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

Watchdog Alerts

Why isn’t this basic information available to the public?

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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).
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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.

On Friday, June 27, 2025, at 8:51 in the morning, a two-page fax reached the Delta County Prosecutor's Office. It asked for a summary of every criminal case the office took to trial in calendar year 2024 — and it asked for five specific data points about each one: the case number, the defendant's initials (or an anonymized identifier), the charges prosecuted, the final trial outcome, and whether the case was a felony or a misdemeanor. Then it added the sentence that makes this file unusual: “A table or spreadsheet containing this information is acceptable.”

The office answered on July 17, 2025. Page one of the response says the request “is denied, as the record do not exist.” Page two of the same letter says the request “related to ‘each trial’ is granted in part, denied in part,” and then lists eight case files the office was producing. Both statements are in the same two-page document, signed by the same prosecutor, dated the same day.

The eight files are real, and they are substantial: twenty-four pages of charging documents, jury trial sheets and sentencing forms. Four of the five data points the request asked for are sitting in those pages — the case numbers, the charges, the verdicts, and the felony-or-misdemeanor classification. The fifth, the defendant's initials, is the one item the office's privacy exemption actually reaches. And the request had already offered to accept anonymized identifiers instead of initials.

So this is not a case about a denial that produced nothing. It is a case about a denial that produced almost everything and then described itself as a denial of everything. The gap between what the letter says and what the envelope contained is the subject of this page.

Summary

FOIA 25-135 is the third of three requests faxed to the same office on the same morning in June 2025. 25-133 asked for monthly charge counts. 25-134 asked how many cases were dismissed. 25-136 asked how many plea agreements were offered and accepted. 25-135 asked a fourth question about the same year: which cases actually went to trial, and how did they end. All four were answered on July 17, 2025. Three of them were denied as records that do not exist. This one was denied and then, on the next page, partly granted.

Seven numbers describe what came back. Eight case files were enumerated. Twenty-four pages of case documents were produced. Seven of the eight cases carry a recorded conviction. Six are documented jury trials with a verdict and a trial date. Four of the five requested data points are present in the produced pages. One exemption was cited, and it covers exactly one column — the defendant's name or initials. Zero dollars were quoted and zero dollars were paid.

That last number is the tell. When this office wants to withhold something, it usually prices the work first. FOIA 26-22 drew a $9,548 quote for searching roughly 3,300 case files. 25-129 drew $2,931.12 for 3,544 minutes of work on about 886 cases. 25-133 drew $2,815.20. Here, the office quoted nothing — because it did not have to search. It already knew which cases went to trial. It produced the files in twenty-four pages. The cost of answering this request, in staff time, was the cost of pulling eight case files it already had.

What was requested

The request is dated June 27th, 2025, captioned “Michigan Freedom of Information Act Request — 2024 Criminal Cases Prosecuted to Trial,” and addressed to the FOIA Coordinator and to Prosecutor Wickman at 310 Ludington Street, Escanaba. The county's fax platform logged it at 8:51:28 a.m. Eastern, two pages, sent to the office's FOIA fax line. The sender's number is redacted on this site.

The operative paragraph is one sentence:

“Please provide 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 or misdemeanors resolved solely by fine payment without further court proceedings.”

Then it specified exactly what “summary” meant, in five numbered fields:

“For each case, please include: (1) Case number; (2) Defendant's initials (or anonymized identifier); (3) Charges prosecuted; (4) Final trial outcome (guilty, not guilty, mistrial); (5) Case classification (felony or misdemeanor). A table or spreadsheet containing this information is acceptable.”

Four features of that request matter to how the response should be read, and the response engages with none of them directly.

It defined the columns. This is not a vague request for “information about trials.” It is a specification: five fields, named, with the permitted values for the outcome field spelled out. A public body reading this request knows precisely what a responsive document would look like. That matters, because a body that claims no responsive record exists has to reckon with a request that describes the record it wants in table form.

It pre-authorized anonymization. The words “or anonymized identifier” are the requester's own concession. He anticipated that the office would not want to publish defendants' names, and he offered a substitute before the office had to ask. The office's exemption covers “defendant names” — but the request had already said a name was not required.

It excluded the trivial cases. “Excluding simple traffic ticket violations or misdemeanors resolved solely by fine payment without further court proceedings” is a narrowing instruction. It tells the office it does not have to sort through the citation docket. The universe of responsive cases is smaller than the full 2024 caseload, and the request said so.

It named the statutes. The request cites MCL 15.235 for timing, MCL 15.244 for segregation, and — in its own words — “MCL 15.231” for the advance estimate. That last citation is the requester's own imprecision: the estimate-and-deposit provision is codified at MCL 15.234, not 15.231. The error is noted here because accuracy cuts both ways, and because it did not affect the outcome. The office issued no estimate, so the provision never came into play.

The paper trail

Figure 1 · Six dates, and a letter that says two things

Select any date to read what happened and which clock it started or stopped.

Jun 27, 2025 Request faxed Jun 30, 2025 Deemed received Jul 8, 2025 Five-day deadline Jul 2025 Extension taken Jul 17, 2025 Denied — and produced Jan 13, 2026 Review window

One point in the timeline deserves to be stated in the office's favor: the response was timely. The request was deemed received on June 30. Five business days, allowing for the July 4 holiday, ran to July 8. The office took its one ten-business-day extension, which pushed the outer date to about July 22. It answered on July 17, five days inside that outer date. This page alleges no deadline violation, because there is none.

The extension form itself is less tidy. It checks reason box 1 — the “voluminous amount of separate and distinct public records” ground — and leaves reason boxes 2 and 3 empty. But the line that would make the extension specific, “Specifically, the County must:,” is blank. So are the two handwritten date fields, at least in the copy released to the public. The form invokes volume without saying what was voluminous. For a request that ultimately produced twenty-four pages from eight files, “voluminous” is a stretch on its face — though the office may have reviewed more than it produced.

The letter that denies and grants in the same breath

Here is the heart of the file. Page one of the response letter says this:

“Your request for ‘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 or misdemeanors resolved solely by fine payment without further court proceedings’ is denied, as the record do not exist.”

That is a certificate of nonexistence. It is a statement, made by the FOIA coordinator, that the public records responsive to the request do not exist. Under MCL 15.235(5)(b) a public body may certify nonexistence, and the certification is a lawful response when it is true.

Page two of the same letter says this:

“Your request related to ‘each trial’ is granted in part, denied in part with respect to the following documents:”

And then it lists eight documents by case number. That is not a certificate of nonexistence. That is a partial grant with a segregation decision. Set the two pages side by side:

There is a charitable reading of this, and it should be stated. The office may have meant: the compiled summary you asked for does not exist, but the underlying case records do, and here they are. That is a coherent position. It is, in fact, the position MCL 15.233(4) and (5) contemplate — the act does not require a public body to make a compilation or summary, or to create a new record. If the office had said that, this page would have little to criticize.

But that is not what the letter says. It does not say “no compiled summary exists.” It says the request “is denied, as the record do not exist” — using the singular “record” for a request that asked for a summary of many cases. And then, one page later, it produces the records. The two statements cannot both be literally true. Either a responsive record existed, in which case page one is wrong, or none did, in which case page two produced something that was not responsive. The letter never reconciles the two.

What was actually produced

The eight case files are the substance of this release, and they are worth reading closely, because they answer most of the request on their own. The table below is built from the produced documents, not from any office summary.

This table was not built from an office summary. It was built by reading the produced pages. That is the point. Everything the request asked for in columns one, three, four and five is recoverable from the documents the office released. The requester could have assembled this table himself in an afternoon. The office could have assembled it in the same afternoon, because it already had the files. Instead it certified that the record did not exist and produced the files.

Two of the eight files do not fit the request cleanly. 23-FH-10950 was dismissed by the court on February 22, 2024 — it never went to trial, so it is not a “case prosecuted to trial.” Its presence in the production is over-production, not under-production, and it is noted here because accuracy requires noting it. 23-SM-338 is a conviction by judgment of sentence, but the file contains no “Sentencing on Jury Verdict” form, unlike the other misdemeanor files. It may have been a bench trial, a plea, or something else; the packet does not say. This page does not assert it was a trial, because the record does not establish that it was.

Five columns, one exemption, one column covered

The office cited a single exemption: MCL 15.243(1)(a). As quoted in the letter, it covers “defendant names, victim or witness names, addresses, dates of births, telephone numbers, criminal record identifying number, etc.” That is a fair paraphrase of the privacy exemption, which permits a public body to withhold information of a personal nature where disclosure would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of an individual's privacy.

Now map the exemption onto the five columns the request asked for.

Figure 2 · Four of five requested columns are in the produced pages

One exemption, one column. The other four were producible and were, in substance, produced.

Read this figure as a table

Requested field	Present in production
Case number	Yes
Defendant's initials or anonymized identifier	No
Charges prosecuted	Yes
Final trial outcome	Yes
Felony or misdemeanor	Yes

The irony is hard to miss. The office's exemption is real, and it is the correct basis for withholding the one column it withheld. But the office did not say “we are withholding the defendant's initials under the privacy exemption and producing everything else.” It said the record did not exist. Then it produced everything else. The exemption did almost no work in this file — one column out of five — and yet it is the only legal basis the letter offers for any withholding at all.

There is also a segregation point here. MCL 15.244 requires a public body that withholds exempt material to separate it and disclose the remainder. The office did this at the document level: it blacked out names, dates of birth and identifiers in the produced pages and released the rest. That is segregation done properly. What it did not do is segregate at the summary level — it never produced a table with the one withheld column omitted, even though the request had explicitly authorized an anonymized identifier in place of a name. A single column of initials, replaced by “Defendant 1,” would have satisfied the request completely and disclosed nothing personal.

The Notice of Denial checks two boxes that cannot both be true

The Notice of Denial in this packet is a single form with three reason boxes. On this copy:

• Box 1, “Exempt from Disclosure,” is empty.
• Box 2, “Record Does Not Exist,” is checked.
• Box 3, “Redaction,” is checked, with a handwritten rationale: “Information of a personal nature could constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of an individual's privacy.”

The form also selects “Part of your request” rather than “All,” and leaves blank both the Section 13 subsection field and the “brief description of the information that had to be separated or deleted” line. The contact named is Emily DeSalvo, at (906) 789-5100. Delivery is by e-mail; the request was received by fax.

The procedural point is straightforward. A form that checks “Record Does Not Exist” and “Redaction” on the same page is describing two incompatible decisions. You cannot redact a record that does not exist, and a record that requires redaction exists. The form's own “Part of your request” selection resolves the contradiction against box 2: the office knew it was granting part of the request. Yet box 2 stayed checked, and the letter's first page repeated it in prose.

Two files that do not fit, and why that matters

The production is not perfectly tailored, and the misfit is worth naming because it cuts in an unexpected direction. 23-FH-10950 is a domestic-violence felony that was dismissed on the court's own motion on February 22, 2024. It never went to trial. It is in the production anyway, presumably because it was charged in 2023 and resolved in 2024 and someone pulled it as a 2024 disposition. That is over-production — the office released a file the request did not ask for.

23-SM-338 is a retail-fraud misdemeanor with a judgment of sentence but no “Sentencing on Jury Verdict” form. The other three misdemeanor files each contain that form; this one does not. It may have resolved by plea, by bench trial, or by some other disposition. The packet does not say, and this page does not guess.

Over-production is not a transparency failure. If anything, releasing a file the request did not require is the opposite of withholding. But it does undercut the certificate of nonexistence in a specific way: an office that certifies no responsive record exists, and then produces a non-responsive record alongside seven responsive ones, has demonstrated that its search was not tightly scoped to the request. A tightly scoped search would have found the seven trials and stopped. This search swept in a dismissal. That is evidence the office was searching case dispositions broadly, not that it was searching for a summary that did not exist.

A detail the court reporters put in writing

Three of the four felony files carry habitual-offender notices, and in each case the jury trial sheet contains a sentence that the court reporter typed into the record: the notice was in the file but was “not given to the jury for consideration.” In 23-11012-FH it is a third-offense notice. In 23-10872-FH it is a second-offense notice. In 23-11056-FH it is a fourth-offense notice.

This page does not analyze that as a legal matter. Whether a habitual-offender notice must be submitted to a jury, and what the consequences are if it is not, is a question of sentencing law that the record here does not resolve and that this archive is not equipped to adjudicate. The detail is noted for two reasons. First, it is in the documents the office produced, and a reader comparing the files will encounter it. Second, it illustrates what the produced records actually contain: not just verdicts, but the court reporters' own contemporaneous notes about how the trials were conducted. These are rich records. They are exactly the kind of records a requester asking about “each trial” would want, and the office had them.

Where this fits in the pattern

Four requests about calendar year 2024, faxed within days of each other, answered by the same office in the same month. Set them side by side and a shape appears.

Figure 3 · Two of four 2024 requests produced records after being denied

The certificate of nonexistence is not a reliable predictor of whether records will eventually appear.

Read this figure as a table

Request	Pages produced
25-133 — monthly charge counts	24
25-134 — cases dismissed	0
25-135 — cases taken to trial	24
25-136 — plea agreements	0

Two of the four requests produced records after the office said none existed. That is a small sample, and it is not proof of bad faith. A certificate of nonexistence can be honest and still be followed by a production, if the office later searches more carefully or interprets the request differently. But the pattern is worth recording precisely because it is a pattern: in this office, in this month, a denial was not always the end of the story. Sometimes it was the first draft of the answer.

Appeal history

Denial upheld. The requester appealed, and the Board of Commissioners upheld the denial. Chair John Malnar’s letter of August 20, 2025 records receipt of the appeal on August 5, 2025 and the determination at a special meeting on August 18, 2025. Under MCL 15.240(1)(a) a requester may appeal a denial to the head of the public body, and under MCL 15.240(2) the head must act within ten business days. Under MCL 15.240(3) a board or commission is not deemed to have received an appeal until its next regularly scheduled meeting, which is why Board appeals in Delta County can take weeks. The office enclosed a blank FOIA Appeal Form with its response, which is the notice MCL 15.235(5)(d) requires.

What the letter does not address is the oddity at the centre of this file. The office denied the compiled 2024 trial summary as a record that does not exist, then produced eight case files on the next page. The Board’s letter does not mention the eight files, does not distinguish the summary from the underlying records, and does not say whether the office searched for a compiled summary or only for individual case records. It records no vote count and cites no agenda item.

The appeal argument in this file was unusually concrete, for a reason specific to it. Most denials are hard to appeal because the requester cannot show what was withheld. Here the office produced the records and withheld one column. An appeal could have said, accurately: the office has already released case numbers, charges, verdicts and classifications; it withheld only the defendant’s initials; the request expressly offered an anonymized identifier in place of a name; and the office never explained why an anonymized identifier would invade anyone’s privacy. That argument was available and the Board did not address it. Whether it would have prevailed is a different question.

Legal interpretation

Timing. The response was lawful as to timing. The request was deemed received June 30, 2025 under MCL 15.235(1); the five-business-day period ran to July 8; the office took its single ten-business-day extension under MCL 15.235(2); and it responded July 17, inside the outer date of about July 22. No violation of the response deadline appears on this record.

The certificate of nonexistence. MCL 15.235(5)(b) permits a public body to certify that a public record does not exist. The certificate here is facially authorized. But a certificate of nonexistence is a statement about records, and this record contains twenty-four pages of responsive records produced in the same envelope. A certificate that is contradicted by the body's own production is difficult to defend as an accurate description of the response, even if the underlying decision — not to compile a summary — was lawful.

The honest basis was available and was not used. MCL 15.233(4) provides that the act does not require a public body to make a compilation, summary or report of information, except as required in section 11. MCL 15.233(5) provides that the act does not require a public body to create a new public record, except as required in section 11. If the office's real position was “we will not build you a summary,” those provisions say so directly. The letter never cites them. It cites nonexistence instead, which is a different and stronger claim, and one the production undermines.

The privacy exemption. MCL 15.243(1)(a) is discretionary and permits withholding information of a personal nature where disclosure would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of privacy. It reaches defendant names and identifiers. It does not reach case numbers, charges, verdicts or felony/misdemeanor classifications, all of which are public court events. The office applied the exemption correctly to the one column it withheld and did not need it for the other four, which it produced.

Segregation. MCL 15.244 requires exempt material to be separated and the remainder disclosed. The office segregated at the document level, redacting names and identifiers from the produced pages. It did not segregate at the summary level, even though the request had pre-authorized an anonymized identifier. A summary with the name column replaced by “Defendant 1” would have complied fully and disclosed nothing personal.

Remedies. MCL 15.240(1)(b) allows a civil action to compel disclosure within 180 days after the final determination; that window ran to about January 13, 2026 and has passed. MCL 15.240(7) authorizes a $1,000 civil fine and $1,000 punitive damages where the body's conduct was arbitrary and capricious. MCL 15.240a provides a separate action to challenge a fee within 45 days; no fee was charged here, so that provision does not apply.

The procedural weakness on the form. MCL 15.235(5)(a) requires a denial to state the basis for any exemption with specificity. The Notice of Denial leaves the Section 13 subsection blank and leaves blank the description of the information separated from the disclosure, which MCL 15.235(5)(c) requires. The handwritten rationale on box 3 states the privacy interest in general terms but does not identify the statute, the subsection, or the specific material removed. That is a notice defect, though a curable one.

Authorities and record

Show the statutes, cases, and sources cited on this page

• MCL 15.232(i) — “public record” includes a writing prepared, owned, used, possessed or retained by a public body in the performance of an official function, from the time it is created.
• MCL 15.232(m) — a “written request” includes a request transmitted by facsimile.
• MCL 15.233(4) — the act does not require a public body to make a compilation, summary or report of information, except as required in section 11.
• MCL 15.233(5) — the act does not require a public body to create a new public record, except as required in section 11.
• MCL 15.234(2) — fee itemization must express the hourly wage and the number of hours.
• MCL 15.234(8) — a deposit may be required where the estimate exceeds $50, up to one-half of the estimate.
• MCL 15.235(1) — a request sent by fax is received one business day after transmission.
• MCL 15.235(2) — five business days to respond, with one extension of up to ten business days.
• MCL 15.235(5)(a) — a denial must state the basis for the exemption with specificity.
• MCL 15.235(5)(b) — a public body may certify that a public record does not exist.
• MCL 15.235(5)(c) — a denial must describe the material separated from the disclosure.
• MCL 15.235(5)(d) — a denial must notify the requester of the right to appeal to the head of the public body.
• MCL 15.240(1)(a) — appeal to the head of the public body.
• MCL 15.240(1)(b) — civil action within 180 days after the final determination.
• MCL 15.240(2) — the head must act on an appeal within 10 business days.
• MCL 15.240(3) — a board or commission is not deemed to have received an appeal until its next regularly scheduled meeting.
• MCL 15.240(7) — $1,000 civil fine and $1,000 punitive damages for an arbitrary and capricious violation.
• MCL 15.240a — civil action to challenge a fee, within 45 days.
• MCL 15.243(1)(a) — discretionary privacy exemption for information of a personal nature.
• MCL 15.244 — duty to separate exempt material and disclose the remainder.
• Densmore v Department of Corrections, 203 Mich App 363; 512 NW2d 72 (1994) — on the public body's burden when it claims an exemption.
• Released packet for FOIA 25-135, Delta County Prosecutor's Office, forty-two pages, including the June 27, 2025 request, the July 17, 2025 response letter, the Notice of Denial, the Notice to Extend Response Time, the blank FOIA appeal form, the office's FOIA policy page, and twenty-four pages of produced case documents.

What could still be done

The 180-day window to sue under MCL 15.240(1)(b) ran to about January 13, 2026, and that date has passed. A court action to compel disclosure on this request is therefore time-barred unless a filing was made within the window that does not appear in this packet. That does not close every door.

Ask again, and name the columns. The strongest next step is a new request that does what this one did but with no room for a certificate of nonexistence. Ask for “the case-disposition export from ProsecutorByKarpel for calendar year 2024 showing, for each case, the case number, the disposition type, the charges, and the disposition date.” That names a document and a data source rather than a concept. A certificate of nonexistence is harder to defend when the requester has named the file and the system it lives in.

Ask for the compiled summary by name. The request here asked for “a summary.” A follow-up could ask for the specific report the office used to identify the eight trials — whether that is a docket report, a trial list, or a query result. Under MCL 15.232(i) a writing used in the performance of an official function is a public record from the moment it is created. If the office consulted a list to answer this request, the list is arguably responsive. The manual obtained under FOIA 25-201 is the starting point for knowing what reports the system can generate.

A Board appeal on a future request. The Board appeal remains available for any new denial. It is slow — under MCL 15.240(3) the board does not receive the appeal until its next regular meeting — but it is free, it creates a public record of the Board's response, and it forces the office to explain its search to someone other than the requester. The appeal argument on a request like this one is unusually concrete, because the office has already shown it can produce the records.

Document the cluster. The most durable response to a certificate of nonexistence is to keep asking, and to keep the answers together. This archive now holds four requests about calendar year 2024, answered in the same month, two of which produced records after being denied. That pairing is itself a record, and it is the kind of record that becomes evidence if the office's answers ever change.

Documents

These are redacted copies prepared for publication. Requester names, home addresses, personal phone numbers, and email addresses have been removed. Unredacted originals are not hosted on the public web server.

Related FOIA requests

• FOIA 26-292 — 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 (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, October 25, 2026)
• FOIA 26-291 — 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 (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, October 25, 2026)
• FOIA 26-290 — FOIA 26-290: The office refused the victim-services records because it says you already have them — from a packet that contained none (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, October 25, 2026)
• FOIA 26-131 — FOIA 26-131: Twenty case files, priced at $82.66 before a single page is copied (Granted in part — release conditioned on a $41.33 deposit; no records produced yet, April 17, 2026)
• FOIA 26-35 — FOIA 26-35: The office counted 52 pleas in 85 minutes — eight days after saying the same kind of aggregate did not exist (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, February 9, 2026)
• FOIA 26-34 — FOIA 26-34: The office denied a count of diversion cases by defining “diversion” down to a programme it does not run (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, February 9, 2026)
• FOIA 26-33 — FOIA 26-33: Asked to count deferred prosecution agreements, the office certified the total nonexistent and priced the underlying data at $9,093.33 (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, February 9, 2026)
• FOIA 26-32 — 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 (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, February 6, 2026)
• FOIA 26-31 — FOIA 26-31: Asked how many crime scenes a prosecutor attended, the office listed eight documents and denied them as duplicative (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, February 6, 2026)
• FOIA 26-30 — FOIA 26-30: Eight documents, one number, and a Densmore refusal built on a premise the record does not fully support (Denied — no aggregate total produced; eight responsive documents identified but not reproduced under a Densmore prior-production rationale; no fee quoted, February 6, 2026)
• FOIA 26-29 — FOIA 26-29: A count of inherited convictions the office could not locate — priced at $1,033.33 for the work of counting (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, February 5, 2026)
• FOIA 26-28 — 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 (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, February 5, 2026)
• FOIA 26-22 — FOIA 26-22: A conviction rate the office says does not exist, priced at $9,548 (Denied — record does not exist; $9,548 quote for the underlying files, January 30, 2026)
• FOIA 26-21 — FOIA 26-21: A count of convictions the office says does not exist — then a quiet amendment that changed the number behind the bill (Denied as a compilation — no count produced; fee of $9,548.00 quoted for underlying files; amended response revised the volume figure without explanation, January 30, 2026)
• FOIA 26-20 — FOIA 26-20: The aggregate case total, and the records that would let you count it (Denied — record does not exist, January 30, 2026)
• FOIA 25-279 — 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 (Granted in part on paper — dozens of records listed as enclosed and none enclosed; three cost itemizations totaling $34,673.79, November 25, 2025)
• FOIA 25-278 — 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 (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, November 25, 2025)
• FOIA 25-277 — FOIA 25-277: No annual statistical report exists, the underlying data does, and the office prices it at $34,720 (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, November 25, 2025)
• FOIA 25-257 — FOIA 25-257: Three certificates of nonexistence, then a $19,840 bill to rebuild the data by hand (Denied — three certificates of nonexistence, with a $19,840 estimate to rebuild the same data by hand, October 31, 2025)
• FOIA 25-254 — FOIA 25-254: Two certificates of nonexistence, two documents produced, and a $74,520 itemization copied from an earlier request (Granted in part, denied in part — two documents produced, two certificates of nonexistence, and a $74,520 estimate identical to FOIA 25-244's, October 31, 2025)
• FOIA 25-244 — FOIA 25-244: Ten service slips, thirteen policy manuals, and a $74,520 quote (Granted in part, denied in part, October 10, 2025)
• FOIA 25-241 — FOIA 25-241: The special-prosecutor petition the office filed, and the 2024 memo that says it did not need another one (Granted in part, denied in part, October 10, 2025)
• FOIA 25-240 — FOIA 25-240: Officer use-of-force referrals, and the $1,863 bill for the one part the office would search (Granted in part, denied in part, October 10, 2025)
• FOIA 25-239 — FOIA 25-239: The Brady/Giglio list and how the office tracks officer credibility (Granted in part, denied in part, October 10, 2025)
• FOIA 25-234 — FOIA 25-234: Four lab reports, two certificates, and 26.4 grams where the press said four ounces (Granted in part, October 1, 2025)
• FOIA 25-202 — FOIA 25-202: No RFP, no bid, no purchase order — and the emails that show how the system was picked (Granted in part, August 18, 2025)
• FOIA 25-201 — FOIA 25-201: ProsecutorByKarpel contracts, invoices, and licensing (Granted in part, denied in part, August 18, 2025)
• FOIA 25-200 — FOIA 25-200: The software the office runs on — seven systems named, one of them retired in June 2024 (Granted in full, August 18, 2025)
• FOIA 25-197 — FOIA 25-197: A request for complaints against the office came back as the office's own civil-rights lawsuits (Granted in part, denied in part, August 13, 2025)
• FOIA 25-196 — FOIA 25-196: Audits of the office, 2019 through 2024 — five county financial statements produced, two fiscal years missing (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, August 13, 2025)
• FOIA 25-195 — 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 (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, August 13, 2025)
• FOIA 25-194 — 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 (Granted in part and denied in part — exemptions cited; $63,028.80 estimated, $31,514.40 deposit required, 270 days, August 13, 2025)
• FOIA 25-215 — FOIA 25-215: Three answers to one request — two certificates of nonexistence, a grant, and a $13,248 estimate (Granted in part, August 9, 2025)
• FOIA 25-180 — FOIA 25-180: Two boxes checked — the trial records both “already provided” and “do not exist” (Denied in full — certificate of nonexistence plus an exemption box checked; no fee, no pages produced, August 2, 2025)
• FOIA 25-139 — 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 (Denied in full — certified that the record does not exist; no fee quoted, no pages produced, June 27, 2025)
• FOIA 25-137 — FOIA 25-137: The average time from charge to disposition, certified not to exist — after a ten-day extension for “voluminous” records (Denied in full — certified that the record does not exist; no fee quoted, no pages produced, June 27, 2025)
• FOIA 25-136 — FOIA 25-136: The plea-agreement count the office certified does not exist — after taking an extension for the volume of records (Denied in full — certified that the record does not exist; no fee quoted, no pages produced, June 27, 2025)
• FOIA 25-134 — FOIA 25-134: The dismissed-case count the office certified does not exist — after taking an extension for the volume of records (Denied in full — certified that the record does not exist; no fee quoted, no pages produced, June 27, 2025)
• FOIA 25-133 — 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 (Granted in part — one annual screening table produced; monthly counts withheld; $2,815.20 quoted with a $1,407.60 deposit, June 27, 2025)
• FOIA 25-129 — FOIA 25-129: Arraignment-to-disposition times the office certified do not exist, then priced at $2,931.12 (Granted in part — two items denied as nonexistent; $2,931.12 quote on the third, June 26, 2025)
• FOIA 25-118 — FOIA 25-118: Final case outcomes for January and February 2025 (Fee estimate issued, June 18, 2025)
• FOIA 25-94 — Prosecutor Case Outcome Statistics, 2021–2025 (Granted in Part, May 23, 2025)