Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 3

etoott Jftee IP1? ess Saturday, October 4, 1997 Page3A nf Hugh Collea udge out 1 i ues want c. 1 llAhmninn U-n MbUUUUHIU Politics "fl a a ti roiiPir i 6 jurists lobby for new leader Harsh drug lifer law in for critical look i i Friday after a reporter showed him the letter. "It's between judges and the chief justice," Maceroni said. "That's basically confidential. I'm not going to comment.

letter had reached the press. "It was our decision that it remain confidential," Servitto said. "I'm just shocked. It was supposed to remain an internal matter and I won't discuss it" Once they knew the letter bad become public, the six judges jointly decided not to comment on it Bruff said. 1 The judges wrote their letter to explain why they nominated Bruff and Schwartz as their choices or chief judge when Maceroni's two-year term expires in January, Steeh said Thursday night.

Before 1996, circuit court judges elected their own chief. In 1995, the Please see JUDGES, Page 7 A By Ilaina Jonas Free Press Staff Writer Six of the nine Macomb County Circuit Court judges have asked the state's top jurist not to reappoint Peter Maceroni to another two-year term as the court's chief judge. The Free Press Marnmh nas obtained a con-ividuumu fldential letter criti. COUntV cizing Maceroni's performance as Macomb County Circuit Court's chief administrator. The letter, dated Sept.

15, is addressed to Chief Justice Conrad Mallett Jr. of the state Supreme Court Among the criticism leveled in a four-page outline accompanying the letter is what the six call Maceroni's Peter Maceroni rassment, our opposition to his reappointment is not based upon personality conflicts or our desire to disregard the law," said the letter, signed by judges John Bruff, George Montgomery, Deborah Servitto, Mary Chrzanowski, Michael Schwartz and George Steeh III. Steeh has been nominated to a federal court position and is awaiting Senate confirmation. Judges Pat Donofrio and Lido Bucci did not sign the letter. They were in court and could not be reached for comment Maceroni declined to comment failure to confer with other judges on hiring staff such as researchers and clerks; on the state-mandated creation of a family division within the circuit court refusal to name a judge to act as chief judge when Maceroni ison vacation or away Raymond Cashen was the last chief judge pro tempore, and the position was never filled after his death in 1996 and his inability to get more judges assigned to the court "While it has never been our intent to publicly criticize Judge Maceroni or to cause him any embar especially since I haven't seen it before." The Free Press received the letter by mail on Thursday from an anonymous source.

Several of the judges on Friday said they were stunned that the '-sr 6 Inmates lose dispute State prevails in property case 1 FA RICHARD LEEDetroit Free Press Don DiPaola of Clinton Township says something strange is keeping automatic garage-door openers from working in his neighborhood. To close his garage Thursday, DiPaola had to bend into it and click the opener remote in the direction of the control box. To open it, he has to point the remote at a specific spot on the side of the garage. "I intend to take a vote." Sen. Bill Van Regenmorter, referring to drug-law reforms on Tuesday's committee agenda A vote? After all these years? Huzzah! The reference is to long-debated but much-needed reform in Michigan's infamously unfair, harshest-in-the-natioji "drug lifer law" and in less severe but still unfair drug laws mandating minimum sentences of up to 20 years.

And Van Regenmorter, an Ottawa County Republican who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Friday, "I intend to take a vote" in committee on Tuesday on a reform package of which he is chief sponsor. The package, if approved by the Senate and House, would restore at least a modicum of fairness to the system. That's a big "if," of course. Right now the soolled lifer law gives judges no discretion whatever. It mandates life (and, therefore, death) in prison with no possibility of parole for anyone including young, first-time, nonviolent offenders convicted of dealing or intending to deal 650 grams or more of heroin or cocaine.

The penalty is harsher by far than those for rape, child abuse and many murders. And even some of the bill's original supporters acknowledge now that its provisions have failed to nail drug kingpins the original targets. Instead, they're filling prisons with low-level mules, many of them young, first-time offenders who, to be sure, deserve censure but, at least in some cases, also a second chance. Van Regenmorter's proposed reforms would permit parole after 15 years for "lifers" without prior drug or violent felony convictions who cooperate with authorities. They also would apply retroactively so long as the sentencing judge and prosecutor approve.

And, for crimes involving less than 650 grams, they would reduce mandated minimums for low-risk, cooperative offenders. Interestingly, in sporadic hearings over the past four years, including two earlier in 1997, all sorts of thoughtful judges, prosecutors, police chiefs and prison officials plus emotional relatives of victims have urged senators to modify the laws' more draconian provisions and restore reasonable discretion to the process. But senators, including Van Regenmorter, who only this year began conceding "an evolution in my thinking," have been slow to respond largely because of concern theyll be labeled soft on crime. At least until now. Of course, there are still no guarantees.

Reformers, led by Families Against Mandatory Minimums, were skeptical of Van Regenmorter's earlier "reform" language and have yet to inspect the package he would bring up for a vote Tuesday. And despite cautious optimism expressed by Van Regenmorter, there are no guarantees that the committee will send it to the full Senate or that the Senate will go along or that, despite support from key representatives, the House will follow suit Or that, as the 1998 election year comes closer, "soft on crime" panic won't resurge, burying reform and all the thoughtfulness and common sense that go with it But, hey, with a committee vote scheduled for Tuesday (at long last), at least there's a chance, eh? In brief ITS YOUR MONEY: Worth noting is that in September the Wayne County Board of Commissioners approved a $6,500 settlement of a lawsuit that Mark Grebner, the well-known East Lansing Democrat and chair of the Ingham County commission, had filed against Wayne County Clerk Teola Hunter. In the suit, Grebner, a political consultant whose business involves voter data, complained not only about being charged for flawed and missing documents from the clerk's office but also that logs documenting the charges were falsified. The lame explanation? An inexperienced employee fouled things up. occurrence frustrates Od By Dawson Bell Free Press Staff Writer An Ingham County judge, ruling in a long-running dispute over inmate property rights, has found that the state has the right to restrict the amount and kind of property inmaleB can keep in their cells.

Judge James Giddings, in an opinion issued Thursday, sided largely in the state's favor, which surprised many court watchers. The state has long argued that its inability to restrict personal property in cells compromises security. Prisoners often have kept makeshift weapons in their cells. Prisoners' property rights are not protected under state or federal constitutions from "takings" by the government Giddings said. The judge had been characterized by the Engler administration as a friend of prisoners and an enemy of the state.

In the ruling, Giddings wrote that though inmates "have Vested' rights in their own property, those rights may not displace" the authority of the state inside prisons. Matt Davis, a spokesman for the Department of Corrections, said the agency sees this as a victory in the latest round in the lengthy fight but the dispute has a long way to go. Sandra Girard, an attorney for the inmates, said the opinion is "more favorable" to the department than to the inmates. But there are other undecided issues in the case, including whether the state has improperly classified prisoners and put illegal restrictions on prisoners' access to courts, Girard said. The lawsuit was filed nearly 10 years ago, but only went to trial in April.

The trial continues in a makeshift courtroom at the Ingham County Jail. Davis said the practical effect of Gidding's ruling remains unclear. State lawyers must reconcile Giddings' long and complex ruling with other rulings before they decide what to do next Areas garage openers dorit work BY JEANNE MAY Free Press Staff Writer The little Clinton Township street looks auiet and serene but I hit it while I'm still in the garage, and whoosh I get out," said one man, adding that he narrowly misses the door as it closes. DiPaola can't do that because his opener has an electric eye that keeps the door open as he passes under it. So he backs out on the drive, hops out of his car, bends into the garage with the remote in his hand being careful not to break the electric-eye beam clicks at the control box, then with moves as swift and precise as a ballet dancer's, movesback.

When he gets home, he parks on the driveway, walks down the side of his garage and points his opener at the brick wall. "It's where the broken brick is," he said. Like magic comes the whirr of his garage door sliding open. It's music to DiPaola's ears. hands.

"It's frustrating because the kids never had a key, but now I have to get them all keys." DiPaola works in the auto industry, so he started asking questions there. "I asked the electrical engineers," he said, "and they said without a doubt someone is running some interference. Maybe a ham radio operator." The neighbors don't know whether to laugh or cry but they're inventive. The garage-door openers work from inside the garages and usually from certain places within a couple of inches of the outside. "In the morning when I take off, something sinister moves unseen through the air.

"This is the Bermuda Triangle of Clinton Township," a man who lives in the area, at 18 pi- i.M Mile and Green-UinlOn field, said this Township "tsdabou, three years ago, another resident, Don DiPaola, said. His and his wife's garage-door openers stopped working at the same time. "We thought it was the batteries," he said. "We changed them and we changed the codes," but the openers still didn't work, he said. Then, all of a sudden, they started working, DiPaola said.

But they've failed off and on ever since. Unbeknownst to DiPaola, the same thing had been happening to his neighbors. "You don't like to see your neighbors have a problem, but well I was really relieved when I saw Don have a problem," said a neighbor who lives across the street and asked that his name not be used. Before the mysterious problem began, Jody Caruso and her four children, who live a couple of doors down from DiPaola, could punch a code into a keypad by the garage door to get in. But last week, Caruso's daughter couldn't make the keypad work.

Jody Caruso threw up her Lawmakers to debate merits of the dwarf lake iris which of six native plants should be nominated as state wildflower. The trillium, which grows in much of eastern North America, won with 1,773 votes. The dwarf lake iris was second with 1,479. The dwarf lake iris grows only along the shores of lakes Michigan and Huron. The plant, which has small, brilliant blue flowers, was dis-covered on Mackinac Island in 1810.

Thomson said the dwarf lake iris will appear on 1998 calendars published by the Easter Seals and the Environmental Defense Fund. "It is becoming more and more recognized as a choice plant" said Thomson, who chairs the Michigan the Michigan Environmental Council, according to Kathleen Thomson of the botanical club. If approved Tuesday, the bill would go to the Senate. But the president of the Michigan Wildflower Association, which last year held an informal state wildflower contest won by the large-flowered white trillium, on Thursday blasted the dwarf lake iris bill. Lou Twardzik called it "an outrageous power play by select environmental interests over the interests of the people of Michigan." Through articles in several Michigan newspapers, the Wildflower Association invited people to vote on BY MARTY HAIR Free Press Garden Writer The debate over picking a state wildflower heats up next week with a House vote on a bill giving the title to the dwarf lake iris.

Its backers say the dwarf lake iris deserves the honor because it is rare, growing almost entirely within Michigan along the upper Great Lakes shores. The dwarf lake iris is on the state and federal lists of threatened plants. Introduced by Rep. Liz Brater, D-Ann Arbor, the bill is supported by the Michigan Botanical Club, the Michigan Nature Association, the Michigan Natural Areas Council and The large-flowered white trillium. The dwarf lake iris.

Botanical Club's campaign to make Marty Hair can be reached at I-the dwarf lake iris the state wild- 313-222-6610 or by E-mail at flower..