By Robert Tomlinson
News Director
CENTREVILLE — St. Joseph County will not be shifting funds in the prosecutor’s office budget to pay for the county prosecutor’s legal representation before a state discipline board.
At Tuesday’s Executive Committee meeting of the St. Joseph County Board of Commissioners, commissioners decided against further consideration of a request by Prosecutor Deborah Davis to transfer $10,000 from an otherwise vacant assistant prosecutor salary line item in the office’s budget.
The money would’ve been transferred into a Professional and Contractual Services line item in order to pay law firm Collins, Einhorn & Farrell PC as a “refundable retainer” for legal services. The matter was not placed on the next meeting agenda for the commissioners.
According to the board agenda request form given to commissioners and obtained by the Commercial-News, Davis wrote the $10,000 request was to be used to “obtain competent legal representation for an administrative proceeding directly affecting the ability of the elected Prosecutor to practice law,” referencing “allegations related to actions taken by her while employed as an APA [assistant prosecuting attorney] on behalf of the Prosecutor’s Office during a court proceeding.”
The “administrative proceeding” in question is related to Davis’ upcoming hearings in front of the state’s Attorney Discipline Board (ADB), where she faces potential formal action over allegations of lying to a judge when Davis was an assistant prosecutor in January of 2024 and which led to her firing from that role. Davis has denied the allegations, alleging herself that former prosecutor David Marvin, who filed the allegations, did not give her due process in his investigation and alleged that the allegations were filed in part due to her running for prosecutor last year against him.
Davis first appeared before the ADB in late March for a scheduling conference, which was quickly adjourned to June 5 so that Davis could have enough time to retain legal counsel.
During discussion of the request, Davis said the county “does not have liability coverage for administrative hearings” for prosecutors, and was not something she had realized until her recent run-in with the ADB. She also cited a state statute, MCL 691.1408, which she said allows the county to obtain legal representation for officers or employees of a governmental agency in matters that are “a result of his or her conduct in the course of employment or actions taken on behalf of the Prosecutor’s Office,” according to the board agenda request form.
Davis, in her comments to the board during discussion, said the $10,000 could be used for legal representation “for any of the prosecutors that need it when incidents come up,” and discussed the matter not in the frame of her current situation, which was the stated reason in the agenda request form for the budget amendment, but for any assistant prosecutors that could find themselves in similar situations in the future.
“Right now, every time a prosecutor walks into a courtroom or goes anywhere in public, they’re at risk for somebody filing a grievance against them, and [our insurance] doesn’t cover that,” Davis said. “If we are having people come in and risk their law licenses to provide services – and we’re the bad guys to the bad guys – and across the state, this is a problem, and it’s been brought to light because these things are happening in other counties.”
County Commission Chair Jared Hoffmaster pushed back on Davis a bit during discussion, saying he didn’t believe the insurance covers the ADB. Davis responded by saying that, “To say it’s personal to me, I can’t do the job, Josh [Robare, assistant prosecutor] can’t do the job, Gary [Gabry, assistant prosecutor] can’t do the job if we don’t have our law license.”
“Either we have to budget for it so that in the future when there are issues, we’re not scrambling, or we get some professional liability coverage,” Davis said.
Fourth District Commissioner Luis Rosado was the first to say he wouldn’t vote on the measure, due in part to Davis’ current situation before the ADB, and that the county’s legal representation reportedly stated, “We don’t cover that.”
“You have to defend your own license with your licensing authority,” Rosado said while mentioning the allegations against Davis.
Davis appeared frustrated by this response, saying, “If you aren’t going to support your prosecutors having their law licenses,” and are “letting us go into the courtroom every day and have the risk of somebody grieving us,” the county would have the prosecutors “pay out of our own pockets because our professional liability doesn’t cover governmental agency action.”
“That’s why the statute says if your elected official has any sort of issue that’s related to governmental action, a hearing, you couldn’t possibly be more in the course of employment than representing the state of Michigan at a hearing,” Davis said. “Whether you agree or disagree, or think I did or don’t think I did, it doesn’t matter. You have to provide legal representation if the prosecuting attorney can’t do it and the corporate attorney can’t do it. I’m not representing myself; that’s ridiculous.
“If I don’t defend against what has happened here, it’s like you’re all assuming, oh, you got accused of this, you must be,” Davis added.
Hoffmaster said, in his view, he was “100 percent” behind the office, and that if prosecutors make a mistake in the courtroom, “we have the proper insurance to cover those mistakes” because the majority of counties have the same insurance they do. However, he said he was still against the idea of the budget amendment, because, in his view, it could allow for more possible misconduct by prosecutors in the courtroom.
“I think, from my standpoint, that would essentially not encourage, but it would be okay – be like, you know what, you can go into the courtroom, and eh, if you lie, the county’s just going to throw a bunch of money at it anyways. If you don’t lie, you don’t,” Hoffmaster said. “I think there’s a gray area here that I would not personally be in favor of.”
Hoffmaster then added that he believes that most “frivolous” complaints in front of the ADB “are usually thrown out right off the bat,” and “doesn’t get to the point we’re at now without going through some processes.” This led to a back and forth between the prosecutor and the commission chair.
“So, you’re assuming that because it was filed, I must be-,” Davis replied.
“I’m assuming because it was filed, and gotten to this step in the process, that where there’s smoke, there’s probably fire,” Hoffmaster said.
“So, you’re assuming I did something wrong,” Davis replied back.
“No, I’m saying there’s enough evidence there to go through the process. I don’t know if you did anything wrong or not, but there’s enough evidence to go through the process,” Hoffmaster said.
Fifth District Commissioner Christina Yunker brought up the idea of reimbursing Davis if the allegations against her were determined to be false, but Davis said there is “nothing” in the state statute regarding reimbursement.
Seventh District Commissioner Terry Conklin later asked whether Davis would’ve brought this up if “this whole situation hadn’t taken place,” to which Davis, after a couple-second pause, responded that yes, she would’ve.
“Yes, because it’s in the course of employment,” Davis said. “Say this was a different APA that this happened to, it’s in the course of employment. I support my employees, and they need to go into the courtroom knowing that they have protection.”
County Administrator Teresa Cupp was then ultimately asked if the liability insurance would cover if it was procedural versus ethical issues, and Cupp said that when it comes to the ADB, “then no.”
In other business…
- Commissioners added to their next regular meeting agenda the L-4029 Millage Request for the equalization department, a part-time deputy clerk request and Early Vote Coordinator position status change request from the County Clerk’s office, a request for the AXON Justice Premier+ Program contract from Davis, a vehicle replacement request from Veteran’s Affairs, a digital information departments integration between Van Buren County and St. Joseph County, a contract addendum for the Barton Group, and appointments for a new Emergency Management Coordinator, the Local Emergency Planning Committee, the Brownfield Redevelopment Authority, and Pivotal’s board.
- Commissioners received updates on the county’s wage and compensation study, as well as a building master plan update from the Barton Group.
Robert Tomlinson can be reached at 279-7488 or robert@wilcoxnewspapers.com.
CORRECTION 11:33 a.m.: This article previously stated that “Davis claimed the statute [MCL 691.1408] said the county “shall” provide legal representation”, but the statute being referred to in that instance, according to Davis in a message to the Commercial-News Friday, was MCL 49.73, which is specific to the county’s elected officials. The Commercial-News apologizes for the error and any confusion it may have caused.
