Defense attorneys are calling for the state’s top prosecutor to step aside from prosecuting felony cases against seven people involved in pro-Palestinian protests at the University of Michigan due to an “appearance of impropriety.”
Attorneys for two protesters, Jamil Khuja and Amir Makled, filed the motions on Friday in Ann Arbor district court. Khuja pointed to Attorney General Dana Nessel’s recent request in a separate case to appoint a special prosecutor to pursue charges against Hamtramck City Council members for election fraud.
In the petition, Nessel’s office wrote that she had taken policy positions against the City Council members, even participating in a public rally to call out a resolution they passed in 2023. The recusal request went on to acknowledge criticism Nessel has faced for her prosecutions of the pro-Palestine protest cases at the U of M.
“Critics have alleged, albeit without justification, that these prosecutions were brought due to bias against Muslims and/or people of Arab descent,” the request stated. “It is likely similar criticisms would be raised if prosecutions were brought here as suspects [...] are of Arab descent.”
Defense attorneys for the protestors contend the Attorney General’s concerns about the perception of bias in the Hamtramck case should apply to the prosecutions against protestors at the University of Michigan as well.
“It’s our position,” Khuja told Michigan Public, “that either the bias or the appearance of it is enough to merit recusal because the public has got to have faith that prosecutors are acting in the best interests of justice and are treating individuals fairly.”
By her own admission, Nessel doesn’t appear to meet the standards prosecutors are supposed to uphold in Michigan, Khuja said..
In his brief to the Ann Arbor District Court Judge who is presiding over preliminary hearings, Khuja pointed to a standard set by People v. Herrick, a Michigan Court of Appeals case that outlined two criteria for recusal. One relates to conflict of interest from an attorney-client relationship and the other “encompasses those situations where the prosecutor has a personal, financial, or emotional interest in the litigation or with the accused.”
The Attorney General’s office took issue with that claim, saying that neither of the two criteria outlined in the Appeals case were present in the Palestine protest cases.
The recusal in the Hamtramck case arose because Nessel made public comments about policy decisions made by those she would be prosecuting if she took up the election fraud case, her office said.
Nessel “personally, peacefully and lawfully protested against the policies of that particular city council, of which several of the defendants were members,” said Kimberly Bush, who heads the Attorney General’s Public Information and Education department.
“I am your attorney general, and yes, I am also gay,” Nessel said at the rally in June 2023. “I come here today to implore the government of the city of Hamtramck to repeal its resolution to ban the pride flag.”
That protest specifically is why the attorney general sought a special prosecutor in Hamtramck — and, according to Bush, that justification doesn’t carry over to the cases against pro-Palestinian protesters. The Attorney General’s office will be addressing the claims made by Khuja and other defense attorneys before the court, she added.
‘There is no bias nor even the appearance of bias,” Bush said of the U of M case.
