By Ed White
Associated Press
DETROIT — A Michigan judge on Monday refused to dismiss criminal charges against a former judge accused of allowing two police officers to commit perjury during a drug trial.
Attorneys for Mary Waterstone, now a retired judge, argued that their client should be immune from prosecution for rulings made in her capacity as judge.
Judge David Robinson Jr. rejected the argument, saying immunity for Michigan judges is limited to civil lawsuits, not criminal charges.
“I want to say a lot but I better not,” Waterstone said after the court hearing.
Waterstone and Karen Plants, formerly Wayne County’s top drug prosecutor, are charged with allowing perjury during a 2005 trial of Alexander Aceval. The case ended in a mistrial, although the perjury was not exposed at the time. Aceval later pleaded guilty to possession and won’t be eligible for release from prison until 2015.
Plants said the perjured testimony of the two police officers was necessary to protect an informant, but she has conceded that “allowing false statements is wrong.”
Separately, Robinson removed the state prosecutor from the case because he could be called as a witness.
Copyright 2009 Associated Press