FOIA 26-29: A count of inherited convictions the office could not locate — priced at $1,033.33 for the work of counting

Watchdog Alerts

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

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

Timing caveat. 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.

On February 5, 2026, a requester faxed the Delta County Prosecutor's Office a one-page request for a single number: the total number of inherited criminal cases that ultimately resulted in conviction. The request asked for aggregate data only, expressly disclaimed any request for individual case information, and stated that if no such calculation is maintained, the office should simply say so. The office received it on February 6 and answered on February 12, 2026.

The answer is a study in three dispositions applied to one sentence. The office says it cannot locate any record containing the total. It grants the underlying data, subject to separation of exempt material. And it then prices that underlying data at $1,033.33, with a 50 percent deposit of $516.66, on the theory that producing it would impose an unreasonably high cost on the county. The request asked for one number and received none. What it received instead was an invoice for the work of counting.

Summary

FOIA 26-29 is the fourth in a cluster of statistical requests faxed to the office within a week of one another — 26-20, 26-21, 26-22, and now 26-29 and 26-30 — each asking for a different aggregate figure about the office's criminal work. This one asked for a count of inherited cases that ended in conviction. The word “inherited” is the hinge on which the whole response turns, and the office knew it: the letter says its reading of the word is drawn from “a corresponding FOIA Request, specifically FOIA Request 26-28.” That request is now in this archive, and it asked for “the total number of criminal cases pending or in progress at the time the current prosecutor assumed office.” So the definition is not a mystery: the office read “inherited” to mean what 26-28 had asked for, and then priced the search that reading implies.

Four numbers organize this file. 500 is the number of files the office used as its pricing baseline. 1,033.33 is the fee it quoted, in dollars. 516.66 is the deposit it demanded, in dollars. And zero is the number of pages of responsive records produced. Alongside those four numbers sit two that do not agree with each other: the response letter says the office will need approximately 180 days from receipt of the deposit, and the attached itemization says approximately 270 days. Both are on the office's own paper, dated the same day, and neither acknowledges the other.

The denial of the count itself may well be lawful. A total number of convictions among a subset of cases is a calculation, not a document, and Michigan's Freedom of Information Act does not require a public body to create a record it has never created. That part of the file deserves a fair reading, and this page gives it one. The fee is a different matter. The office has now priced the same underlying universe of “open files” at 500 files in this request, at 3,300 files in 26-21, and at 6,000 files in 25-279. Those figures cannot all describe the same office in the same period, and the record does not explain why the baseline moves.

What was requested

The request is dated February 5, 2026. It was transmitted by fax and reached the office the next day; the office's own Notice of Denial records a received date of 02/06/2026, and the fax cover sheet in the packet carries a receive time of 2.5.2026 04:03:33 PM -05:00. The request is captioned “Request for Aggregate Criminal Case Statistics” and its operative text asks for:

“Total number of inherited criminal cases that ultimately resulted in conviction.”

Three features of the request matter to what followed. First, it asked for a count — the simplest possible aggregate, and one that a case-management system either can or cannot produce as a query. Second, it asked only for what the office already has, and it said so twice: it sought “existing aggregate statistical information,” it specified “aggregate numerical data only,” and it added the sentence that governs the whole exchange: “If no such calculation is maintained, please indicate that no responsive record exists. This request does not require creation of a new record.” A requester who writes that sentence has done the office the courtesy of naming the outcome it is entitled to give. Third, the request used the word “inherited” without defining it — the one genuine ambiguity in the document, and the one the office chose to resolve on its own terms rather than ask about first.

What the office answered

The February 12 letter makes four moves in sequence, and the order matters.

First, it reports the search result: “A review of existing records within the possession of or maintained by the Delta County Prosecutor's Office reveals that records that currently exist within its possession cannot located any record that provides the ‘total number of inherited criminal cases that ultimately resulted in conviction.’” The sentence is garbled — “cannot located” — and the same two typographical errors that appeared in the 26-21 correspondence appear here as well: the letter says the estimate is “great than fifty dollars ($50.00)” and refers to “the responsible, nonexempt public records.” These are small things, but they are the same small things, in the same places, across multiple letters and multiple months, which tells the reader something about how the office's template is maintained.

Second, the office defines the word the requester left open. “It should be noted that the interpretation of this request for ‘inherited criminal cases’ is meaning cases that were pending or in progress at the time the current prosecutor assumed office. This interpretation is based on the language used in a corresponding FOIA Request, specifically FOIA Request 26-28. Should clarification be provided regarding the requester's meaning of ‘inherited’ additional searches could be conducted.” This is the most consequential paragraph in the letter. The office did not ask the requester what he meant before searching. It adopted a definition, attributed that definition to a different request, searched against it, found nothing, and then offered — after the fact — to search again if the requester meant something else. A definition adopted without consultation is a definition the requester never agreed to, and a “no record” finding built on it is only as good as the definition.

Third, the office grants the underlying data. “The underlying data could be obtained which would allow the requester to obtain the requested ‘aggregate numerical data.’ As such, as to the underlying data the request is GRANTED, subject to any necessary separation of exempt from non-exempt information.” This is a real concession, and it should be read as one. The office is not saying the information is secret. It is saying the information exists in unassembled form, that the office will let the requester assemble it, and that the assembly will cost money.

Fourth, the office explains the cost. Because of “the breadth of your request and the number of records (which must be searched for and reviewed to respond to such a request,” the office “has determined that failing to charge for the costs of the search, examination, review, and deletion and separation of exempt from non-exempt information would result in unreasonably high costs to the County beyond those typically incurred in responding to FOIA requests.” That is the statutory trigger for charging more than the ordinary fee, and the office invokes it explicitly. The supporting paragraph is where the pricing baseline appears.

The 500-file baseline

The letter describes the universe it is pricing, and the description is worth quoting in full because it is the fourth distinct volume figure the office has put on paper for the same category of work:

“The significant time and cost for search for and locating the records could require the location of pending/open files at the time Prosecutor Wickman took office, January 1, 2023. The interpretation of this request would mean the specified location of cases that must have pending prior to January 1, 2023, but resolved after January 1, 2024, date back years. Pending cases would cover matters that would be considered in ‘warrant status’, in ‘bench warrant status’, pending arraignment, pending a court hearing, etc. Based on information and belief, it is estimated that our office has approximately 800 to 1000 files ‘open’ at any one time, at various stages. To compensate for the cases that either have never been arrested on the warrant, are in bench warrant status, or resulted in a nolle, an estimate to determine the exact number will use 500 files as a baseline. The final amount would be adjusted based on the actual number of files that are located and determined to be responsive of the request, consistent with Michigan FOIA.”

There is a logic here, and it is not unreasonable on its face. The office says it has somewhere between 800 and 1,000 open files at any moment, that many of those will turn out not to be responsive once the definition is applied, and that 500 is a defensible midpoint for estimating purposes, subject to adjustment to the actual count. A public body is entitled to estimate before it searches; the statute contemplates exactly that. The problem is not that the office estimated. The problem is the relationship between this estimate and the others.

The volume figure the office has used for the same category of work

Request	Date	Stated volume	What it was used to price
25-279	2025	6,000 files	A review of case files across the requested period
26-21 (original)	Feb 5, 2026	1,500 files per year × 3 years = 4,500	Underlying files behind a conviction count
26-21 (amended)	Feb 12, 2026	1,100 files per year × 3 years = 3,300	The same production, fee unchanged
26-29	Feb 12, 2026	500 files	Underlying files behind an inherited-conviction count

The 26-29 letter and the 26-21 amendment are dated the same day. One says the office processes roughly 1,100 files per year; the other says the office has 800 to 1,000 files open at any one time and uses 500 as its baseline. Those statements are not necessarily inconsistent — a yearly throughput and a point-in-time open caseload are different measurements — but the office never explains which measurement it is using or why the same underlying question produces a baseline of 500 in one letter and 3,300 in another, sent the same day, to the same requester, about the same office.

The itemization

The Detailed Cost Itemization attached to the letter is seven pages long, and it is the most legible document in the packet. Its arithmetic can be checked line by line, and this page checks it.

What the itemization charges, and what the arithmetic produces

Line	Work described	Rate	Volume	Amount
1	Labor cost to locate	3 minutes per file; $6.20 per quarter hour; $24.82 hourly wage with fringe	1,500 minutes = 100 quarter-hour increments	$620.00
3a	Employee labor cost for separating exempt from non-exempt (redacting)	2 minutes per file; $6.20 per quarter hour	1,000 minutes = 66.66 quarter-hour increments	$413.33
—	Subtotal fees before waivers, discounts or deposits	—	—	$1,033.33
—	Good-faith deposit	50 percent of the estimated fee	—	$516.66
—	Estimated time frame to provide records	—	—	270 days (itemization); 180 days (letter)

Line 1 checks out. Five hundred files at three minutes each is 1,500 minutes. Fifteen hundred minutes divided by fifteen is 100 increments. One hundred increments at $6.20 is $620.00. The office applied its own stated rate correctly.

Line 3a does not check out, and the error is small but instructive. Five hundred files at two minutes each is 1,000 minutes. One thousand minutes divided by fifteen is 66.67 increments — and the itemization's own instruction says that “all partial time increments must be rounded down,” which produces 66 increments, not 66.66. Sixty-six increments at $6.20 is $409.20. The office printed 66.66 increments and charged $413.33. The difference is $4.13, which is trivial in itself and not the point. The point is that the form states a rounding rule, the office did not follow it, and the direction of the error favors the office. A requester reading a seven-page itemization is being asked to trust the arithmetic. When the arithmetic does not follow the form's own rule, the trust has to be earned rather than assumed.

The hourly rate has a similar small seam. The itemization prints an hourly wage with fringe benefit cost of $24.82 and a charge per quarter hour of $6.20. Twenty-four dollars and eighty-two cents divided by four is $6.205, which rounds to $6.21, not $6.20. The office rounded down, which favors the requester by a penny per increment. That is the right direction, and it is worth saying so, because it shows the office is capable of rounding in the requester's favor when it chooses to.

The deposit is 50 percent of $1,033.33, which is $516.665. The office printed $516.66, truncating rather than rounding up, again in the requester's favor by a cent. The letter describes the deposit correctly as “fifty percent (50%) of the estimated fee,” and the itemization's deposit field is consistent with that. There is no dispute about the deposit percentage.

The time frame is where the two documents part company. The letter says the office “estimates it will take approximately 180 days from receipt of the deposit to provide you with the responsible, nonexempt public records.” The itemization's “Estimated Time Frame to Provide Records” field says 270 days. Both documents are dated February 12, 2026, both were sent in the same envelope, and neither mentions the other's figure. A requester deciding whether to pay a $516.66 deposit is entitled to know whether the wait is six months or nine. The record does not tell him.

The waiver that was never decided

The itemization contains a waiver section. It has two checkboxes — “All fees are waived” and “All fees are reduced by ___%” — and a line reading “Subtotal Fees after Waiver: $_____.” On this itemization, the section is blank. No box is checked, no percentage is entered, and the after-waiver line is empty.

This is now the fifth consecutive response in this archive in which a public-interest fee waiver was requested and no determination on it appears anywhere in the packet. The request asked for a waiver under MCL 15.234. The statute directs a public body to reduce or waive a fee if it determines that doing so is in the public interest because it would primarily benefit the general public, and it requires the body to establish procedures and guidelines for that determination. A blank waiver section is not a denial of a waiver, and it is not a grant. It is the absence of a decision, recorded on a form that has a place for one.

That matters more here than in a case where the fee is large. A $1,033.33 estimate with a $516.66 deposit is not an impossible sum, but it is a real barrier for an individual requester asking a question about public office performance, which is the classic case the public-interest waiver was written for. The office had the opportunity to decide, and it left the line empty.

The Notice of Denial and the appeal forms

The packet includes the county's standard Notice of Denial form, with the request number 26-29, a received date of 02/06/2026, a notice date of 02/12/2026, and a contact line naming the FOIA coordinator at 906-789-5100. The form is the county's pre-printed document; the same form appears across this archive, and this page does not attempt to read which of its pre-printed reason boxes carry a mark, because the marks are part of the form's printed artwork and cannot be reliably distinguished from a check in a scan.

What the form does establish is that a written denial was issued, that it was dated within the statutory response window, and that it identifies a contact for questions. What the letter establishes is the reason: the office could not locate a record containing the requested total. Those two documents together are the office's answer, and they are internally consistent with each other.

The packet also includes something that 25-279 did not: a blank “FOIA Appeal Form — To Appeal an Excess Fee.” That form exists for one purpose, and the office included it alongside a fee the requester has not yet paid. Under MCL 15.240a, a requester who believes a fee exceeds the amount permitted may challenge it, and the statute sets out a procedure for doing so, including the treatment of a deposit as a fee for purposes of the challenge. Including the form is a small act of procedural completeness, and it deserves to be noted as one. A requester who thinks $1,033.33 is too high now has the paper in his hand to say so.

The timeline

FOIA 26-29, from fax to answer

Date	Event	Source
February 5, 2026	Request dated and faxed	The request as received
February 5, 2026, 4:03:33 p.m. Eastern	Fax received; cover sheet records the transmission	Fax cover sheet, page 6
February 6, 2026	Office records receipt	Notice of Denial, page 3
February 12, 2026	Response letter, Notice of Denial, and fee itemization issued	Pages 1–14

The response is timely. Under MCL 15.235(1), a public body must respond within five business days of receipt. Counting from Friday, February 6, the fifth business day is Thursday, February 12 — the day the office answered. No extension was taken and none was needed. This page does not suggest any timing violation, because on this record there is none.

What the record shows

The definition was chosen, not asked. The office resolved the one genuine ambiguity in the request — what “inherited” means — by reference to a different request, searched against that definition, and only then offered to search again if the requester meant something else. The requester is now in the position of having to guess which definition would have produced a record, and to submit a new request to find out. A single clarifying question before the search would have cost the office nothing and might have produced a number.

The count was denied and the counting was sold. The office says no document contains the total, which may well be true, and then offers to let the requester assemble the total from underlying files at a price. That is a lawful structure under the Act, and this page does not call it unlawful. But it produces a strange result: the public cannot learn a number the office could produce by running a query, because the number is not written down anywhere, and the alternative is a $1,033.33 invoice for a search that has not happened yet. The request asked whether the office maintains the calculation. The answer is no, and the follow-up question — could it, if asked — is answered with a price rather than a yes or no.

The volume baseline moves. Five hundred files here, 3,300 in the 26-21 amendment dated the same day, 6,000 in 25-279. Each figure is presented as an estimate grounded in the office's own knowledge of its caseload. The record does not explain how the same office arrives at such different baselines for the same category of work, and a requester cannot evaluate a fee without knowing which baseline is real.

Two time frames, one envelope. The letter says 180 days. The itemization says 270. Both are dated February 12, 2026. The difference is ninety days, and it is the kind of discrepancy that a requester notices when deciding whether to write a check.

The waiver line is still blank. Five requests, five blank waiver sections. The office has a form with a place to record a public-interest determination and has not used it.

A number the office could count, priced at the cost of counting it

There is a version of this response that is entirely defensible, and it is worth stating plainly before criticizing the version that was sent. A prosecutor's office is not required to maintain a statistic called “inherited cases resulting in conviction.” That phrase is the requester's invention, not a field in any case-management system. If the office has never created such a tally, FOIA does not make it create one. The office could have said exactly that, in one paragraph, and been right. It nearly did.

What it did instead was more elaborate, and the elaboration is where the problem lives. The office adopted a definition of “inherited” that the requester never proposed, sourced that definition to a request the public cannot see, searched against it, found nothing, and then priced a second search on a baseline that appears nowhere else in its correspondence. Each of those steps is individually lawful. Taken together, they produce a response that is hard to evaluate and easy to misread — and a member of the public reading it would be forgiven for concluding that the office had answered a question nobody asked.

The deeper issue is the relationship between the denial and the invoice. The office's position is that the number does not exist as a document but does exist as a derivable fact, and that deriving it is work the requester may purchase. That position has a certain internal logic, but it puts the public in an odd place. The office is the only party that can run the query. It has the case-management system, the file room, and the staff. It knows, or can know in an afternoon, how many of the cases it inherited ended in conviction. Instead of telling the public, it offers to let the public pay $1,033.33 for a search whose result the office could state in a sentence. That is not secrecy. It is something subtler: the information is technically available and practically out of reach, and the price of reaching it is set by the party that already knows the answer.

None of this requires a finding of bad faith, and this page makes none. The office applied a template, filled in a baseline, and attached a form. Templates are how small offices survive FOIA. But a template that produces a different caseload figure every time it is used, and a time estimate that changes between the cover letter and the attachment, is a template that has stopped being a check on the answer and started being a substitute for one. The public-interest waiver line, blank for the fifth time, is the clearest sign of that: the form has a place to ask whether the public should bear this cost, and the office has stopped filling it in.

The request was one sentence long and asked for one number. The office's answer runs to fourteen pages, quotes a fee, demands a deposit, offers two different completion dates, and leaves the waiver undecided. A public body is entitled to answer a hard question with a process. It is worth asking, though, whether this question was hard, or whether the process is simply what the office now does instead of answering.

What this record does not show

This record does not show that the office maintains a count of inherited convictions and is hiding it. The letter says it does not, and nothing in the packet contradicts that.

It does not show that the fee is unlawful. The office invoked the unreasonably-high-cost provision and itemized its work. Whether $1,033.33 is a reasonable estimate for searching 500 files is a judgment the record does not settle, and a requester who disputes it has the appeal form in hand.

It does not show what FOIA 26-28 asked. That gap has since closed: 26-28 is in this archive, and its operative text asks for “the total number of criminal cases pending or in progress at the time the current prosecutor assumed office.” The office’s reading of “inherited” therefore checks out against the document it cites. What the record still does not show is why the office treated that definition as a reason to stop rather than as a reason to search.

It does not show whether the 180-day or the 270-day estimate is the operative one, or how either was calculated. Both figures appear on the office's own paper and neither is explained.

It does not show that the requester's preferred definition of “inherited” would have produced a record. The office offered to search again under a clarified definition; whether that search would succeed is unknown.

What to ask next

The record suggests three follow-up requests, each narrow enough to be answered without a fee dispute.

The first would ask the office to state, in writing and without a search, whether its case-management system can produce a count of cases by disposition and by the year the case was opened — a question about system capability, not about a specific number. If the answer is yes, the “no document exists” position becomes a question about the office's choice not to run the query. If the answer is no, the public learns something real about the limits of the system.

The second would ask for the office's written procedures and guidelines governing the public-interest fee waiver under MCL 15.234, including any form or checklist staff use to decide whether to grant one. Five blank waiver sections suggest either that no procedure exists or that it is not being followed, and the document that would settle which is a policy document, not a case file.

The third would ask the office to reconcile its own volume figures: the number of files open at any one time, the number processed per year, and the basis for the 500-file, 3,300-file, and 6,000-file baselines used in 26-29, 26-21, and 25-279. That is a request for the office's own estimating methodology, and it should be cheap to answer because the methodology is the office's own.

All three are catalogued in our internal working list, with the specific wording and the record that supports each one. They are not published here.

Authorities and sources cited on this page

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

Michigan Freedom of Information Act, MCL 15.231 et seq. The following provisions are cited above: MCL 15.233(1) (certification that a record does not exist); MCL 15.233(5) (no duty to create a compilation, summary, or new record); MCL 15.234 (fees, itemization, deposits, and waivers, including the actual-cost limit, the lowest-paid-capable-employee rate, the public-interest waiver, and the good-faith deposit provision); MCL 15.235 (response deadlines, including the five-business-day period in subsection (1) and the ten-business-day extension in subsection (2)); MCL 15.240 (appeals and civil actions, including the 30-day appeal period and the disclosure deadline in subsection (6)); and MCL 15.240a (fee challenges, including the treatment of a deposit as a fee for purposes of a challenge).

Documents in the packet. The response is seventeen pages: pages 1–2 the February 12 response letter; page 3 the Notice of Denial; page 4 an excerpt of MCL 15.240; page 5 a Zimbra/IPFone fax notification; page 6 the fax cover sheet; page 7 the request as received; pages 8–14 the Detailed Cost Itemization; page 15 a blank FOIA Appeal Form — To Appeal an Excess Fee; page 16 an excerpt of MCL 15.240a; and page 17 a FOIA Written Policies notice.

Public records relied on for figures. The $620.00 line 1 charge, the $413.33 line 3a charge, the $1,033.33 subtotal, the $516.66 deposit, the 100 and 66.66 quarter-hour counts, the $6.20 quarter-hour charge, the $24.82 hourly wage with fringe, and the 270-day estimate are all taken from the Detailed Cost Itemization. The 180-day estimate, the 800-to-1,000 open-file range, the 500-file baseline, and the definition of “inherited” are taken from the February 12 response letter. The $409.20 figure is computed on this page from the itemization's own rate and its own rounding rule, and is labeled as a computation, not as a statement by the office.

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 26-28 — 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 25-135 — 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 (Granted in part — 8 case files 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)