 25-195 and that no justification or need for a second copy had been shown, citing Densmore v. Department of Corrections, 203 Mich 363 (1994).", "A finding that no document exists detailing the requested aggregate numerical total, invoking MCL 15.233(5), and a certificate of nonexistence stating that no such record exists under the name nor any other name reasonably known to the public body.", "The statement that the aggregate numerical total ‘can be gleaned from the previously provided documents.’", "Footnote 1 in the letter, resolving the election-date ambiguity: ‘Prosecutor Wickman was elected in November 2022 General Election, and was sworn in for her term starting on January 1, 2023.’", "A Notice of Denial form recording Request No. 26-30, Date Received 02/09/2026, Date of This Notice 02/12/2026, and contact Emily DeSalvo at 906-789-5100.", "Two pages of MCL 15.240, a blank FOIA Appeal Form, and a FOIA Written Policies notice.", "Two IPFone fax notifications and the request as received." ], "withheld": [ "The aggregate total number of criminal cases initiated, on the ground that no document containing the total exists and that compiling one would require creating a new record under MCL 15.233(5).", "All eight responsive documents identified in the letter, withheld on the prior-production rationale of Densmore, with no fee quoted and no copies supplied.", "Any determination on the requested fee waiver under MCL 15.234.", "Any verification that each of the eight named documents was in fact produced in 25-94 or 25-195, or identification of which request produced which document.", "Any explanation of how a total can be ‘gleaned’ from documents the office declines to produce.", "Any explanation of why the two 21st Century Reports covering 2024 and 2025 were named as previously provided when the Board’s June 27, 2025 appeal decision records those periods as denied." ], "keywords": [ "26-30", "25-94", "25-195", "26-21", "26-29", "26-20", "26-22", "cases initiated", "aggregate data", "compilation", "no duty to create", "MCL 15.233(5)", "certificate of nonexistence", "record does not exist", "Densmore", "203 Mich.App. 363", "512 N.W.2d 72", "duplicate request", "prior production", "already provided", "21st Century Report", "Warrants Authorized by Agency", "Budget Request FY 2024-2025", "Budget Request FY 2023-2024", "Charges on Authorized Misdemeanor", "Charges on Authorized Felony", "Adult Case Tracking", "fee waiver", "MCL 15.234", "MCL 15.240", "Notice of Denial", "Board of Commissioners", "June 27 2025 appeal decision", "Emily DeSalvo", "Delta County Prosecutor" ], "documents": [ { "title": "Response Letter (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/26-30/26-30-response-letter.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The February 12, 2026 cover letter: the list of eight responsive documents by title and date range, the Densmore prior-production refusal, the MCL 15.233(5) finding, the certificate of nonexistence, the statement that the total can be gleaned from the documents, and footnote 1 resolving the election date to January 1, 2023." }, { "title": "Denial Form and Authorities (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/26-30/26-30-denial-form-and-authorities.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Five pages: the Notice of Denial for request 26-30 (received 02/09/2026, notice 02/12/2026), two reproductions of MCL 15.240, a blank FOIA Appeal Form, and the county’s FOIA written-policies notice." }, { "title": "Request and Fax Record (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/26-30/26-30-request-and-fax-record.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Eleven pages: the IPFone fax notifications recording transmission at 9:49:14 a.m. Eastern on February 6, 2026, the request as received, and duplicate fax notifications, cover sheet, and request pages as transmitted." } ], "infographics": [], "charts": [], "published": "2026-10-30", "updated": "2026-10-30", "featured": true, "watchdog_alerts": [ "The office identified eight responsive documents by title and date range, then produced none of them. It also certified that no record containing the requested total exists — and then stated that the total ‘can be gleaned from the previously provided documents.’", "The refusal rests on Densmore v. Department of Corrections, which permits declining a duplicate request where the requester already has the records. Six of the eight documents match what 25-195 produced. The two 21st Century Reports covering 2024 and 2025 do not appear in either 25-94 or 25-195 on this archive’s record.", "The Board of Commissioners’ June 27, 2025 decision on the 25-94 appeal records that the office denied item 1 for 2024 and 2025 and confirmed production only for 2021 through 2023. If that is right, the 2024 and 2025 reports were being withheld in mid-2025, not produced — which undercuts the flat assertion that all eight were ‘already provided.’", "The citation is incomplete. Densmore is reported at 203 Mich.App. 363, 512 N.W.2d 72 (1994). The letter cites ‘203 Mich 363 (1994),’ omitting the ‘App.’ division of the reporter.", "A fee waiver was requested under MCL 15.234. No fee was quoted, so the waiver is moot in practice — but the record contains no decision on it either way.", "The letter never explains how a total can be ‘gleaned’ from documents the office declines to produce, or which of the two prior requests produced which of the eight documents." ], "tile_title": "Eight documents, one number, and a door that closes twice", "tile_synopsis": "The office named eight responsive documents, produced none, and certified the number does not exist — while saying the number can be gleaned from the documents it will not hand over.", "badge_label": "Denied", "categories": [ "case-statistics", "governance-foia-compliance" ], "share_image": "assets/images/share/26-30.jpg", "karpel_note": "ProsecutorByKarpel went live in June 2024, and this request covers January 1, 2023 through December 31, 2025, so part of the window predates the system. Nothing on this page faults the office for how records were kept before the system existed, and nothing here asserts a date for its implementation beyond the office’s own statement that staff attended a ‘go-live’ training from June 10 to 14, 2024. The relevant point is narrower. The office says the total is not a record it maintains but can be derived from eight reports. Whether a case-management system can produce the total as a query is a question the record leaves open — and a question the office has not addressed." }, { "id": "26-28", "slug": "26-28-cases-pending-at-office-transition", "title": "FOIA 26-28: A headcount of cases open when the prosecutor took office — denied, then priced at $1,653.33 on an 800-file baseline", "short_title": "The question that should have been the easiest to answer", "subject": "The total number of criminal cases pending or in progress at the time the current prosecutor assumed office, in aggregate numerical form only, with no individual case information requested", "synopsis": "A one-page request dated February 5, 2026, faxed at 4:01:46 p.m. Eastern and received February 6, asking for a single number: how many criminal cases were pending or in progress on the day Prosecutor Wickman took office. It asked for aggregate data only, a fee waiver under MCL 15.234, and stated that if no such calculation is maintained the office should simply say no responsive record exists, because the request did not require creation of a new record. On February 12 the office answered GRANTED IN PART, DENIED IN PART. It certified under MCL 15.233(1) that no existing record, document, or aggregate statistical data states the total, and denied that record. It granted the underlying data subject to segregation, then priced it at $1,653.33 with an $826.66 deposit at 50 percent, on a baseline of 800 files drawn from the same ‘approximately 800 to 1000 files open at any one time’ sentence that 26-29 used the same day to justify a 500-file baseline. The letter estimates 180 days; the itemization says 270. The itemization’s own arithmetic, at its own stated rounding rule, produces $657.20 on line 3a rather than the $661.33 it printed — a $4.13 overcharge, the identical figure and identical cause as in 26-29. The packet is also the first in this archive to supply both appeal forms together: one to appeal the denial of records, one to appeal an excess fee. The fee-waiver section was blank for the sixth consecutive file. This is the request that 26-29’s letter cites by number when defining ‘inherited,’ and the definition it attributes to 26-28 is a near-verbatim lift of this request’s own language.", "status": "denied", "status_label": "Denied in part, granted in part — no record states the headcount, with a certificate of nonexistence; underlying data granted subject to segregation and priced at $1,653.33 with an $826.66 deposit", "submitted": "2026-02-05", "received": "2026-02-06", "response_date": "2026-02-12", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "requester": "Redacted", "fees_quoted": 1653.33, "deposit_required": 826.66, "fees_paid": 0, "fee_waiver_requested": true, "fee_waiver_basis": "MCL 15.234", "fee_note": "The Detailed Cost Itemization dated February 12, 2026 prices a review of 800 files. Line 1: 3 minutes per file, 2,400 minutes, 160 quarter-hour increments at $6.20, for $992.00. Line 3a: 2 minutes per file, 1,600 minutes, 106.66 increments at $6.20, for $661.33. Subtotal $1,653.33. Deposit $826.66 at 50 percent. Amount paid $0.00. The itemization prints an hourly wage with fringe of $24.82 and a charge per quarter hour of $6.20; $24.82 divided by four is $6.205, which rounds to $6.21, not $6.20 — a rounding that favors the requester by one cent per increment. The form’s own instruction states that all partial time increments must be rounded down. At that rule, 800 files at 2 minutes is 1,600 minutes, or 106.67 quarter-hour increments, which rounds down to 106 increments and $657.20, not the $661.33 printed — a $4.13 overcharge, identical in amount and cause to the $4.13 overcharge in 26-29. The deposit of $826.665 is truncated to $826.66, which favors the requester. The fee-waiver section, with two checkboxes and an ‘After Waiver: $____’ line, is blank. The response letter states the office will need approximately 180 days from receipt of the deposit; the itemization states 270 days. Both are dated the same day.", "appealed": false, "appeal_events": [], "appeal_status": "N/A", "appeal_note": "No appeal is recorded in the documents produced. The packet is the first in this archive to include both appeal forms together: a ‘FOIA Appeal Form — To Appeal a Denial of Records,’ pre-printed with Request No. 26-28, and a ‘FOIA Appeal Form — To Appeal an Excess Fee,’ supplied as a blank template. It also reproduces MCL 15.240 and MCL 15.240a. Under MCL 15.240 the appeal period runs 30 days from the notice of denial, which would place the deadline at March 14, 2026; the disclosure deadline under MCL 15.240(6) would fall 180 days after the appeal period. The excess-fee appeal under MCL 15.240a runs on a separate track, and because a deposit is treated as a fee for purposes of that challenge, the requester could dispute the $826.66 before paying it. Because the office both denied a record and quoted a fee, two different appeal routes were available on the same response, and the packet does not say which governs which part.", "requested": [ "FOIA 26-28 — the total number of criminal cases pending or in progress at the time the current prosecutor assumed office.", "The request sought only aggregate numerical data and expressly disclaimed any request for individual case information.", "A public-interest fee waiver under MCL 15.234.", "A statement that no responsive record exists if no such calculation is maintained, the request expressly stating that it did not require creation of a new record.", "An itemized estimate of any fee before the office began processing the request, so the requester could decide whether to proceed.", "A certificate of service dated February 5, 2026, naming Emily DeSalvo, FOIA Coordinator, 310 Ludington Street, Suite 237, Escanaba MI 49829, fax 1-906-789-5197." ], "provided": [ "A response letter dated February 12, 2026, on Delta County Prosecutor’s Office letterhead, stating that the request is ‘GRANTED IN PART, DENIED IN PART.’", "A finding that ‘no existing record, document, or “aggregate statistical data” exists’ that provides the requested total, and a denial of the request for such a record.", "A certificate of nonexistence under MCL 15.233(1), certifying that the public record requested ‘does not exist within the records of the public body under the name nor any other name reasonably known to the public body.’", "A grant of the underlying data ‘subject to any necessary separation of exempt from non-exempt information,’ on the theory that the requester could compile the total himself.", "A finding that failing to charge would result in unreasonably high costs to the county beyond those typically incurred, invoking the statutory basis for charging above the ordinary fee.", "A pricing baseline of 800 files, derived from an estimate of approximately 800 to 1,000 files open at any one time, with the final amount to be adjusted to the actual number of responsive files located.", "A worked illustration of the long tail: ‘a defendant was arraigned on a case at the end of 2025 on a case that had been authorized/issued in 2001.’", "A Notice of Denial form recording Request No. 26-28, Date Received 02/06/2026, Date of This Notice 02/12/2026, and contact Emily DeSalvo at 906-789-5100.", "A Detailed Cost Itemization: line 1 at 160 quarter-hour increments and $992.00; line 3a at 106.66 increments and $661.33; subtotal $1,653.33; deposit $826.66; 270 days; hourly wage with fringe $24.82; charge per quarter hour $6.20.", "Two pages of MCL 15.240, a FOIA Appeal Form to appeal a denial of records, a FOIA Appeal Form to appeal an excess fee, MCL 15.240a, and two FOIA Written Policies notices.", "A Zimbra/IPFone fax notification and the fax cover sheet recording receipt at 4:01:46 p.m. Eastern on February 5, 2026, and the request as received." ], "withheld": [ "The total number of cases pending or in progress when the prosecutor assumed office, on the ground that no record containing the total exists.", "The underlying case files that would allow the requester to compile the total himself, withheld behind a $1,653.33 fee and an $826.66 deposit.", "Any determination on the requested fee waiver; the letter is silent and the itemization’s waiver section is blank.", "Any explanation of why the pricing baseline is 800 files here and 500 files in 26-29, when both letters contain the same ‘approximately 800 to 1000 files open’ sentence and are dated the same day.", "Any explanation of why the broader request (a plain headcount) was priced against a larger baseline than the narrower request (a headcount filtered by conviction) carved out of it.", "Any reconciliation of the 180-day estimate in the letter with the 270-day estimate in the itemization.", "Any identification of the employee classification behind the $24.82 hourly wage with fringe, or confirmation that it is the lowest-paid employee capable of the task under MCL 15.234(2).", "Any statement of the date on which an unpaid deposit would cause the request to be treated as abandoned under MCL 15.234(13)." ], "keywords": [ "26-28", "26-29", "26-21", "26-30", "26-20", "26-22", "inherited cases", "pending cases", "headcount", "aggregate data", "compilation", "no duty to create", "MCL 15.233(5)", "certificate of nonexistence", "record does not exist", "800 files", "500 files", "800 to 1000 files", "1,653.33", "826.66", "992.00", "661.33", "657.20", "4.13 overcharge", "180 days", "270 days", "detailed cost itemization", "6.20 per quarter hour", "24.82 hourly wage", "rounded down", "fee waiver", "MCL 15.234", "MCL 15.235", "MCL 15.240", "MCL 15.240a", "Notice of Denial", "excess fee appeal", "denial appeal", "deposit", "public interest", "unreasonably high cost", "2001 arraignment", "Emily DeSalvo", "Delta County Prosecutor" ], "documents": [ { "title": "Response Letter (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/26-28/26-28-response-letter.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "The February 12, 2026 cover letter: the GRANTED IN PART, DENIED IN PART disposition, the certificate of nonexistence, the grant of the underlying data subject to segregation, the unreasonably-high-cost finding, the 2001-to-2025 arraignment example, the 800-file baseline, and the 180-day estimate." }, { "title": "Request and Fax Record (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/26-28/26-28-request-and-fax-record.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Three pages: the Zimbra/IPFone fax notification, the fax cover sheet recording receipt at 4:01:46 p.m. Eastern on February 5, 2026, and the request as received — the one-page request for the total number of cases pending or in progress when the prosecutor assumed office, with the fee-waiver request and the no-new-record sentence." }, { "title": "Notice of Denial and Authorities (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/26-28/26-28-denial-form-and-authorities.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Five pages: the Notice of Denial for request 26-28 (received 02/06/2026, notice 02/12/2026), two reproductions of MCL 15.240, a blank FOIA Appeal Form — To Appeal a Denial of Records, and a FOIA Written Policies notice." }, { "title": "Detailed Cost Itemization (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/26-28/26-28-fee-itemization.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Seven pages: the Detailed Cost Itemization. Line 1 at 160 increments and $992.00; line 3a at 106.66 increments and $661.33; subtotal $1,653.33; deposit $826.66; 270-day estimate; hourly wage with fringe $24.82; charge per quarter hour $6.20; and the blank ‘Waiver: Public Interest’ section." }, { "title": "Fee Appeal Form and Policies (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/26-28/26-28-fee-appeal-form-and-policies.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Three pages: a blank FOIA Appeal Form — To Appeal an Excess Fee, an excerpt of MCL 15.240a, and a duplicate FOIA Written Policies notice. The excess-fee form is supplied alongside the denial-appeal form, so the packet carries both appeal routes at once." } ], "infographics": [], "charts": [], "published": "2026-10-30", "updated": "2026-10-30", "featured": true, "watchdog_alerts": [ "The office priced the work of counting at $1,653.33 and asked for $826.66 up front — to answer a request that asked for one number. The request had already told the office that if no such calculation is maintained, it should simply say so.", "The same day, in a companion letter to the same requester, the office priced the same universe of open files at 500 files. Here it used 800. Both letters contain the identical sentence — ‘approximately 800 to 1000 files “open” at any one time’ — and then multiply by different numbers.", "The itemization’s own arithmetic does not match its own rule. The form states that all partial time increments must be rounded down. At 800 files and 2 minutes per file, that is 1,600 minutes, or 106.67 quarter-hour increments, which rounds down to 106 increments and $657.20. The form printed 106.66 increments and $661.33 — a $4.13 overcharge, the identical figure and identical cause as in 26-29.", "The letter says the office needs approximately 180 days. The itemization attached to it says 270 days. Both are on the office’s paper, dated the same day, and neither acknowledges the other.", "A fee waiver was requested under MCL 15.234. The itemization’s ‘Waiver: Public Interest’ section is blank — the sixth consecutive response in this archive with no waiver determination recorded.", "This is the request that 26-29 cites by number when defining ‘inherited.’ With 26-28 now published, that citation can be checked: the definition is a near-verbatim lift of this request’s own language, and the office’s reference holds up." ], "tile_title": "The question that should have been the easiest to answer", "tile_synopsis": "How many cases were open the day the prosecutor took office? The office certified no record says. Then it priced the counting at $1,653.33 — on an 800-file baseline that its own companion letter, sent the same day, set at 500.", "badge_label": "Denied in part", "categories": [ "case-statistics", "governance-foia-compliance" ], "share_image": "assets/images/share/26-28.jpg", "karpel_note": "ProsecutorByKarpel went live in June 2024, and this request concerns cases pending on January 1, 2023, so the underlying records predate the system by design. Nothing on this page faults the office for how records were kept before the system existed. The relevant point is narrower. The office says a headcount of open cases on a given date is not a record it maintains, while granting the underlying data and pricing the search at 800 files. Whether a case-management system can produce that count as a query, rather than as a new document, is a question the record leaves open — and a question the office has not addressed." }, { "id": "26-32", "slug": "26-32-impact-of-migration-on-foia-responses", "title": "FOIA 26-32: What the office's own memos say about the migration that broke its records — a 95-page production that answers its own denial", "short_title": "The office answered its own denial", "subject": "Any records discussing how the office's case-management system migration affects the Prosecutor's Office's ability to respond to FOIA requests", "synopsis": "A one-page request dated February 6, 2026, faxed at 10:22 a.m. Eastern and received Monday, February 9, asking for any records discussing how the office's case-management migration affects its ability to answer FOIA requests. The office answered on Thursday, February 12 — the third business day — marking the request GRANTED IN PART, DENIED IN PART. It named five responsive records (two email exchanges and three memos to the Board of County Commissioners) and produced a 95-page release. The partial denial rested solely on MCL 15.243(1)(a), and the Notice of Denial described the redacted material precisely: contact information, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses. The substance was produced. And the substance is the story: the office's own memos say the migration did not carry the old data across ‘completely, or accurately,’ that the office ‘was warned of this prior to the implementation,’ that ‘access to the previous case tracking system or its exact data is no longer available,’ that the files are organized by name so ‘searching for outcomes by any particular year is not viable,’ and that mistakes in the migrated data are still being found ‘on nearly a weekly basis’ eighteen months after go-live. A January 2026 email shows a county commissioner proposing a cheaper technical fix and the prosecutor replying that the office has ‘not reentered this information because we don’t have time.’ The release contains three different per-file time estimates for the same work — 20 minutes, 14 minutes, and 5 minutes — and reproduces the 25-278 cost itemization, which overcharges two lines by $4.13 each on the same rounding defect documented in 26-28 and 26-29.", "status": "granted_in_part", "status_label": "Granted in part, denied in part — five records produced across 95 pages, with only personal contact information redacted under MCL 15.243(1)(a); no fee quoted", "submitted": "2026-02-06", "received": "2026-02-09", "response_date": "2026-02-12", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "requester": "Redacted", "fees_quoted": 0, "deposit_required": 0, "fees_paid": 0, "fee_waiver_requested": true, "fee_waiver_basis": "MCL 15.234", "fee_note": "No fee was quoted. The response is a production, not an invoice: the office located five records, produced them across 95 pages, and charged nothing. The request asked for a public-interest fee waiver under MCL 15.234; because no fee was quoted, no waiver determination was needed and none was made. The 25-278 cost itemization reproduced inside the release (release pages 42–48) is a separate document from an earlier request and carries its own figures: line 1 at 2,666.66 increments and $16,533.33; line 3a at 1,066.66 increments and $6,613.33; subtotal $23,146.66; deposit $11,573.33; hourly wage with fringe $24.82; charge per quarter hour $6.20. At the itemization’s own rounding rule, line 1 should be $16,529.20 and line 3a should be $6,609.20 — a $4.13 overcharge on each line, $8.26 on the subtotal.", "appealed": false, "appeal_events": [], "appeal_status": "N/A", "appeal_note": "No appeal is recorded in the documents produced. The response is a partial denial on a privacy ground plus a substantial production, and the office supplied the standard Notice of Denial and a blank FOIA Appeal Form — To Appeal a Denial of Records. Under MCL 15.240 the appeal period runs 30 days from the notice of denial, which would place the deadline at March 14, 2026. Because the only withholding was personal contact information under MCL 15.243(1)(a), an appeal would have had to argue that the redacted contact details were not exempt; the record does not show that any appeal was filed.", "requested": [ "FOIA 26-32 — any records discussing how the office's case-management system migration affects the Prosecutor's Office's ability to respond to FOIA requests.", "A statement that no responsive record exists if no such calculation is maintained, the request expressly stating that it did not require creation of a new record.", "A public-interest fee waiver under MCL 15.234.", "The request was captioned ‘Impact of Migration on FOIA Responses’ and was transmitted by fax on February 6, 2026." ], "provided": [ "A response letter dated February 12, 2026, on Delta County Prosecutor’s Office letterhead, stating that the request is ‘GRANTED IN PART, DENIED IN PART.’", "A list of five responsive records: ‘Email exchange entitled Memo regarding Appeal of FOIA 25-278,’ ‘Memo regarding Appeal of FOIA 25-278,’ ‘Memo regarding Appeal of FOIA 25-94,’ ‘Memo regarding Appeal of FOIA 25-195,’ and ‘Email exchange entitled Fwd: Appeal.’", "A partial denial under MCL 15.243(1)(a), the exemption for exempt information comingled with non-exempt information, with the records ‘subject to redaction.’", "A Notice of Denial form recording Request No. 26-32, Date Received 02/09/2026, Date of This Notice 02/12/2026, received via Email/EFax, contact Emily DeSalvo at 906-789-5100, with reason 3 (Redaction) checked and the redacted material described as ‘contact information to include address phone numbers email addresses.’", "A 95-page responsive-documents release containing the three memos to the Board, the two email threads, and the earlier 25-278 response packet, itemization, request, and appeal that the memos attach or reproduce.", "A Zimbra/IPFone fax notification and cover sheet recording receipt at 10:22 a.m. Eastern on February 6, 2026, and the request as received." ], "withheld": [ "Personal contact information — addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses — redacted under MCL 15.243(1)(a). No substantive record content was withheld.", "Nothing else. Unlike most files in this archive, the office did not deny a category of records outright, did not invoke privilege, and did not price the production." ], "keywords": [ "26-32", "migration", "system migration", "ProsecutorByKarpel", "Karpel", "PAAM", "case management system", "June 10 2024", "went live", "data did not transition", "warned prior to implementation", "no longer available", "organized by name", "searching by year not viable", "nearly a weekly basis", "court form ingestion", "Christine Williams", "we don't have time", "reentered information", "20 minutes per file", "14 minutes per file", "5 minutes per file", "per-file estimate", "25-94 memo", "25-195 memo", "25-278 memo", "Fwd: Appeal", "email exchange", "MCL 15.243(1)(a)", "MCL 15.234", "MCL 15.235", "MCL 15.240", "privacy redaction", "contact information", "granted in part", "denied in part", "95 pages", "4.13 overcharge", "23,146.66", "11,573.33", "Emily DeSalvo", "Delta County Prosecutor", "Board of Commissioners", "records management" ], "documents": [ { "title": "Response Letter (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/26-32/26-32-response-letter.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Two pages: the February 12, 2026 cover letter stating GRANTED IN PART, DENIED IN PART, naming the five responsive records, invoking MCL 15.243(1)(a) for the redactions, and listing the statutory authorities and the FOIA Written Policies notice." }, { "title": "Request and Fax Record (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/26-32/26-32-request-and-fax-record.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Three pages: the Zimbra/IPFone fax notification, the fax cover sheet recording receipt at 10:22 a.m. Eastern on February 6, 2026, and the request as received — the one-page ‘Impact of Migration on FOIA Responses’ request with the fee-waiver request and the no-new-record sentence." }, { "title": "Notice of Denial and Authorities (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/26-32/26-32-denial-form-and-authorities.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Five pages: the Notice of Denial for request 26-32 (received 02/09/2026, notice 02/12/2026, reason 3 redaction under MCL 15.243(1)(a)), two reproductions of the statutory excerpt, a blank FOIA Appeal Form — To Appeal a Denial of Records, and a FOIA Written Policies notice." }, { "title": "Email Thread, January 2026 (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/26-32/26-32-email-thread.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Eight pages: the January 2–4, 2026 Zimbra exchange among Prosecutor Wickman, the Board of Commissioners, and the FOIA coordinator about a corrected copy of the 25-278 memo, including Commissioner Williams’s suggestion of the ProsecutorByKarpel court-form ingestion feature and the prosecutor’s reply that the office has ‘not reentered this information because we don’t have time.’" }, { "title": "Memo on the Appeal of 25-278, with Attachments (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/26-32/26-32-memo-25-278-with-attachments.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Thirty-six pages: the December 31, 2025 memo to the Board on the appeal of 25-278, its Attachment A (the 25-278 request and fax record), its Attachment B (the Response to 25-278, including the page admitting mistakes in the migrated data are still found ‘on nearly a weekly basis’), and the Detailed Cost Itemization for 25-278." }, { "title": "Appeal of 25-278 as Filed (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/26-32/26-32-appeal-25-278.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Seven pages: the appeal filed December 19, 2025, citing the $23,146.66 fee and $11,573.33 deposit, and arguing the ongoing system-migration problems at length." }, { "title": "Memo on the Appeal of 25-94 (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/26-32/26-32-memo-25-94.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Sixteen pages: the June 16, 2025 memo to the Board on the appeal of 25-94 — the office’s fullest account of the migration, including the June 10, 2024 go-live date, the admission that the data ‘did not transition completely, or accurately,’ that the office ‘was warned of this prior to the implementation,’ that access to the old system ‘is no longer available,’ that the files are organized by name so year-based search is ‘not viable,’ and the 20-minute/104-week/$66,648.40 arithmetic." }, { "title": "Memo on the Appeal of 25-195 (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/26-32/26-32-memo-25-195.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Six pages: the September 15, 2025 memo to the Board on the appeal of 25-195, describing the case-management conversion and the itemization of labor and redaction costs in 15-minute increments rounded down." } ], "infographics": [], "charts": [], "published": "2026-10-30", "updated": "2026-10-30", "featured": true, "watchdog_alerts": [ "The office denied part of a request about the migration, then produced three memos to the Board that discuss the migration at length. The grant is the answer to the denial — and the memos are more candid than any response letter in this archive.", "In its own memo the office says the data ‘did not transition completely, or accurately,’ that the inconsistent transition ‘was a possibility that we were warned of prior to the implementation,’ and that ‘access to the previous case tracking system or its exact data is no longer available.’", "‘Because the root files are not organized by year (only by name), searching for outcomes by any particular year is not viable.’ That single sentence explains a pattern of denials across this archive better than any response letter does.", "A county commissioner proposed a cheaper technical route — ProsecutorByKarpel’s court-form ingestion feature, which ‘might be much less than what was quoted for manual preparation.’ The prosecutor replied: ‘We have not reentered this information because we don’t have time.’", "The release contains three different per-file time estimates for the same work — 20 minutes (June 2025), 14 minutes (December 2025), and 5 minutes (February 2026) — each attached to a fee, and none reconciled with the others.", "The 25-278 itemization reproduced inside the release overcharges two lines by $4.13 each on the same rounding defect documented in 26-28 and 26-29 — $8.26 on the subtotal, inherited by the appeal’s $23,146.66 figure." ], "tile_title": "The office answered its own denial", "tile_synopsis": "Asked for records on how the migration affects FOIA responses, the office partly denied the request — then produced three memos to the Board that say the data ‘did not transition completely, or accurately,’ the old system is gone, and a commissioner’s cheaper fix was declined because ‘we don’t have time.’", "badge_label": "Granted in part", "categories": [ "governance-foia-compliance", "case-statistics" ], "share_image": "assets/images/share/26-32.jpg", "karpel_note": "The office's own June 16, 2025 memo records that it ‘went live’ with ProsecutorByKarpel on June 10, 2024. Nothing on this page faults the office for adopting a new case-management system, or for the migration having been difficult. The relevant point is what the office's own memos say about the result: that the data did not carry across completely or accurately, that the office was warned this could happen before it proceeded, that the old system's exact data is no longer available, that the files are organized by name so year-based search is not viable, and that mistakes are still being found on nearly a weekly basis. Those are the office's statements, produced in response to this request, and they are quoted as such." }, { "id": "26-35", "slug": "26-35-plea-agreements-january-2026", "title": "FOIA 26-35: The office counted 52 pleas in 85 minutes — eight days after saying the same kind of aggregate did not exist", "short_title": "Eighty-five minutes, and the year it says it needs", "subject": "The total number of plea agreements entered into and accepted in criminal cases during January 2026, excluding minor traffic infractions and small ticket matters", "synopsis": "A one-page request dated February 9, 2026, faxed at 2:05 p.m. Eastern and logged by the office's own fax service, asking for one number: how many plea agreements were entered into and accepted in January 2026. The office answered on February 17, 2026 — the fifth business day, the last available day, saved by the February 16 state holiday — and GRANTED the request outright. It reported 52 pleas from the District and Circuit Court dockets, disclosed that the figure includes misdemeanor-level traffic tickets because the request's exclusion of ‘minor traffic infractions and small ticket matters’ was ‘too broad to allow for clear differentiation,’ charged nothing, and said the review took approximately 85 minutes. In the same letter it wrote that ‘there does not exist a document or record of an “aggregate numerical total” of plea agreements entered into and accepted’ — the identical proposition it used seven days earlier, in 26-28, to issue a certificate of nonexistence and quote $1,653.33 to assemble the underlying data. The difference between the two files is not the legal theory but where the facts were stored: the 26-35 count came off a court docket, and the 26-28 count would have come out of the office's own migrated files. The letter also misstates its own record: it says the request was dated February 10 and received February 17, while the request form is dated February 9 and the enclosed fax notification logs receipt at 2:05:51 p.m. on February 9.", "status": "granted_in_full", "status_label": "Granted — 52 pleas reported from the District and Circuit Court dockets, no fee quoted, no exemption cited, no pages withheld; the count is over-inclusive by the office's own admission", "submitted": "2026-02-09", "received": "2026-02-09", "response_date": "2026-02-17", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "requester": "Redacted", "fees_quoted": 0, "deposit_required": 0, "fees_paid": 0, "fee_waiver_requested": true, "fee_waiver_basis": "MCL 15.234", "fee_note": "No fee was quoted and none was paid. The request asked for a waiver or reduction of fees on the ground that the scope was narrow and the subject aggregate. The response letter never addresses the waiver: it does not grant it, does not deny it, and does not cite MCL 15.234 in either direction. The practical result is a full waiver, but there is no written determination behind it. The letter instead warns that ‘the granting of this request does not mean that future requests will not be subject to a fee estimation, as even with this small sample size, the review took approximately 85 minutes of time.’ No fee estimate was provided before processing, although the request asked for one if any fee was anticipated; because no fee was charged, none was required.", "appealed": false, "appeal_events": [], "appeal_status": "N/A", "appeal_note": "No appeal is recorded and none was warranted: the request was granted in full and no exemption was invoked. The letter supplies the standard appeal paragraph under MCL 15.240 — appeal to the chairperson of the Delta County Board of Commissioners, or judicial review in the Delta County Circuit Court — together with the statutory note that a prevailing requester may recover attorney fees, costs and disbursements, actual or compensatory damages, and punitive damages of $1,000.00. The one respect in which the response is arguably incomplete is that the 52 figure includes misdemeanor traffic tickets that the request excluded, and the office cited no basis for declining to separate them; a requester who wanted the narrower number would have to file a new request rather than appeal.", "requested": [ "FOIA 26-35 — the total number of plea agreements entered into and accepted in criminal cases handled by the Delta County Prosecutor's Office during January 2026.", "The count to exclude ‘minor traffic infractions and small ticket matters,’ and to include pleas agreed in December 2025 or earlier but entered and accepted in January 2026.", "Aggregate numerical total only — no case files, names, identifiers, or personally identifiable information.", "Any existing reports, summaries, database query results, or electronic exports reflecting the total, with a statement that the request did not require creation of a new public record.", "A detailed fee estimate before processing if any fee was anticipated, and a waiver or reduction of fees under MCL 15.234." ], "provided": [ "A response letter dated February 17, 2026, on Delta County Prosecutor's Office letterhead, stating ‘Your request is GRANTED.’", "The count itself: ‘these documented the entry of 52 pleas in District or Circuit Court that were entered pursuant to a plea agreement.’", "A definitional explanation: a plea is only ‘accepted’ when entered on the record, so the request ‘would simply require the review of court dockets for entries that include a “plea”.’", "A volunteered limitation: ‘This number includes misdemeanor level traffic tickets, as a differentiation of “minor traffic infractions and small ticket matters” is too broad to allow for clear differentiation in response.’", "A statement of method and cost: the calculation ‘required the physical review and cross reference to the physical file,’ was ‘done out of a courtesy and effort in transparency,’ and ‘took approximately 85 minutes of time.’", "The standard MCL 15.240 appeal paragraph and a note that the office's FOIA Written Policies, Guidelines, Forms and Appeal Form are available on its website.", "A Zimbra/IPFone fax notification recording receipt at 2:05:51 p.m. Eastern on February 9, 2026, two pages, and the request as received." ], "withheld": [ "Nothing. No exemption was cited, no Notice of Denial was issued, no page was redacted, and no fee was charged.", "The excluded category was not withheld either — it was folded into the total, so the answer is broader than the request rather than narrower." ], "keywords": [ "26-35", "plea agreements", "pleas", "plea count", "January 2026", "52 pleas", "85 minutes", "court dockets", "District Court", "Circuit Court", "docket review", "aggregate statistical information", "aggregate numerical total", "certificate of nonexistence", "no aggregate record", "minor traffic infractions", "small ticket matters", "misdemeanor traffic tickets", "over-inclusive", "courtesy and effort in transparency", "future fee estimation", "fee waiver", "MCL 15.234", "MCL 15.235", "MCL 15.240", "MCL 15.233", "five business days", "receipt date", "February 9 2026", "February 17 2026", "Presidents Day", "state holiday", "1.63 minutes per plea", "20 minutes per file", "14 minutes per file", "5 minutes per file", "measured versus estimated", "26-28", "26-29", "26-30", "26-20", "26-21", "26-22", "26-32", "statistical cluster", "Emily DeSalvo", "Lauren M. Wickman", "Delta County Prosecutor", "granted in full" ], "documents": [ { "title": "Response Letter (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/26-35/26-35-response-letter.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Two pages: the February 17, 2026 letter granting the request, reporting 52 pleas from the District and Circuit Court dockets, disclosing that the count includes misdemeanor traffic tickets, stating that no aggregate record exists, reporting approximately 85 minutes of review, and supplying the MCL 15.240 appeal paragraph." }, { "title": "Fax Notification (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/26-35/26-35-fax-notification.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Two pages: the IPFone fax notification addressed to the office's administrative fax mailbox, recording a two-page transmission received Monday, February 9, 2026 at 2:05:51 p.m. Eastern — the office's own record of when the clock started." }, { "title": "Request as Received (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/26-35/26-35-request-as-received.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Two pages: the request form dated February 9, 2026, with the operative paragraph, the exclusion of minor traffic infractions and small ticket matters, the no-new-record sentence, the reasonable-basis paragraph describing the observed plea, the fee-waiver request, and the five-business-day citation." } ], "infographics": [], "charts": [], "published": "2026-10-30", "updated": "2026-10-30", "featured": true, "watchdog_alerts": [ "The office granted this request and gave the number: 52 pleas in January 2026, read off the District and Circuit Court dockets, at no charge. It is the only request in the February 2026 statistical cluster that produced a substantive answer.", "In the same letter the office wrote that ‘there does not exist a document or record of an “aggregate numerical total” of plea agreements entered into and accepted’ — the identical proposition it used seven days earlier, in 26-28, to issue a certificate of nonexistence and quote $1,653.33 for the underlying data.", "The office says the review ‘took approximately 85 minutes of time.’ That is 1.63 minutes per plea — the only figure in this archive where the office reports how long a records task actually took, rather than how long it estimates one will take.", "The number is over-inclusive by the office's own admission: it ‘includes misdemeanor level traffic tickets’ because the request's exclusion was ‘too broad to allow for clear differentiation.’ No exemption was cited and no partial denial was stated. 52 is a ceiling, not the answer.", "The letter misstates its own record. It says the request was dated February 10 and received February 17; the request form is dated February 9, and the fax notification the office itself enclosed logs receipt at 2:05:51 p.m. on February 9. The response was still timely — but only because February 16 was a state holiday.", "Compliance is described as a favour — the count was compiled ‘out of a courtesy and effort in transparency’ — and the letter warns that ‘future requests’ may be priced. The fee waiver the request asked for was never granted or denied in writing." ], "tile_title": "Eighty-five minutes, and the year it says it needs", "tile_synopsis": "Asked to count January's pleas, the office read two courts' dockets and answered 52 in 85 minutes, free — eight days after certifying that the same kind of aggregate did not exist and quoting $1,653.33 to build one.", "badge_label": "Granted in full", "categories": [ "case-statistics", "governance-foia-compliance" ], "share_image": "assets/images/share/26-35.jpg", "karpel_note": "Nothing on this page faults the office for adopting ProsecutorByKarpel in June 2024 or for the migration being difficult. The relevant point is one the office makes itself: the 52-plea count was drawn from the courts' dockets rather than from the office's own case-management system, because a docket entry can be read and a migrated case file, on the office's own account in 26-32, cannot be searched by year. That is a statement about where the office's records live, not about bad faith." }, { "id": "26-290", "slug": "26-290-victim-services-staffing-and-grants", "title": "FOIA 26-290: The office refused the victim-services records because it says you already have them — from a packet that contained none", "short_title": "A receipt for records that were never delivered", "subject": "Victim-services staffing headcount and full-time equivalents, and state or federal victim-services grant funding, for calendar years 2024 and 2025", "synopsis": "A six-paragraph request dated October 25, 2026, faxed on a Sunday and received by the office on Monday, October 26. The office answered on October 29 — business day three of five — and said “granted” five separate times while producing nothing. Each of the first five paragraphs is disposed of with one repeated sentence: the records “have been previously provided to you in response to a FOIA request,” good cause has not been shown, so the request is granted but the documents “will not be provided pursuant to Densmore v Department of Corrections, 203 Mich App 363 (1994).” The prior production relied on is FOIA 25-279, “sent on or about December 18, 2025.” That packet is in this archive and contains no responsive documents: a Notice of Denial, a blank appeal form, a policy notice and three cost itemizations totalling $34,673.79, with $17,336.89 in deposits demanded before any granted record would be produced. The office is refusing victim-services records on the ground that it already produced them in a production that produced nothing. Paragraph 6 — an organizational chart, position description or staffing-roster entry — is not addressed at all. No fee was quoted, no exemption under MCL 15.243 was cited, and the MCL 15.234 waiver was neither granted nor denied.", "status": "denied", "status_label": "Refused — five paragraphs labelled “granted” but zero pages produced, on the authority of a prior production that contained no responsive documents; the sixth paragraph received no disposition", "submitted": "2026-10-25", "received": "2026-10-26", "response_date": "2026-10-29", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "requester": "Redacted", "fees_quoted": 0, "deposit_required": 0, "fees_paid": 0, "fee_waiver_requested": true, "fee_waiver_basis": "MCL 15.234", "fee_note": "The request asked for a waiver or reduction of fees under MCL 15.234 on the ground that the subject is a matter of public interest and the records are aggregate. The response letter does not mention the waiver at all: it is not granted, not denied, and MCL 15.234 is not cited in either direction. No fee was quoted and no deposit was demanded, so the practical result is a full waiver, but there is no written determination behind it.", "appealed": false, "appeal_events": [], "appeal_status": "N/A", "appeal_note": "No appeal is recorded. The letter supplies the standard appeal paragraph under MCL 15.240 — appeal to the chairperson of the Delta County Board of Commissioners, or judicial review in the Delta County Circuit Court — together with the statutory note that a prevailing requester may recover attorney fees, costs and disbursements, actual or compensatory damages, and punitive damages of $1,000.00. Appeal forms, Written Policies, Guidelines and Forms are directed to deltacountymi.gov.", "requested": [ "Victim-services staffing for calendar years 2024 and 2025: the number of employees, contractors or assigned personnel whose duties include victim services, stated as headcount and as full-time equivalents, with the position title and whether each position was funded by the general budget, a grant, or another source.", "Victim-services grant funding for 2024 and 2025: the total dollar amount of any state or federal grant, subaward or allocation received for victim-services purposes, stated by year, program name, awarding agency and grant or award number.", "The award letters, grant agreements or subaward documents for each grant identified, including any amendment, modification or reduction.", "Any budget line, ledger or expenditure summary showing victim-services grant funds received and spent, by year and by category.", "Any report, reimbursement claim, invoice or progress report submitted by the office to a granting agency concerning victim-services funds for 2024 or 2025.", "Any organizational chart, position description or staffing-roster entry for a victim-services position in effect at any time during 2024 or 2025.", "A waiver or reduction of fees under MCL 15.234, and a detailed estimate before processing if any fee was anticipated." ], "provided": [ "A response letter dated October 29, 2026, on Delta County Prosecutor's Office letterhead, signed by Emily DeSalvo as FOIA Coordinator.", "Five dispositions, one for each of paragraphs 1 through 5, each stating that the request “is granted” but that “the documents will not be provided.”", "A factual assertion about the prior production: that records documenting victim-services staffing were provided in FOIA 25-279 “sent on or about December 18, 2025”; that “no staff titles or position have changed” since then; that “the individuals involved in that role has not changed”; and that the documents “include CVRP Grant Application and allocation documents from 2024, 2025, and 2026 fiscal years.”", "A statement that the paragraph 5 records “include quarterly reports.”", "The citation to Densmore v Department of Corrections, 203 Mich App 363 (1994), as authority for declining to reproduce records previously provided.", "The standard MCL 15.240 appeal paragraph and a note that appeal forms, Written Policies, Guidelines and Forms are available at deltacountymi.gov." ], "withheld": [ "All records responsive to paragraphs 1 through 5 — the entire victim-services staffing and grant file — on the ground that it was previously provided in FOIA 25-279.", "Paragraph 6 (organizational chart, position description, staffing-roster entry) received no disposition of any kind: no grant, no denial, no exemption and no certificate of nonexistence.", "No exemption under MCL 15.243 was cited. Densmore is a judicial gloss on the act, not a statutory exemption.", "No written determination on the MCL 15.234 fee waiver was issued." ], "keywords": [ "26-290", "victim services", "victim advocate", "victim-services staffing", "CVRP", "crime victim rights", "grant funding", "grant application", "allocation letter", "quarterly reports", "full-time equivalent", "FTE", "headcount", "organizational chart", "position description", "staffing roster", "2024", "2025", "Densmore", "Densmore v Department of Corrections", "203 Mich App 363", "previously provided", "good cause", "duplicate request", "25-279", "34,673.79", "17,336.89", "three invoices", "no responsive documents", "granted but not provided", "silent paragraph", "MCL 15.233", "MCL 15.234", "MCL 15.235", "MCL 15.240", "October 25 2026", "October 26 2026", "October 29 2026", "business day three", "Emily DeSalvo", "Lauren M. Wickman", "Delta County Prosecutor", "denied" ], "documents": [ { "title": "Response Letter (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/26-290/26-290-response.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Three pages: the October 29, 2026 letter acknowledging receipt on October 26, restating the six-paragraph request, disposing of paragraphs 1 through 5 with the repeated Densmore sentence, asserting that no staff titles or positions have changed since December 2025, citing CVRP grant applications and quarterly reports as previously provided, and omitting paragraph 6 entirely." } ], "infographics": [], "charts": [], "published": "2026-11-02", "updated": "2026-11-02", "featured": true, "watchdog_alerts": [ "The office wrote “granted” five times and produced zero pages. Paragraphs 1 through 5 are each disposed of with the same sentence: the request is granted, but the documents “will not be provided.”", "The ground for refusal is a prior production, FOIA 25-279. That packet is published on this site and contains no responsive documents — a Notice of Denial, a blank appeal form, a policy notice and three cost itemizations totalling $34,673.79.", "Densmore assumes the records were in fact provided. The office relies on a production that demanded $17,336.89 in deposits before it would produce anything, and treats the unpaid invoice as though it were a completed delivery.", "Paragraph 6 received no answer at all. No grant, no denial, no exemption, no certificate of nonexistence. A paragraph with no disposition has not been answered under MCL 15.235.", "The office volunteered that “no staff titles or position have changed” and that “the individuals involved in that role has not changed” — a staffing conclusion stated in prose while the documentation behind it is withheld.", "The office has already published the number it now refuses to confirm: its 25-279 letter states the office employs 8 people, one of whom is a victim advocate.", "The request asked for calendar years 2024 and 2025. The office describes the prior production as covering “2024, 2025, and 2026 fiscal years” — a different basis, and the letter never reconciles the two.", "No exemption under MCL 15.243 was cited, no Notice of Denial was issued, no fee was quoted, and the MCL 15.234 fee waiver was neither granted nor denied." ], "tile_title": "A receipt for records that were never delivered", "tile_synopsis": "Five paragraphs labelled “granted,” zero pages produced, and the prior production the office relies on contains no responsive documents at all — only $34,673.79 in invoices.", "badge_label": "Denied", "categories": [ "personnel-staffing", "budget-spending", "governance-foia-compliance" ], "share_image": "assets/images/share/26-290.jpg", "karpel_note": "Nothing on this page faults the office for adopting ProsecutorByKarpel in June 2024 or for the migration being difficult. The point is narrower: the office attributes the absence of records to a system change, and the request covers a period after that change. The site does not assert an implementation date for the case-management system." }, { "id": "26-291", "slug": "26-291-privilege-log-for-25-195", "title": "FOIA 26-291: The office answered a request for a privilege log with nine document titles — and cited a subsection of the FOIA that does not exist", "short_title": "A list where the law asked for a ledger", "subject": "A privilege log itemizing each record withheld from FOIA 25-195 under MCL 15.243(1)(g), with eleven specified fields per record, plus a count, any existing log, any written privilege policy, and related correspondence", "synopsis": "A six-paragraph request dated October 25, 2026, faxed on a Sunday and received on Monday, October 26. The office answered on October 29 — business day three of five. Paragraphs 1, 2 and 3 were “granted in part, denied in part” and answered with a nine-row table with three columns: Document Name, Sent on, Author. All nine rows are authored by “Prosecutor Wickman.” Measured against the eleven fields the request specified, the table supplies two: the date and a name. There are no recipients, no page counts, no record types, no full-or-partial designations, no exemption elements, no litigation-anticipation statements, no outside-sharing statements, and no total count. The letter states that “Delta County still maintains the exemption for the actual documents exists as Attorney-Client Privilege pursuant to MCL 15.243(9)” — a subsection that does not exist; MCL 15.243 runs from (1)(a) through (1)(cc), then (2), (3) and (4), and the attorney-client exemption is MCL 15.243(1)(g). The same letter says the 25-195 records “were not deemed privileged” because they were a public budget presentation, without identifying which documents are privileged and which are not. Paragraphs 4 and 5 were denied as nonexistent — so the record shows no written privilege policy and no correspondence about the withholding decision. Paragraph 6, the fallback certification naming the employee and locations searched, was not addressed.", "status": "granted_in_part", "status_label": "Granted in part — a nine-row title-and-date table supplying two of the eleven requested fields, no count, and a citation to a subsection of MCL 15.243 that does not exist", "submitted": "2026-10-25", "received": "2026-10-26", "response_date": "2026-10-29", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "requester": "Redacted", "fees_quoted": 0, "deposit_required": 0, "fees_paid": 0, "fee_waiver_requested": true, "fee_waiver_basis": "MCL 15.234", "fee_note": "The request asked for a waiver or reduction of fees under MCL 15.234 on the ground that the subject is a matter of public interest and the records are aggregate. The response letter does not mention the waiver at all: it is not granted, not denied, and MCL 15.234 is not cited in either direction. No fee was quoted and no deposit was demanded, so the practical result is a full waiver, but there is no written determination behind it.", "appealed": false, "appeal_events": [], "appeal_status": "N/A", "appeal_note": "No appeal is recorded. The letter supplies the standard appeal paragraph under MCL 15.240 — appeal to the chairperson of the Delta County Board of Commissioners, or judicial review in the Delta County Circuit Court — together with the statutory note that a prevailing requester may recover attorney fees, costs and disbursements, actual or compensatory damages, and punitive damages of $1,000.00. Appeal forms, Written Policies, Guidelines and Forms are directed to deltacountymi.gov.", "requested": [ "A privilege log, index or similar itemization identifying each record withheld from FOIA 25-195 under MCL 15.243(1)(g), stating for each record: (a) date; (b) author with name and job title or office; (c) each recipient with name and job title or office; (d) copy recipients; (e) general subject matter without disclosing privileged content; (f) record type; (g) number of pages; (h) withheld in full or in part, and if in part the number of pages or portions released; (i) the specific exemption and, for MCL 15.243(1)(g), the particular element of the attorney-client privilege relied on; (j) whether prepared in anticipation of litigation and, if so, the matter or claim; (k) whether shared with any person outside the office and the Board of County Commissioners, and with whom.", "The total number of records withheld from 25-195 under MCL 15.243(1)(g), stated separately as the number withheld in full and the number withheld in part, and the total number of pages so withheld.", "Any privilege log, index, withholding sheet or similar document already prepared for 25-195, including any internal worksheet, tracking sheet or draft.", "Any written policy, procedure, guideline, memorandum, training material or written instruction used to determine which reports prepared for or provided to county officials are subject to the attorney-client privilege and which are not.", "Any correspondence, including e-mail, between the office and the Board of Commissioners, the County Administrator or county counsel concerning the decision to withhold records under MCL 15.243(1)(g) in response to 25-195.", "If no such log, index, itemization, policy or correspondence exists, a written certification identifying the office or employee who conducted the search and the locations searched." ], "provided": [ "A response letter dated October 29, 2026, on office letterhead, signed by Emily DeSalvo as FOIA Coordinator, four pages.", "A nine-row table with three columns — Document Name, Sent on, Author — listing: Township Zoning (02/02/2023); Boundary in Cornell and Escanaba Township (05/17/2023); Open Meeting Act – Advisory Committee Attendance (04/17/2023); Room Accomidations – open Meeting (06/16/2023); Case Review regarding Bisio v City of Clarkston (08/20/2024); Written Appeal for Case Report #24-1562 (FOIA Request 24- — District) (08/17/2024); Contract with Delta Conservatin (05/07/2023); Interium Adminstrator Contract (04/04/2023); Veterans' Relief Fund (04/17/2023). Every row is authored by “Prosecutor Wickman.”", "A certificate of nonexistence for the detail the table does not contain.", "The statement that “Delta County still maintains the exemption for the actual documents exists as Attorney-Client Privilege pursuant to MCL 15.243(9).”", "A scope paragraph stating that the documents are “believed to be beyond the scope of the original request,” that no records exist for the fiscal year 2024-25 budget request, “staffing levels,” “case assignment” or “legislative inquiry” outside those previously provided in 25-195, and that those records “were not deemed privileged as they were provided to the Board of Commissioners not in the Delta County Prosecutor's capacity as civil counsel, but as part of a budget presentation that was done publicly at a Board meeting.”", "Certificates of nonexistence for paragraphs 4 and 5, denying that any written privilege policy or any related correspondence exists.", "The standard MCL 15.240 appeal paragraph." ], "withheld": [ "Nine of the eleven requested fields per record: recipients, copy recipients, subject matter, record type, page count, full-or-partial designation, exemption element, litigation-anticipation status, and outside-sharing status.", "Any count of records withheld from 25-195 in full or in part, and any total page count.", "Any written policy, procedure, guideline, training material or written instruction governing which county reports are treated as privileged — denied as nonexistent.", "Any correspondence with the Board of Commissioners, the County Administrator or county counsel about the withholding decision — denied as nonexistent.", "Paragraph 6, the fallback certification naming the employee who searched and the locations searched, received no disposition.", "The letter never states whether the nine listed documents were withheld or produced." ], "keywords": [ "26-291", "privilege log", "privilege index", "withholding sheet", "attorney-client privilege", "MCL 15.243(1)(g)", "MCL 15.243(9)", "nonexistent subsection", "miscitation", "exemption element", "25-195", "count of records withheld", "full or partial", "page count", "recipients", "record type", "litigation anticipation", "written privilege policy", "certificate of nonexistence", "nine-row table", "Document Name", "Sent on", "Author", "Prosecutor Wickman", "Township Zoning", "Cornell and Escanaba Township", "Open Meeting Act", "Advisory Committee Attendance", "Room Accomidations", "Bisio v City of Clarkston", "Case Report 24-1562", "Delta Conservatin", "Interium Adminstrator Contract", "Veterans' Relief Fund", "budget presentation", "Board of Commissioners", "beyond the scope", "October 25 2026", "October 26 2026", "October 29 2026", "business day three", "Emily DeSalvo", "Lauren M. Wickman", "Delta County Prosecutor", "granted in part" ], "documents": [ { "title": "Response Letter and Nine-Row Table (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/26-291/26-291-response.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Four pages: the October 29, 2026 letter restating the eleven-field request, disposing of paragraphs 1 through 3 as granted in part and denied in part, citing MCL 15.243(9), asserting that the 25-195 records were not privileged because they were a public budget presentation, denying paragraphs 4 and 5 as nonexistent, and attaching the nine-row Document Name / Sent on / Author table on page three." } ], "infographics": [], "charts": [], "published": "2026-11-02", "updated": "2026-11-02", "featured": true, "watchdog_alerts": [ "The office cited MCL 15.243(9) as the basis for the attorney-client exemption. That subsection does not exist. MCL 15.243 runs from (1)(a) to (1)(cc), then (2), (3) and (4). The attorney-client exemption is MCL 15.243(1)(g).", "The request specified eleven fields for each withheld record. The nine-row table supplies two: a date and a name. There are no recipients, page counts, record types, full-or-partial designations, exemption elements or litigation-anticipation statements.", "All nine rows are authored by “Prosecutor Wickman.” A log in which every record has one author and no recipient does not describe communications. It describes documents.", "The dates are out of order: 2023, 2023, 2023, 2023, 2024, 2024, 2023, 2023, 2023. Two 2024 rows sit in the middle of a run of 2023 rows — consistent with a list typed by hand, not exported from a tracking system.", "The letter says the documents are privileged and that the 25-195 records “were not deemed privileged” because they were a public budget presentation. Both statements are in the same letter, four paragraphs apart, and neither identifies which documents fall in which category.", "The office denied that any written policy, procedure, guideline, training material or written instruction governs which county reports are privileged. If that is true, every privilege call is an unreviewable judgment made without a documented standard.", "The office never states whether the nine listed documents were withheld or produced, and never gives the count of records withheld in full or in part that paragraph 2 asked for." ], "tile_title": "A list where the law asked for a ledger", "tile_synopsis": "Asked for an eleven-field privilege log, the office produced nine document titles and a citation to MCL 15.243(9) — a subsection that does not exist.", "badge_label": "Granted in part", "categories": [ "governance-foia-compliance", "law-enforcement" ], "share_image": "assets/images/share/26-291.jpg", "karpel_note": "Nothing on this page faults the office for adopting ProsecutorByKarpel in June 2024 or for the migration being difficult. The point is narrower: the office attributes the absence of records to a system change, and the request covers a period after that change. The site does not assert an implementation date for the case-management system." }, { "id": "26-292", "slug": "26-292-monthly-felony-authorizations-2025", "title": "FOIA 26-292: The office used the requester's own cost-saving clause to withdraw the request, then offered to grant it if he removed the clause", "short_title": "The request was written to be cheap, and the office read it as a withdrawal", "subject": "Twelve monthly felony-authorization counts for calendar year 2025, the “Charges on Authorized Felony Case Report” named in the 26-20 response, and any other existing record stating the monthly figures", "synopsis": "A four-paragraph request dated October 25, 2026, faxed on a Sunday and received on Monday, October 26. It asked for twelve numbers — the felony authorizations issued in each month of calendar 2025 — and closed with a “Scope Limitations” list, subsections (a) through (f), written “to keep this request as inexpensive as possible.” Subsection (f) excluded “any compilation, analysis, cross-tabulation, or new document that does not already exist.” The office answered on October 29 — business day three of five — denied paragraph 1 because no record currently states the twelve numbers, issued a certificate of nonexistence, and then conceded that “records allowing for the number to be calculated could be located and provided.” It declined to calculate them because subsection (f) excluded compilations, and offered to grant the request if the requester would “clarify” it — which requires removing subsection (f). Paragraphs 2 and 3 were denied on the ground that the “Charges on Authorized Felony Case Report” was generated in the old case-tracking system before the office lost access, and that it was previously provided in 25-94 and 25-195 — a provenance claim this archive's record of those productions does not support. Paragraph 4 was denied as nonexistent. This is the third file in the archive in which the office concedes that the underlying data exists and only the aggregate is refused, after 25-278 and 26-28.", "status": "granted_in_part", "status_label": "Granted in part, denied in part — no records produced; the office conceded the data exists and refused the aggregate on the ground that the requester's own scope limitation excluded it", "submitted": "2026-10-25", "received": "2026-10-26", "response_date": "2026-10-29", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "requester": "Redacted", "fees_quoted": 0, "deposit_required": 0, "fees_paid": 0, "fee_waiver_requested": true, "fee_waiver_basis": "MCL 15.234", "fee_note": "The request asked for a waiver or reduction of fees under MCL 15.234 on the ground that the subject is a matter of public interest and the records are aggregate. The response letter does not mention the waiver at all: it is not granted, not denied, and MCL 15.234 is not cited in either direction. No fee was quoted and no deposit was demanded, so the practical result is a full waiver, but there is no written determination behind it.", "appealed": false, "appeal_events": [], "appeal_status": "N/A", "appeal_note": "No appeal is recorded. The letter supplies the standard appeal paragraph under MCL 15.240 — appeal to the chairperson of the Delta County Board of Commissioners, or judicial review in the Delta County Circuit Court — together with the statutory note that a prevailing requester may recover attorney fees, costs and disbursements, actual or compensatory damages, and punitive damages of $1,000.00. Appeal forms, Written Policies, Guidelines and Forms are directed to deltacountymi.gov.", "requested": [ "The number of felony authorizations issued by the office in each month of calendar year 2025 — twelve numbers, one for each month from January 2025 through December 2025.", "A copy of the “Charges on Authorized Felony Case Report” identified in the office's February 5, 2026 response to Request No. 26-20, run for January 1, 2025 through December 31, 2025, in whatever form the office ordinarily produces that report.", "If the report is maintained on a fiscal-year basis rather than a calendar-year basis, the same report run for the office's 2024-2025 and 2025-2026 fiscal years.", "Any other existing table, spreadsheet, query output or internal report stating felony authorizations by month for 2025, in whichever format it is already kept.", "Scope limitations (a) through (e): no defendant, respondent or victim name; no case, docket or court file number; no date of birth, address, telephone number or criminal identification number; no charging document, information, complaint, warrant or case file; no narrative, memorandum, cover letter or explanatory text beyond the numbers.", "Scope limitation (f): “any compilation, analysis, cross-tabulation, or new document that does not already exist” — written “to keep this request as inexpensive as possible.”", "A waiver or reduction of fees under MCL 15.234, and a detailed estimate before processing if any fee was anticipated." ], "provided": [ "A response letter dated October 29, 2026, on office letterhead, signed by Emily DeSalvo as FOIA Coordinator, two pages.", "A disposition for paragraph 1: “granted in part, denied in part,” denied because “no record currently exists documenting the request,” with a certificate of nonexistence.", "The concession that “records allowing for the number to be calculated could be located and provided, subject to statutorily necessary redactions and exemptions.”", "The refusal to calculate them: “However, as you specify in your request under ‘Scope Limitations’ subsection (f) that is not a portion of your request.”", "The conditional offer: “Should you wish to clarify your request, the request would be granted subject to review for the time and scope necessary to comply with the request.”", "A denial for paragraphs 2 and 3, stating that the “Charges on Authorized Felony Case Report” was “generated through the old case tracking system prior to the Prosecutor's Office losing access,” that “no such document has been generated or created to cover the time period requested,” and that it was “previously provided to you in FOIA Request 25-94 and 25-195.”", "A denial for paragraph 4 as nonexistent, with a certificate of nonexistence.", "The standard MCL 15.240 appeal paragraph." ], "withheld": [ "The twelve monthly felony-authorization counts for calendar 2025 — the entire subject of paragraph 1.", "The “Charges on Authorized Felony Case Report” for 2025, and the same report on a fiscal-year basis.", "Any other existing table, spreadsheet, query output or internal report stating 2025 felony authorizations by month.", "No exemption under MCL 15.243 was cited for any paragraph; all four were disposed of by certificate of nonexistence or by the scope-limitation reading.", "No written determination on the MCL 15.234 fee waiver was issued." ], "keywords": [ "26-292", "felony authorizations", "felony authorization counts", "monthly counts", "calendar year 2025", "twelve numbers", "Charges on Authorized Felony Case Report", "Adult Case Tracking", "case tracking system", "old case tracking system", "lost access", "ProsecutorByKarpel", "migration", "scope limitations", "subsection (f)", "compilation", "cross-tabulation", "new document", "cost-saving clause", "records allowing for the number to be calculated", "underlying data", "aggregate", "certificate of nonexistence", "25-278", "26-28", "26-20", "25-94", "25-195", "clarify your request", "conditional grant", "MCL 15.233", "MCL 15.234", "MCL 15.235", "MCL 15.240", "October 25 2026", "October 26 2026", "October 29 2026", "business day three", "Emily DeSalvo", "Lauren M. Wickman", "Delta County Prosecutor", "granted in part" ], "documents": [ { "title": "Response Letter (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/26-292/26-292-response.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Two pages: the October 29, 2026 letter restating the four-paragraph request and the six scope limitations, denying paragraph 1 for want of an existing record while conceding that “records allowing for the number to be calculated could be located and provided,” refusing the calculation on the authority of subsection (f), offering a conditional grant if the request is clarified, and denying paragraphs 2, 3 and 4 as nonexistent." } ], "infographics": [], "charts": [], "published": "2026-11-02", "updated": "2026-11-02", "featured": true, "watchdog_alerts": [ "The office conceded that “records allowing for the number to be calculated could be located and provided” — and then declined to calculate the number, because the requester's own subsection (f) excluded “any compilation.”", "Subsection (f) was written “to keep this request as inexpensive as possible.” The office read a cost-saving clause as a withdrawal of the question, then offered to grant the request if the requester would remove the clause.", "The office's own offer is the compilation it says was excluded: it offers to locate and provide “records allowing for the number to be calculated.” The clause is read strictly when it helps refuse and loosely when it helps offer.", "This is the third file in which the office concedes the data exists and refuses only the aggregate — after 25-278 (“the underlying data … is available”) and 26-28 (“the underlying data could be obtained”).", "Paragraphs 2 and 3 say the “Charges on Authorized Felony Case Report” was “previously provided” in 25-94 and 25-195. Per this archive, 25-94 produced three Warrants Authorized by Agency reports for 2021–2023 and 25-195 produced two budget memos and four Adult Case Tracking reports run 11/30/2023. Neither is described as containing that report.", "The request covers calendar year 2025. The office says the report was generated in the old case-tracking system “prior to the Prosecutor's Office losing access” — which does not explain what system recorded authorizations during 2025.", "No fee was quoted, no exemption under MCL 15.243 was cited, and the MCL 15.234 fee waiver was neither granted nor denied." ], "tile_title": "The request was written to be cheap, and the office read it as a withdrawal", "tile_synopsis": "Asked for twelve monthly felony-authorization counts, the office conceded the data exists, refused the arithmetic, and blamed the requester's own cost-saving clause.", "badge_label": "Granted in part", "categories": [ "case-statistics", "charging-decisions", "governance-foia-compliance" ], "share_image": "assets/images/share/26-292.jpg", "karpel_note": "Nothing on this page faults the office for adopting ProsecutorByKarpel in June 2024 or for the migration being difficult. The point is narrower: the office attributes the absence of records to a system change, and the request covers a period after that change. The site does not assert an implementation date for the case-management system." }, { "id": "26-34", "slug": "26-34-diversion-program-case-count", "title": "FOIA 26-34: The office denied a count of diversion cases by defining “diversion” down to a programme it does not run", "short_title": "The word the office defined for you", "subject": "The total number of criminal cases resolved through diversion programs, 2022 through 2025, in aggregate numerical form only", "synopsis": "A one-page request dated February 9, 2026, faxed to the office at 1:18 p.m. Eastern and logged by the office's own fax service, asking for one number: how many criminal cases were resolved through diversion programs between 2022 and 2025. A follow-up e-mail four minutes later supplied the date range the request had left out. The office answered on February 17, 2026 and DENIED the request, not by citing an exemption and not by saying it searched and found nothing, but by redefining the word. It wrote that “diversion programs” is “traditionally a program only referring to juvenile diversion program administered by Probate Courts, as outlined in the Juvenile Diversion Act, Act 13 of 1988, MCL 722.821 et al.,” that those records are held by the Probate Court and are confidential even to the Prosecutor, and that “There are no other ‘diversion programs’ within Delta County.” On that premise it issued a certificate of nonexistence and checked box 2 on the Denial Form. The packet cannot agree on when the request arrived: the request form and the fax log say February 9, the Denial Form says the request was received February 10, and the response letter says it was received February 17 — three dates for one fax, in one envelope. The letter also repeats the same “dated February 10” error as its sibling, 26-35, which was faxed to the same office the same afternoon and answered by the same coordinator on the same day, and which was granted in full with a number. The fee waiver the request asked for under MCL 15.234 is neither granted nor denied. The office closed by inviting clarification and offering to “review the matter anew.”", "status": "denied", "status_label": "Denied — certificate of nonexistence under MCL 15.233(1), Denial Form box 2 checked, on the ground that the only diversion programme in Delta County is juvenile diversion administered by the Probate Court; no exemption cited, no fee quoted, no waiver determination", "submitted": "2026-02-09", "received": "2026-02-09", "response_date": "2026-02-17", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "requester": "Redacted", "fees_quoted": 0, "deposit_required": 0, "fees_paid": 0, "fee_waiver_requested": true, "fee_waiver_basis": "MCL 15.234", "fee_note": "No fee was quoted and none was paid, because nothing was produced. The request asked for “a waiver of all fees pursuant to MCL 15.234” and for a written estimate if any fee was anticipated. The response letter does not mention the waiver, does not grant it, does not deny it, and does not cite MCL 15.234 in either direction. Because the request was denied outright, no fee could attach, so the silence has no practical cost here — but it is still an undecided statutory request, and it is the same silence the Wickman Record tracks as Pattern 07 across the rest of the archive.", "appealed": false, "appeal_events": [], "appeal_status": "N/A", "appeal_note": "No appeal is recorded. The letter supplies the standard MCL 15.240 paragraph — appeal to the chairperson of the Delta County Board of Commissioners, or judicial review in the Delta County Circuit Court — with the statutory note that a prevailing requester may recover attorney fees, costs and disbursements, actual or compensatory damages, and punitive damages of $1,000.00. It also encloses the excerpt of MCL 15.240 and a blank Denial Appeal Form. Whether an appeal would have been worthwhile turns on a question the packet does not answer: whether the office operates, or participates in, any post-charge alternative to adjudication other than juvenile diversion — for example Holmes Youthful Trainee Act status under MCL 762.11, a MCL 333.7411 drug deferral, or a MCL 769.4a domestic-violence deferral. The letter's assertion that “There are no other ‘diversion programs’ within Delta County” is not supported in the packet by a search description, a programme inventory, or a citation.", "requested": [ "FOIA 26-34 — the total number of criminal cases resolved through diversion programs, in aggregate numerical form only.", "The date range 2022 through 2025, supplied by e-mail clarification on February 9, 2026, four minutes after the fax.", "A statement that no responsive record exists if no such calculation is maintained, with the express note that the request “does not require creation of a new record.”", "A waiver of all fees under MCL 15.234, and a detailed written fee estimate before processing if any fee was anticipated.", "A response within five business days as required by MCL 15.235(2)." ], "provided": [ "A response letter dated February 17, 2026, on Delta County Prosecutor's Office letterhead, bearing Request #26-34.", "A definitional explanation: “‘diversion programs’ is traditionally a program only referring to juvenile diversion program administered by Probate Courts, as outlined in the Juvenile Diversion Act, Act 13 of 1988, MCL 722.821 et al.”", "A statement of where those records live: “Records pertaining to juvenile diversion programs are maintained by the Probate Court of the juvenile's respective county.”", "A statement of confidentiality: the Probate Court files “are considered confidential under the law, even to the Prosecutor's Office.”", "A categorical assertion: “There are no other ‘diversion programs’ within Delta County.”", "A certificate of nonexistence: the undersigned certifies that, “after a search for records and to the best of the undersigned's knowledge and belief, the public record requested, and described above, does not exist within the records of the public body under the name nor any other name reasonably known to the public body.”", "A Notice of Denial form dated 02/17/2026, with box 2 — “Record Does Not Exist” — checked.", "An invitation to clarify: “Should you have clarifying information related to this request, please provide that information or clarification and we will review the matter anew.”", "The MCL 15.240 appeal paragraph, an excerpt of MCL 15.240, a blank Denial Appeal Form, and the county's FOIA policy notice.", "The office's own fax notification, recording one page received at 1:18:09 p.m. Eastern on February 9, 2026, and the forwarded e-mail in which the clarification reached the office at 1:22 p.m." ], "withheld": [ "The requested aggregate: no number, and no statement of whether any diversion case exists.", "No exemption was cited. The denial rests on the nonexistence of the record and on the office's definition of the word, not on MCL 15.243.", "No search description: the certificate says a search was made, but the letter does not name a system searched, a custodian consulted, or a date range applied." ], "keywords": [ "26-34", "diversion", "diversion programs", "juvenile diversion", "Juvenile Diversion Act", "Act 13 of 1988", "MCL 722.821", "Probate Court", "certificate of nonexistence", "Denial Form box 2", "record does not exist", "aggregate numerical data", "2022-2025", "criminal cases resolved", "definitional denial", "defined the word", "no other diversion programs", "Holmes Youthful Trainee Act", "MCL 762.11", "MCL 333.7411", "MCL 769.4a", "deferral", "fee waiver", "MCL 15.234", "MCL 15.233", "MCL 15.235", "MCL 15.240", "five business days", "receipt date", "three dates one fax", "February 9 2026", "February 10 2026", "February 17 2026", "1:18 p.m.", "fax notification", "IPFone", "clarification", "review the matter anew", "26-35", "sibling request", "same fax", "Emily DeSalvo", "Lauren M. Wickman", "Delta County Prosecutor", "denied" ], "documents": [ { "title": "Response, Denial Form, Appeal Form and Fax Record (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/26-34/26-34-response-and-denial-forms.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Eleven pages: the February 17, 2026 response letter denying the request on a definitional ground and certifying nonexistence; the Notice of Denial form dated 02/17/2026 with box 2 checked and “Date Received 02/10/2026”; an excerpt of MCL 15.240; a blank Denial Appeal Form; the county's FOIA policy notice; the IPFone fax notification recording one page at 1:18:09 p.m. on February 9, 2026; the request as received, dated February 9, 2026; and the forwarded e-mail carrying the 2022–2025 clarification to the office at 1:22 p.m. the same afternoon." } ], "infographics": [], "charts": [], "published": "2026-11-02", "updated": "2026-11-02", "featured": true, "watchdog_alerts": [ "The office did not cite an exemption and did not say it searched and found nothing. It redefined the word: “diversion programs” means, in its reading, juvenile diversion administered by the Probate Court under MCL 722.821 et seq., and “There are no other ‘diversion programs’ within Delta County.” The denial rests on that definition, not on a search.", "The packet carries three different dates for one fax. The request form is dated February 9 and the office's own fax notification logs it at 1:18:09 p.m. on February 9. The Denial Form records “Date Received 02/10/2026.” The response letter says the request was “received … on February 17, 2026.”", "This is the sibling of FOIA 26-35. Both were faxed to the same office on the afternoon of February 9, 2026, both were answered on February 17 by the same coordinator, and both letters open with the same wrong date. 26-35 was granted in full and produced a number. 26-34 was denied outright.", "The office asserts that “There are no other ‘diversion programs’ within Delta County” without describing a search, naming a custodian, or listing the programmes it checked. The certificate says a search was made; the letter does not say what was searched.", "The fee waiver was requested under MCL 15.234 and never decided — neither granted nor denied in writing. No fee attached because nothing was produced, but the statutory request is unanswered.", "The office closed by inviting clarification and offering to “review the matter anew.” That is better practice than most denials in this archive, and it is also an admission that the door is not shut — the requester simply has to guess the word the office will accept." ], "tile_title": "The word the office defined for you", "tile_synopsis": "Asked to count diversion cases, the office did not search and shrug. It narrowed “diversion” to a Probate Court programme it does not run, certified the record did not exist, and put three different arrival dates on one fax.", "badge_label": "Denied", "categories": [ "case-statistics", "governance-foia-compliance" ], "share_image": "assets/images/share/26-34.jpg", "karpel_note": "Nothing on this page faults the office for adopting ProsecutorByKarpel in June 2024 or for the migration being difficult, and nothing on this page depends on the migration at all. The denial in 26-34 is definitional: the office says the category of record does not exist in Delta County. That is a statement about programmes, not about software, and it is treated here on its own terms." }, { "id": "26-33", "slug": "26-33-deferred-prosecution-agreements", "title": "FOIA 26-33: Asked to count deferred prosecution agreements, the office certified the total nonexistent and priced the underlying data at $9,093.33", "short_title": "The total that does not exist, for $9,093.33", "subject": "The total number of deferred prosecution agreements entered, 2022 through 2025, in aggregate numerical form only", "synopsis": "A one-page request dated February 9, 2026, faxed to the office at 1:16 p.m. Eastern and logged by the office's own fax service, asking for one number: the total number of deferred prosecution agreements entered. A follow-up e-mail three minutes later supplied the date range the request had left out — 2022 through 2025 — and the office's administrator forwarded it to the coordinator, the prosecutor and an assistant at 1:22 p.m. The office answered on February 17, 2026 and split the request in two. The request for an existing record documenting the aggregate was DENIED, on the ground that no such record is maintained and that producing one “would require the creation of a new record.” A certificate of nonexistence was issued and box 2 was checked on the Denial Form. The same letter then GRANTED the request in part, writing that “the underlying data exists to allow for the calculation” and offering to produce the underlying information so the requester could compile the total himself — at a quoted cost of $9,093.33, with a 50 percent deposit of $4,546.66 and an estimated 270 days to produce. The itemization prices 1,100 files a year across four years at three minutes per file to locate and two minutes per file to redact, at $24.82 an hour with fringe. Two things sit awkwardly on the face of the packet. The redaction line charges 586.66 fifteen-minute increments, a fraction of an increment, on a form that instructs the coordinator twice to round partial increments down — 586 increments would be $3,633.20 rather than $3,637.33. And the letter names the statutory deferral provisions it recognizes — MCL 771.1, MCL 769.4a, MCL 333.7411 and MCL 762.11 — which is the same list its sibling 26-34 needed and did not get: 26-34, faxed to the same office two minutes later and answered the same day by the same coordinator, certified that no diversion programme exists in Delta County other than juvenile diversion under MCL 722.821. The public-interest fee waiver the request asked for under MCL 15.234 was left blank on the itemization, neither granted nor denied.", "status": "granted_in_part", "status_label": "Granted in part and denied in part — the aggregate record denied as requiring creation of a new record, with a certificate of nonexistence and Denial Form box 2 checked; the underlying data granted subject to a $9,093.33 estimate, a $4,546.66 deposit and a 270-day production estimate; public-interest fee waiver left undetermined", "submitted": "2026-02-09", "received": "2026-02-09", "response_date": "2026-02-17", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "requester": "Redacted", "fees_quoted": 9093.33, "deposit_required": 4546.66, "fees_paid": 0, "fee_waiver_requested": true, "fee_waiver_basis": "MCL 15.234", "fee_note": "The office quoted $9,093.33 and required a 50 percent good-faith deposit of $4,546.66 before producing anything. The itemization is internally consistent on volume: 1,100 files a year across 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025 is 4,400 files; at three minutes each that is 13,200 minutes, or exactly 880 fifteen-minute increments, billed at $6.20 each for $5,456.00; at two minutes each for redaction that is 8,800 minutes, or 586.67 increments, billed at $6.20 each for $3,637.33. The redaction line is the one that does not follow the form. The form instructs the coordinator twice — in its instructions and again in the box where the increment count is entered — that all partial time increments must be rounded down. Rounded down, 586 increments at $6.20 is $3,633.20, not $3,637.33. The difference is $4.13, which is trivial in itself and is the only arithmetic error on the page; what it shows is that the increment rule the county publishes is not the rule the county applies. The public-interest waiver section is present, both boxes are unmarked, and the line for “Subtotal Fees After Waiver” is blank — the same undetermined waiver this archive documents in 26-131 and every itemization since. The indigence and nonprofit discount boxes are likewise unmarked. Nothing was paid, because nothing was produced.", "appealed": false, "appeal_events": [], "appeal_status": "N/A", "appeal_note": "No appeal is recorded. The letter supplies the standard MCL 15.240 paragraph — written appeal to the chairperson of the Delta County Board of Commissioners, or judicial review in the Delta County Circuit Court within 180 days — and encloses the statutory excerpt and a blank Denial Appeal Form. The appealable question here is narrow and unusual: the office has already conceded that the underlying data exists, so an appeal would not be about whether the records exist but about whether the aggregate is a record the office must produce or a new record it may decline to create. MCL 15.233(4) does not require a public body to make a new record, and the office is on firm ground there. What is appealable is the fee: MCL 15.240a allows a requester to challenge an excess fee, and the itemization charges a fractional increment its own form forbids. That is a $4.13 question, and the archive records it as a documentation defect rather than a reason to litigate.", "requested": [ "FOIA 26-33 — the total number of deferred prosecution agreements entered, in aggregate numerical form only.", "The date range 2022 through 2025, supplied by e-mail clarification on February 9, 2026, three minutes after the fax.", "A statement that no responsive record exists if no such calculation is maintained, with the express note that the request “does not require creation of a new record.”", "A waiver of all fees under MCL 15.234, and a detailed written fee estimate before processing if any fee was anticipated.", "A response within five business days as required by MCL 15.235(2)." ], "provided": [ "A response letter dated February 17, 2026, on Delta County Prosecutor's Office letterhead, bearing Request #26-33, stating “Your request is GRANTED IN PART / DENIED IN PART.”", "A denial of the aggregate: “A review of the records in the possession and maintained by the Delta County Prosecutor's Office reveals no record that currently documents an ‘aggregate’ or a ‘total number’. A record or document stating the ‘total number of deferred prosecution agreements’ would require the creation of a new record.”", "A certificate of nonexistence: the undersigned certifies that, “after a search for records and to the best of the undersigned's knowledge and belief, the public record requested, and described above, does not exist within the records of the public body under the name nor any other name reasonably known to the public body.”", "A Notice of Denial form dated 02/17/2026 with box 2, “Record Does Not Exist,” checked; boxes 1 (exempt) and 3 (redaction) unmarked; and “Part of your request” marked denied.", "A concession that the data exists: “the underlying data exists to allow for the calculation of the ‘aggregate’ or ‘total number’ as requested.”", "An offer to produce the underlying information instead, “in the form of the underlying information that would allow for your own compiling of the ‘aggregate numerical total’.”", "A seven-page Detailed Cost Itemization dated 02/17/2026: $5,456.00 to locate, $3,637.33 to redact, $9,093.33 subtotal, $4,546.66 deposit required.", "A 270-day production estimate running from receipt of the deposit.", "An excerpt of MCL 15.240, a blank Denial Appeal Form, and the county's FOIA policy notice.", "The office's own fax notification logging the transmission at 1:16:12 p.m. on February 9, 2026, and the forwarded e-mail carrying the 2022–2025 clarification at 1:22 p.m. the same afternoon." ], "withheld": [ "The requested aggregate: no number, and no count of deferred prosecution agreements entered in any year.", "No exemption was cited for the aggregate. The denial rests on the nonexistence of a pre-existing record and on MCL 15.233(4), not on MCL 15.243. Box 1 on the Denial Form is unmarked and the line for “FOIA Section 13, Subsection ___” is blank.", "No search description: the certificate says a search was made, but the letter names no system searched, no custodian consulted and no date range applied.", "The underlying data itself, which the office says exists, is withheld pending a $4,546.66 deposit and is priced at $9,093.33.", "No public-interest fee-waiver determination: the waiver section of the itemization is present, both boxes are unmarked, and the after-waiver subtotal is blank." ], "keywords": [ "26-33", "deferred prosecution agreements", "deferred prosecution", "diversion", "aggregate numerical data", "aggregate criminal case statistics", "certificate of nonexistence", "record does not exist", "Denial Form box 2", "MCL 15.233(4)", "creation of a new record", "underlying data exists", "fee itemization", "9093.33", "4546.66", "deposit", "270 days", "1100 files per year", "three minutes per file", "two minutes per file", "880 increments", "586.66 increments", "round partial increments down", "24.82 hourly with fringe", "6.20 per quarter hour", "public interest waiver", "MCL 15.234", "MCL 15.235", "MCL 15.240", "MCL 15.240a", "MCL 771.1", "MCL 769.4a", "MCL 333.7411", "MCL 762.11", "MCL 722.821", "Juvenile Diversion Act", "Holmes Youthful Trainee Act", "deferred sentence", "delayed sentence", "clarification", "2022-2025", "February 9 2026", "February 10 2026", "February 17 2026", "1:16 p.m.", "IPFone", "fax notification", "Emily DeSalvo", "Lauren M. Wickman", "26-34", "26-35", "sibling request", "same fax", "Delta County Prosecutor", "granted in part" ], "documents": [ { "title": "Response, Denial Form, Fee Itemization, Appeal Form and Fax Record (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/26-33/26-33-response-and-fee-itemization.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Eighteen pages: the February 17, 2026 response letter granting in part and denying in part, with the certificate of nonexistence and the concession that the underlying data exists; the Notice of Denial form dated 02/17/2026 with box 2 checked and “Date Received 02/10/2026”; an excerpt of MCL 15.240; a blank Denial Appeal Form; the county's FOIA policy notice; the IPFone fax notification recording one page at 1:16:12 p.m. on February 9, 2026; the request as received, dated February 9, 2026; the forwarded e-mail carrying the 2022–2025 clarification at 1:22 p.m. the same afternoon; and the seven-page Detailed Cost Itemization quoting $9,093.33 with a $4,546.66 deposit and a 270-day estimate." } ], "infographics": [], "charts": [], "published": "2026-11-02", "updated": "2026-11-02", "featured": true, "watchdog_alerts": [ "The office certified the total nonexistent and conceded the data exists in the same letter. It wrote that no record documents an “aggregate” or a “total number” and that producing one “would require the creation of a new record,” then wrote that “the underlying data exists to allow for the calculation” and offered it for $9,093.33.", "The letter names the deferral statutes — MCL 771.1, MCL 769.4a, MCL 333.7411 and MCL 762.11 — that its sibling request needed and did not get. 26-34, faxed to the same office two minutes later and answered the same day by the same coordinator, certified that “There are no other ‘diversion programs’ within Delta County.” The two letters cannot both be right.", "The itemization charges 586.66 fifteen-minute increments on a form that instructs the coordinator, twice, that “all partial time increments must be rounded down.” Rounded down, the line is $3,633.20, not $3,637.33.", "The public-interest fee waiver is left blank: the section is present, both boxes are unmarked, and the after-waiver subtotal is empty. The request asked for a waiver under MCL 15.234.", "The packet carries two different arrival dates for one fax. The office's own fax notification logs it at 1:16:12 p.m. on February 9, 2026; the Denial Form and the itemization both record “Date Received 02/10/2026.”", "The production estimate is 270 days from receipt of the deposit — roughly nine months — for a count the office says the data already supports." ], "tile_title": "The total that does not exist, for $9,093.33", "tile_synopsis": "Asked to count deferred prosecution agreements, the office certified that no such record exists — then conceded the underlying data does, and priced it at $9,093.33 with a $4,546.66 deposit and a 270-day estimate.", "badge_label": "Granted in part", "categories": [ "case-statistics", "governance-foia-compliance" ], "share_image": "assets/images/share/26-33.jpg", "karpel_note": "Nothing on this page faults the office for adopting ProsecutorByKarpel in June 2024 or for the migration being difficult. The denial in 26-33 turns on MCL 15.233(4) and the absence of a pre-existing aggregate document, and the volume figure the itemization prices — 1,100 files a year — is taken here at face value. The page notes only that the same figure appears in other itemizations for other years and other requests, which is a question about the number, not about the software." }, { "id": "26-31", "slug": "26-31-prosecutor-attendance-at-crime-scenes", "title": "FOIA 26-31: Asked how many crime scenes a prosecutor attended, the office listed eight documents and denied them as duplicative", "short_title": "Eight documents, no number", "subject": "Any existing logs, reports, calendars or aggregate records reflecting instances in which a prosecutor or assistant prosecutor was physically present at a crime scene, from the prosecutor assuming office through December 31, 2025 — aggregate numerical data only", "synopsis": "A one-page request dated February 6, 2026 and faxed to the office that morning at 10:15 a.m., asking for one thing: a number. How many times, from the prosecutor taking office through the end of 2025, was a prosecutor or an assistant prosecutor physically present at a crime scene. The request said “aggregate numerical data only,” and it said what to do if the answer was not maintained: “If no such calculation is maintained, please indicate that no responsive record exists. This request does not require creation of a new record.” The office acknowledged receipt on February 9 and answered on February 12, 2026 — three business days, inside the statutory period. It did not supply a number. Instead it listed eight responsive records: MSP Report 80-03-24 and attachments, three e-mail communications dated February 5, February 6 and May 24, 2024, a Petition for Appointment of Special Prosecutor, an Order for Special Prosecutor, an e-mail communication dated May 30, 2024, and a Statement of No Action from the Mackinac County Prosecutor. Having listed them, the office refused to produce them, on the ground that they had already been provided in response to FOIA Request 25-267 and that the requester had “not provided any justification or need for the documents to be reproduced,” citing Densmore v Department of Corrections, 203 Mich 363 (1994). The request was DENIED. The Denial Form checks box 1, “Exempt from Disclosure,” and leaves the “FOIA Section 13, Subsection ___” line blank, because Densmore is not a section 13 exemption. Three things sit awkwardly on the face of the packet. The office answered a request for a count with a list — and a list of eight items is a count. The list covers 2024 only, though five years were requested, and the letter never says whether the list is complete for 2021, 2022, 2023 or 2025. And the prior production the denial rests on, FOIA 25-267, appears nowhere in this archive: none of the eight named documents is among the 210 PDFs published here, and the MSP report number the letter cites does not match either of the two MSP incident numbers that appear in the 25-241 special-prosecutor production.", "status": "denied", "status_label": "Denied in full — refused as a duplicative request under Densmore v Department of Corrections, on the ground that the eight listed records were already produced in response to FOIA 25-267; Denial Form box 1 checked with the section 13 subsection left blank; no aggregate figure supplied and no fee quoted", "submitted": "2026-02-06", "received": "2026-02-09", "response_date": "2026-02-12", "agency": "Delta County Prosecutor's Office", "requester": "Redacted", "fees_quoted": 0, "deposit_required": 0, "fees_paid": 0, "fee_waiver_requested": true, "fee_waiver_basis": "MCL 15.234", "fee_note": "No fee was quoted and none was charged, because nothing was produced. The request asked for a waiver of all fees under MCL 15.234 and, if any fee was anticipated, for a detailed written estimate before processing. Neither question was reached: the office denied the request outright, so the waiver was never decided. That is a different silence from the one this archive documents in 26-33, 26-28 and 25-279, where an itemization was prepared and the waiver section left blank while a deposit was demanded. Here there is no itemization at all. The distinction matters for the record: a zero-fee denial is not a fee waiver granted, and the office has not said whether it would have charged for the eight documents had it chosen to produce them.", "appealed": false, "appeal_events": [], "appeal_status": "N/A", "appeal_note": "No appeal is recorded. The letter carries the standard MCL 15.240 paragraph — written appeal to the chairperson of the Delta County Board of Commissioners, or judicial review in the Delta County Circuit Court within 180 days — and encloses the statutory excerpt and a blank Denial Appeal Form. The appealable question is narrow. Densmore does hold that the act does not require a public body to supply copies of records it has already supplied, and the office is on defensible ground if the eight documents were in fact produced in 25-267. What is not answered by Densmore is the request that was actually made: a count. A list of eight records is not a copy of them, and refusing to reproduce documents is not the same as refusing to state how many there are. An appeal would have to argue that the office answered a question it was not asked, and the archive records that as a documentation defect rather than a reason to litigate.", "requested": [ "Any existing logs, reports, calendars or aggregate records reflecting instances in which a prosecutor or assistant prosecutor was physically present at a crime scene", "The period: after the prosecutor assumed office through December 31, 2025", "Aggregate numerical data only", "If no such calculation is maintained, an indication that no responsive record exists", "A statement that the request does not require creation of a new record" ], "provided": [ "A response letter dated February 12, 2026 acknowledging receipt on February 9, 2026", "A list of eight records the office says are responsive to the request", "MSP Report 80-03-24 and attachments (listed, not produced)", "E-mail communication 05/24/2024 (listed, not produced)", "E-mail communication 02/05/2024 (listed, not produced)", "E-mail communication 02/06/2024 (listed, not produced)", "Petition for Appointment of Special Prosecutor (listed, not produced)", "Order for Special Prosecutor (listed, not produced)", "E-mail communication 05/30/2024 (listed, not produced)", "Statement of No Action from Mackinac County Prosecutor (listed, not produced)", "A Notice of Denial form dated February 12, 2026, box 1 checked", "The MCL 15.240 statutory excerpt and a blank Denial Appeal Form", "A notice of the county's FOIA policies, guidelines and forms web address" ], "withheld": [ "The aggregate number of instances in which a prosecutor or assistant prosecutor attended a crime scene, 2021 through 2025", "All eight listed records, refused as duplicative under Densmore", "Any statement of whether the eight-record list is complete for 2021, 2022, 2023 or 2025", "Any description of the search performed to assemble the list", "Any determination on the MCL 15.234 public-interest fee waiver" ], "keywords": [ "26-31", "prosecutor attendance", "crime scene", "crime scenes", "aggregate numerical data", "Densmore", "Densmore v Department of Corrections", "203 Mich 363", "duplicative request", "duplicative", "previously provided", "already provided", "25-267", "MSP Report 80-03-24", "Michigan State Police", "special prosecutor", "Petition for Appointment of Special Prosecutor", "Order for Special Prosecutor", "Mackinac County Prosecutor", "Statement of No Action", "conflict", "conflict of interest", "out-county prosecutor", "Denial Form box 1", "Exempt from Disclosure", "Section 13", "MCL 15.243", "MCL 15.233", "MCL 15.235", "MCL 15.240", "MCL 15.234", "fee waiver", "public interest", "aggregate record", "new record", "creation of a new record", "log", "calendar", "report", "e-mail", "February 6 2026", "February 9 2026", "February 12 2026", "2024", "2021", "2022", "2023", "2025", "Escanaba", "Delta County", "Lauren Wickman", "Tracy Lantagne", "FOIA coordinator", "five business days", "timeliness", "list of eight" ], "documents": [ { "title": "Response letter, Notice of Denial and statutory enclosures (redacted)", "file": "assets/documents/26-31/26-31-response-and-denial.pdf", "type": "PDF", "desc": "Thirteen pages: the two-page response letter dated February 12, 2026; the IPFone fax notification and detail sheet recording the request at 10:15:09 a.m. on February 6, 2026; the request form as received; the Notice of Denial with box 1 checked and the section 13 subsection left blank; an excerpt of MCL 15.240; a blank Denial Appeal Form; and the county's FOIA policy notice. Requester name, address, telephone, e-mail and fax identifiers redacted." } ], "infographics": [], "charts": [], "published": "2026-11-02", "updated": "2026-11-02", "featured": false, "watchdog_alerts": [ "A request for a number was answered with a list. The request asked for “aggregate numerical data only.” The response lists eight records and supplies no figure. Eight is a number the office plainly had.", "The list covers one year of five. Every dated item on the list falls in 2024. The request covered the prosecutor's whole tenure through December 31, 2025. The letter does not say whether the list is complete for 2021, 2022, 2023 or 2025.", "The denial rests on a production this archive cannot find. The office says the eight records were already provided in FOIA 25-267. This archive holds no record of 25-267, and none of the eight named documents appears among its 210 published PDFs.", "Box 1 is checked and the subsection is blank. The Denial Form marks “Exempt from Disclosure” and leaves “FOIA Section 13, Subsection ___” empty. Densmore is a judicial construction of the act, not a section 13 exemption.", "The office required a justification for copies. The letter refuses reproduction because the requester gave “no justification or need.” The act conditions disclosure on a description of the record, not on a statement of need.", "One thing the office did right. It acknowledged receipt on February 9 and answered on February 12 — three business days, inside the five the statute allows. The timeliness here is not in question." ], "tile_title": "Eight documents, no number", "tile_synopsis": "Asked for a count of crime scenes a prosecutor attended, the office listed eight records, refused to reproduce them as duplicative, and never supplied the number. Every dated item on the list falls in 2024.", "badge_label": "Denied", "categories": [ "case-statistics", "law-enforcement" ], "share_image": "assets/images/share/26-31.jpg", "karpel_note": "Nothing on this page faults the office for adopting ProsecutorByKarpel in June 2024 or for the migration being difficult. The denial in 26-31 rests on Densmore and on the office's assertion that the eight listed records were already produced in FOIA 25-267. The page takes that assertion at face value and notes only that the prior production is not in this archive, which is a question about the record, not about the software." } ], "last_updated": "2026-11-02" }