Michigan lawmaker plots budget cuts for state Supreme Court after ruling on juvenile murderers

Beth LeBlanc, The Detroit News on Apr 14, 2025

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LANSING, Mich. — A key Michigan House lawmaker who oversees the state budget process says she will shift funding away from courts and to local prosecutors after a Michigan Supreme Court decision ordered the resentencing of individuals who were 19 or 20 years old when they committed first-degree murder.

The decision means 579 individuals who were automatically sentenced to life in prison without parole in Michigan must now appear for resentencing hearings within six months.

Justices in a 5-2 decision Thursday found it was unconstitutionally cruel for 19- and 20-year-old offenders to be subjected to mandated life in prison without parole given their adolescent brain development. The decision extended previous orders that have gradually inched the age up for young murders over the past decade.

State Rep. Ann Bollin, a Brighton Township Republican who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, on Monday said she was working on legislation in response to the decision that would cut court funding and increase funding for local prosecutors tasked with coordinating the resentencing hearings for the 579 inmates.

The 180-day window the court gave to schedule the hearings is "unrealistic and dangerous," Bollin said. She also argued the individuals are being given a "do-over" when they were clearly adults at the time they made a "conscious choice to take another person's life."

"These cases are decades old in many instances," Bollin said. "Reviewing them thoroughly and locating victims’ families in such a short time is a massive undertaking. Meanwhile, the very court that created this mess continues operating business as usual on the taxpayers’ dime. That ends now.”

Bollin said her legislation will scale back funding for the Michigan Supreme Court and State Court Administrative Office and instead invest the money in county prosecutors' offices. The Livingston County GOP lawmaker's plan to shift funding from the court to prosecutors' office, if it clears the House, would face an uphill climb in the Democratic-led Senate.

The Michigan Supreme Court declined to comment Monday.

Bollin noted counties are about a quarter of the way through their fiscal years and can't carry the added, unforeseen cost of, in some cases, dozens of new resentencing hearings.

"They’re legislating from the bench and making these decisions, it appears, with little regard for how they’re going to be executed," Bollin said of the state's highest court. "I think we should look at the court’s ability to pay for them. We just saw the same thing happen with the earned sick time.”

Bollin was referencing a 2024 Michigan Supreme Court opinion that gave full force to a earned sick leave and minimum wage plan that was curbed by lawmakers in 2018. The high court's Feb. 21 deadline for compliance with the order led to last-minute changes in the House and Senate to limit the effects of the order on small business owners.

Bollin's announcement comes after the high court ruled Thursday that mandatory life in prison without parole sentences for individuals who were 19 and 20 at the time they murdered someone did not comply with the state constitution's bar on cruel or unusual punishment because it does not consider "mitigating factors of youth or the potential for rehabilitation."

The decision split along party lines, with five Democratic-nominated justices supporting the majority and two Republican-nominated justices opposing it. The opinion was retroactive, meaning it encompasses all 19- and 20-year-old offenders who had already been given a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole.

According to the Michigan Department of Corrections, the decision affects 579 inmates currently serving life in prison without parole.

The Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan on Thursday expressed concern over the impact on victims and on their offices' caseloads with the short time frame to schedule the hearings. In Wayne County alone, more than 400 resentencing hearings will need to be rescheduled, according to Prosecutor Kym Worthy's office.

"The resentencing hearings resulting from this ruling will also require tremendous amounts of time and expense to prosecutors’ offices throughout the state," said Midland County Prosecutor J. Dee Brooks, president for the prosecutors association. "Many offices are already struggling to meet current caseloads without full staffs."

Worthy said last week the six-month timeline was "untenable" for her office, but said the real burden will be felt by families and friends of victims who are unable to find closure.

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