Barry County already decided that public-safety money can be pulled back when it is misdirected, wasteful, or untethered from the purpose voters were told it served. That standard should not disappear when the office creating the waste is the prosecutor’s office.
This article is an opinion and accountability analysis based on public reporting, prior Clutch Justice coverage, court records, and source records reviewed by Clutch Justice. It distinguishes documented facts from allegations and calls for independent review where the public record remains incomplete.
This article does not argue that Barry County should stop prosecuting violent crime. It argues that taxpayer funding should be conditioned on disclosure compliance, independent audit, conflict review, and a public accounting of avoidable appellate and post-conviction costs.
Barry County should defund, freeze, or condition discretionary funding for the Barry County Prosecutor’s Office until Julie Nakfoor Pratt’s office produces an independent accounting of cases affected by Bryan Fuller, Brady/Giglio nondisclosure, unsupported sentencing positions, retaliatory charging concerns, and avoidable appellate rework. In 2022, Barry County revoked roughly $100,000 for a sheriff’s detective position because commissioners said the money was not going where it was intended. The prosecutor’s office now deserves the same standard. If public money was too precious to finance Dar Leaf’s misdirected investigation, it is too precious to finance a prosecutor’s office that creates constitutional exposure, hides officer credibility problems, and then asks taxpayers to pay for the cleanup.
Bridge Michigan reported that Barry County commissioners voted 6-0 in October 2022 to revoke funding for a third sheriff’s detective after the position was not being used for the violent-crime purpose commissioners funded.
Julie Nakfoor Pratt publicly criticized Dar Leaf’s election-probe posture, saying voter fraud was a non-violent case and that there was no probable cause for election-equipment search warrants.
By June 3, 2022, Fuller was already named in a Court of Claims complaint filed by Dar Leaf and the Barry County Sheriff’s Office alleging that Fuller and other state actors interfered with Leaf’s election investigation. McCann v. Fuller had already been pending since December 2019. Prior reporting points to the answer being yes: the prosecutor’s office knew who Fuller was, and the Board should answer what it knew before voting to defund Leaf’s detective position.
One month later, Fuller botched a planned Barry County turn-in, was caught lying through text-message records, and the resulting home arrest traumatized children and family members. That was not background noise. It was case-specific impeachment material.
That same prosecutor’s office now needs to answer why Barry County defendants were not publicly shown a complete Brady/Giglio accounting for MSP Sgt. Bryan Fuller, whose federal civil-rights case was filed in December 2019 and produced a $14.5 million jury verdict in September 2023.
The office’s knowledge was not limited to the 2023 verdict. Fuller was active in Barry County cases in 2020, including the Braddum and Morgan matters. The Morgan case involved defense attorney Gordon Shane McNeill and was dismissed by nolle prosequi after a discovery demand. The Fuller issue should have been a Brady/Giglio review point years earlier.
An Attorney Grievance Commission response also included emails between Pratt’s office and Fuller about the botched turn-in. That means the office had case-specific Fuller communications while still failing to disclose the broader Brady/Giglio problem.
Prior Clutch Justice coverage has documented the office declining or failing to prosecute serious conduct involving women and child safety, including stalking and domestic-violence records, while using charging power against women, witnesses, defendants, attorneys, and critics who spoke out or complicated law-enforcement accountability narratives.
PAAM’s Brady/Giglio best-practices recommendation has been in place since June 17, 2016. It tells prosecutors to develop procedures with police agencies for officer impeachment evidence, disclose even without a defense request, and adopt office practices to meet those duties. Barry County does not appear to be following that professional baseline in Fuller-touched cases.
Clutch Justice has reported that Pratt and then-Assistant Prosecutor Christopher J. Elsworth were alerted in writing to Fuller on September 15, 2023, four days before the McCann verdict.
The fiscal problem is not only salaries. It is repeated appeals, resentencings, post-conviction litigation, court time, defense time, victim uncertainty, and county-paid labor spent touching cases multiple times because the prosecutor’s office did not build clean records the first time.
Barry County Board of Commissioners meeting minutes and claims records also reflect county-paid legal fees tied to defending the prosecutor’s office and responding to Attorney Grievance Commission complaints. That means taxpayers are paying not only for prosecution, but for the office’s misconduct-defense costs.
If Pratt’s office presents avoidable appellate cleanup and years of disclosure silence as ordinary prosecution expense, that public position is false. If she demanded fiscal discipline from Leaf while refusing it for her own office, that is hypocrisy.
Bridge Michigan reported that commissioners revoked funding for a third detective position in Sheriff Dar Leaf’s office after the money was not being used for the violent-crime work commissioners said they intended to support.
The comparable issue is public money being used to maintain, defend, appeal, and repair cases affected by disclosure failures, officer credibility problems, unsupported sentencing arguments, and charging decisions that should have received independent review.
Fuller was named in a June 3, 2022 Court of Claims complaint filed by Leaf and the Barry County Sheriff’s Office before the October 2022 defunding vote. The complaint alleged that Fuller and other state actors interfered with Leaf’s election investigation. McCann v. Fuller had already been pending since December 2019, raising the question of whether county officials knew Fuller’s credibility was already under federal challenge.
The AGC response included emails between Pratt’s office and Fuller about the turn-in. That makes Fuller case-specific, not abstract. It also makes the nondisclosure problem harder to excuse because the office had direct Fuller communications while the federal fabricated-evidence case was public.
PAAM’s 2016 best-practices recommendation says prosecutors should know their disclosure duties, develop procedures with police agencies for officer impeachment evidence, disclose even without a defense request, coordinate with police, and adopt office practices that help fulfill those duties.
No. It is pro-record, pro-victim, pro-defendant, pro-taxpayer, and pro-finality. Prosecution that hides credibility evidence is not strong prosecution. It is expensive prosecution.
Freeze discretionary prosecutor funding pending an independent Brady/Giglio and appellate-cost audit, require a list of Fuller-touched cases, fund outside conflict counsel, and require public reporting on corrective action.
The County Already Set the Standard
Barry County does not have to invent a funding accountability model. It already used one.
In October 2022, Bridge Michigan reported that the all-Republican Barry County Board of Commissioners voted 6-0 to revoke funding for a third detective in Sheriff Dar Leaf’s office. The county had approved roughly $100,000 to help hire a detective for murders and other violent crimes. But Leaf had a detective working exclusively on his 2020 election probe while violent-crime staffing remained thin.
Commissioners did not say law enforcement no longer mattered. They said the money was not going where it was supposed to go. Board Chair Ben Geiger told Bridge that commissioners wanted resources for law enforcement but were concerned the funding was not going to the right place. Commissioner John Smelker was even plainer: “I think we’re wasting taxpayer’s money.”
That is the standard: when public-safety money becomes wasteful, misdirected, or unaccountable, commissioners can pull it back.
Now apply that standard to the prosecutor’s office.
Julie Nakfoor Pratt Knew the Standard Then
Pratt did not stand outside the 2022 debate. Bridge reported that she had joined Leaf in requesting funding for the third detective the previous year, then criticized Leaf for assigning one of his only detectives to the election probe. She called voter fraud a non-violent case. She told commissioners Leaf’s election-equipment search-warrant requests had no probable cause.
Bridge quoted Pratt saying there was not insufficient evidence; she outright said there was none.
That matters now because Pratt’s public position in 2022 was not subtle. She understood the difference between public resources used for real casework and public resources spent chasing a record that could not support the legal action being requested. She understood that probable cause matters. She understood that a public official can misuse law-enforcement resources while still claiming to be doing law enforcement.
Pratt was right about one thing in 2022: government power should not move without evidence. The problem is that the same standard now points back at her office. A prosecutor who publicly criticized unsupported law-enforcement work cannot turn around and ask taxpayers to keep financing prosecutions affected by hidden impeachment evidence, unsupported sentencing leverage, and avoidable appellate repair.
Was Fuller Used as Muscle Against Leaf?
There is another question the county has not answered publicly: what did Julie Nakfoor Pratt and the Board of Commissioners know about Bryan Fuller before the October 2022 defunding vote?
On June 3, 2022, Dar Leaf and the Barry County Sheriff’s Office filed a Court of Claims complaint against Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, Michigan State Police, MSP Trooper Bryan Fuller, MSP Trooper David Geyer, and other government officials. The complaint alleged that Fuller and other state actors had no authority to interfere with Leaf’s sheriff investigation. It further alleged that, beginning around March 2022, an undisclosed government agency including MSP, Fuller, and Geyer called and harassed Leaf, deputies, and agents connected to the election investigation; confiscated voting machines and records; went to an Irving Township clerk’s residence; contacted a deputy working for Leaf; and intimidated or attempted to interview people connected to the investigation.
Those are allegations in Leaf’s complaint, not findings by a court. But they matter because Fuller was publicly in the Leaf record months before the October 2022 defunding vote. By then, McCann v. Fuller had already been pending in federal court since December 2019. The lawsuit alleged fabricated evidence and constitutional violations by the same detective.
So the Board’s defunding vote now carries a second question. Did commissioners know that one of the state actors being used against Leaf’s investigation was already under federal civil-rights litigation for fabricating evidence? Did Pratt know? Prior Clutch Justice reporting points to yes. Fuller was a known Hastings Post detective in the Barry County legal ecosystem. His federal case was public. He was named in the Leaf complaint. He was later raised directly to Pratt and Elsworth in writing. The remaining question is not whether Fuller was obscure. He was not. The question is who in county government chose not to treat his record as a public warning.
And the warning came due almost immediately. One month later, Fuller botched a planned Barry County turn-in. Text-message records caught the lie. MSP came to the defendant’s home instead, despite the arranged surrender, and the arrest traumatized children and family members. The defense record documented that the turn-in should not have failed and that Fuller was tied directly to the mismanaged arrest.
The Attorney Grievance Commission response makes the record worse for Pratt’s office, not better. Emails between Pratt’s office and Fuller about the turn-in were provided in that response. That means the office did not merely know Fuller by reputation, geography, or public record. It had case-specific communications with him about the event that became part of the defendant’s Brady/Giglio and prejudice record.
That matters because Fuller was not only the detective in a federal fabricated-evidence lawsuit. He was the detective whose case-specific conduct in Barry County created family trauma, bond consequences, plea pressure, sentencing consequences, and post-conviction issues. Barry County cannot use Fuller as a reason to control one elected official while hiding or minimizing the Fuller problem when it contaminates the prosecutor’s own cases.
The Prosecutor’s Office Is Creating Public Cost
When a county office creates a defective case record, taxpayers do not only pay once. They pay every time the file has to be touched again.
They pay for the original prosecution. They pay for hearings. They pay for sentencing. They pay for appellate briefing. They pay for remands. They pay for resentencing. They pay for prosecutor time spent defending positions that should not have been taken. They pay for court time. They pay for appointed defense time. They pay for delays that leave victims and defendants without finality. They pay again when the same case comes back because the record was not clean the first time.
They also pay when the office has to defend itself. Barry County Board of Commissioners meeting minutes and claims records reflect thousands of dollars in county-paid legal fees connected to defending the prosecutor’s office and responding to Attorney Grievance Commission complaints. That is not a normal prosecution cost. That is public money spent after the office’s conduct became the issue.
That is not fiscal discipline. That is a public tab generated by prosecutorial choices.
Clutch Justice has reported this pattern across Barry County records. In the Sigmund Rumpf case, an unsupported sentencing score created appellate correction and resentencing. In the Fuller records, defendants whose cases were touched by a detective under active federal civil-rights litigation had a right to know whether that credibility material was disclosed. In related coverage, Clutch Justice has documented allegations of threats tied to appeals and post-conviction relief, direct pressure on represented defendants, and case records where correction came only after additional legal work had already been forced into the system.
That is the financial issue commissioners should be asking about. Not just how much the prosecutor’s office spends. How much it makes everyone else spend after the fact.
Declinations for Some, Weaponization for Others
The budget problem is inseparable from the charging pattern.
Prior Clutch Justice coverage has documented serious declination and non-prosecution questions involving women and child safety, including stalking and domestic-violence records. In the Richelle Spencer matter, a Barry County sheriff’s deputy allegedly stalked a physician during working hours while campaigning for sheriff. A personal protection order was reportedly issued. Spencer remained employed and on the ballot. Barry County did not charge her for that 2023 conduct. After she lost the primary, MSP arrested her in October 2024 after a second alleged stalking offense in another county.
In the Trevor Antcliff matter, where Megan Moryc was the victim, Pratt’s office was appointed special prosecutor and declined charges. In other records reviewed by Clutch Justice, serious safety allegations involving women and children did not receive the same aggressive prosecutorial posture the office used when the target was a person who spoke out, filed a report, challenged a case, or complicated a law-enforcement accountability narrative.
The contrast is the point. Kellie Bartlett reported being raped by a sheriff’s deputy and was initially charged with 14 counts; LSJ later reported she faced 16. Lisa Underhill-Dietz, another woman connected to the same deputy, was charged through a companion digital-crime case. Moryc reported and preserved records of law-enforcement sexual misconduct and was later charged, fired twice, and ultimately vindicated in employment proceedings where MSP conduct was found to reflect animus. Clutch Justice has also documented allegations of threats tied to appeals, post-conviction relief, and defense counsel pressure.
That is not public safety. That is selective force. A prosecutor’s office that declines or minimizes serious conduct involving women and children while weaponizing charges against people who speak out is not merely making discretionary charging decisions. It is teaching the public whose reports count and whose speech will be punished.
The Near-Seven-Year Fuller Problem
McCann v. Fuller was filed in federal court in December 2019. It alleged that Michigan State Police Sgt. Bryan Fuller fabricated evidence and violated Ray McCann Jr.’s constitutional rights in the investigation that helped send an innocent man to prison. On September 19, 2023, a federal jury awarded McCann $14.5 million. MSP settled for $11 million on October 17, 2023.
By July 2026, that is not a new issue. It is a near-seven-year public-record problem measured from the federal filing, and almost three years since the verdict. Any Barry County case touched by Fuller during that window deserves a disclosure audit. Any defendant whose case relied on Fuller deserved to know what prosecutors knew, when they knew it, and whether the defense received the impeachment material.
Clutch Justice has reported that on September 15, 2023, four days before the McCann verdict, a Barry County email thread titled “BRYAN FULLER” was sent to Pratt and Elsworth at county email addresses. The record does not prove what they read, believed, or did internally. It proves Fuller was raised to them in writing before the verdict.
But the disclosure problem did not begin in September 2023. Fuller was already appearing in Barry County criminal cases in 2020, after McCann v. Fuller was filed. In the Braddum case, Fuller was publicly identified as the investigating detective sergeant weeks after McCann’s federal lawsuit began. In the Morgan case, Fuller investigated a multi-county storage-facility burglary, and defense attorney Gordon Shane McNeill filed a discovery demand on August 11, 2020. Eight days later, the charges were dismissed by nolle prosequi under a related plea file. That sequence should be audited for what the prosecutor’s office knew, what McNeill demanded, what discovery showed, and whether any Fuller Brady/Giglio disclosure was made.
Read beside the AGC-response emails about the later turn-in, the pattern is no longer a single missed disclosure. It is an office with early Fuller knowledge, case-specific Fuller communications, public federal litigation, PAAM guidance already in place, and no visible Brady/Giglio accounting to defendants whose cases Fuller touched.
The responsible response was obvious: stop, preserve, disclose, audit, notify. Barry County should have identified every Fuller-touched case, every plea, every sentencing, every appeal, every warrant, every interview, every report, every file where his credibility mattered. The public record does not show that kind of transparent accounting.
That silence is expensive. It creates litigation risk in every case Fuller touched. It creates post-conviction risk in cases already closed. It creates appellate risk in cases still moving. It creates public mistrust that no press release can fix.
PAAM Told Prosecutors This in 2016
The Fuller problem is not only a constitutional-disclosure problem. It is a professional-practice problem.
On June 17, 2016, the Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan approved a best-practices recommendation on Brady/Giglio material. PAAM told prosecutors to stay informed about Brady and Giglio, to be personally responsible for disclosure obligations, and to remember that the duty should not be delegated away from the case attorney. It told prosecutors to contact police agencies in their jurisdictions, advise them of the duty to disclose impeachment evidence, and develop procedures to determine whether that information exists for a law-enforcement officer. It said Brady/Giglio material must be disclosed even when the defendant does not request it. It told prosecutors to coordinate with police agencies and adopt office practices and procedures to fulfill those obligations.
That guidance was in place years before Fuller’s federal civil-rights case was filed in December 2019. It was in place years before the September 2023 jury verdict. It was in place before the September 15, 2023 written Fuller notice Clutch Justice has reported was sent to Pratt and Elsworth. It was in place before every Barry County case in which Fuller’s credibility should have triggered a disclosure review.
So the question for Barry County is not merely whether Pratt’s office violated Brady or Giglio in any individual case. The question is whether the office was even following the professional baseline Michigan prosecutors had been told to follow since 2016. If the prosecutor’s office had no working Fuller procedure, no police-agency impeachment process, no case-by-case disclosure log, and no timely defense notice, then the office was not just creating constitutional exposure. It was failing to adhere to best professional practices.
Select each funding question Barry County commissioners should ask before approving another blank check for the prosecutor’s office.
In 2022, commissioners cut detective funding because violent-crime money was not producing the violent-crime capacity they funded. The prosecutor’s office deserves the same question: how much taxpayer money is being spent on avoidable cleanup created by the office’s own records?
- Separate ordinary prosecution cost from appellate repair cost.
- Identify cases touched multiple times because of disclosure or sentencing problems.
- Report the number of remands, resentencings, dismissals, and nolle prosequi outcomes tied to contested prosecutor conduct.
Fuller’s federal civil-rights case was public in December 2019. The jury verdict came in September 2023. Barry County prosecutors were alerted in writing four days before that verdict, according to records reviewed by Clutch Justice. Commissioners should require a case-by-case Brady/Giglio disclosure log.
- List every Barry County case touched by Fuller after December 2019.
- Identify whether a Brady/Giglio letter was sent in each case.
- Identify whether Barry County had a PAAM-compliant police-agency impeachment procedure in place.
- Notify affected defendants where disclosure was not made.
Every unsupported sentencing argument and hidden impeachment problem creates a second case inside the first case. The county should measure prosecutor time, court time, defense cost, transcript cost, and victim impact from every avoidable appeal and post-conviction proceeding.
- Calculate attorney and staff hours spent on remands and resentencings.
- Identify appeals where the prosecutor’s position was rejected or narrowed.
- Report cases where late correction avoided a written ruling.
Internal reassurance is not review. Barry County should fund independent outside counsel, not connected to Barry County, MSP, the Attorney General appointment process, or the local court network, to audit disclosure and appellate-cost records.
- Freeze discretionary spending pending independent review.
- Fund conflict counsel for Fuller-touched cases.
- Publish corrective findings in a public report with case numbers where legally permitted.
The False Position and the Hypocrisy
There is a polite way to say this, and there is an accurate way. The polite word is contradiction. The accurate public word is hypocrisy.
If Pratt tells Barry County that this is ordinary prosecution expense while her office forces taxpayers to finance avoidable appeals, resentencings, disclosure fights, and post-conviction cleanup, that position is false. Not aggressive. Not complicated. False.
If her office kept Fuller credibility material out of defendant case records while Fuller was under active federal civil-rights litigation for fabricated evidence, then Barry County was not funding justice. It was funding concealment. If the office failed to correct the record after written Fuller notice, the problem was not ignorance. It was refusal to treat defendants’ constitutional rights as a budget priority.
And if Pratt could publicly scold Dar Leaf for wasting law-enforcement resources on a non-violent election probe while asking commissioners to keep funding her own office without a case-by-case accounting of prosecutor-created waste, then the hypocrisy is not rhetorical. It is structural.
Barry County cannot have one fiscal standard for Dar Leaf and another for Julie Nakfoor Pratt. If misdirected sheriff spending was waste, then prosecutor spending that produces avoidable appeals, hidden impeachment evidence, retaliatory exposure, and constitutional cleanup is waste too.
Defunding Does Not Mean Abandoning Public Safety
The predictable response will be that prosecutors need resources to protect the community. That is true. It is also incomplete.
Victims need cases that survive review. Defendants need evidence the Constitution requires the State to disclose. Judges need clean records. Defense attorneys need impeachment material before pleas and sentencing. Taxpayers need to know they are not paying twice because the prosecutor’s office refused to do the work once.
Defunding the prosecutor’s office does not mean turning off prosecution in Barry County. It means ending the blank check. Commissioners can preserve funding for core criminal prosecution while freezing discretionary increases, special projects, outside memberships, travel, public-relations spending, and any budget line not directly tied to immediate case operations. They can redirect money to independent review. They can require monthly public reporting. They can fund conflict counsel. They can condition future funding on compliance.
That is not anti-prosecution. It is anti-waste.
The Public Ledger
Barry County revoked funding when commissioners concluded detective money was not being used for the violent-crime purpose they approved.
Fuller’s federal civil-rights case was filed in December 2019. Barry County still owes a public accounting of cases touched by Fuller and whether Brady/Giglio disclosure was made.
Unsupported sentencing positions and incomplete records create second-round litigation that taxpayers, victims, defendants, courts, and appointed counsel all absorb.
Board minutes and claims records reflect county-paid legal fees tied to defending the prosecutor’s office and responding to Attorney Grievance Commission complaints.
The board can freeze discretionary funding, require independent audit, fund outside review, and demand public reporting without ending prosecution.
Why This Is an Eye-Opening Moment
This is the part of the story that should make more people court watch.
Most government waste in criminal court does not look like a dramatic scandal when it happens. It looks like a sentencing variable nobody in the room challenges. It looks like an officer’s credibility history that never gets mentioned before a plea. It looks like a case being touched a second, third, or fourth time because the first record was defective. It looks like a board meeting where nobody asks how many appellate hours were avoidable. It looks ordinary until someone starts tracking it.
That is why court watching matters. The public does not have to be a lawyer to notice patterns. Who gets charged. Who gets protected. Which officers keep appearing. Which cases keep coming back. Which prosecutors ask for harsher outcomes and then lose on review. Which defendants plead without disclosure. Which public officials demand accountability from everyone except themselves.
Barry County is a local example of a national civic problem: government power becomes harder to abuse when people are watching the paperwork, the hearings, the budgets, and the after-the-fact cleanup. A public meeting agenda can show where money goes. A court docket can show how many times a case had to be repaired. A transcript can show whether the prosecutor corrected the record. A disclosure log can show whether the State followed the rules it claims to enforce.
More people should be sitting in courtrooms, reading minutes, requesting records, watching budget hearings, and tracking whether their government does what it says it does. Not because every mistake is corruption. Because unchecked patterns become policy.
Michigan Needs a Statewide Prosecutor-Office Audit
Barry County should be audited first because the documented record is already there. But the remedy should not stop at one county.
Michigan needs a statewide prosecutor-office audit focused on Brady/Giglio compliance, law-enforcement impeachment disclosures, appellate rework, plea integrity, conflict-prosecutor appointments, and the cost of cases that had to be repaired after conviction, plea, sentencing, or appeal. The audit should not be run by the offices being reviewed. It should be independent, public-facing where legally permitted, and structured around case records, not institutional assurances.
The question is not whether every prosecutor in Michigan is violating disclosure duties. The question is whether the public has any reliable way to know. If PAAM’s 2016 Brady/Giglio guidance has been treated as optional paper rather than an operating standard, defendants, victims, courts, and taxpayers deserve to know county by county.
A statewide audit should ask basic questions. Which prosecutor offices have written Brady/Giglio policies? Which offices maintain law-enforcement impeachment lists or disclosure procedures? Which offices coordinate with police agencies to identify officer credibility material? Which offices disclose even without a defense request? Which offices track appellate reversals, remands, resentencings, and post-conviction relief tied to prosecutor conduct? Which offices can prove they are following the professional guidance Michigan prosecutors have had since 2016?
This is not a partisan issue. It is a public-record issue. Prosecutors hold one of the most powerful offices in local government. If they can charge people, negotiate pleas, recommend prison, control disclosure, and shape appellate records, then the public can demand proof that those offices are following the rules.
What Barry County Should Do Now
First, freeze discretionary prosecutor funding pending independent review.
Second, require a complete list of Barry County cases touched by Bryan Fuller from December 2019 forward, including cases where he authored reports, directed interviews, handled evidence, supplied warrant information, coordinated arrest or turn-in activity, communicated with Pratt’s office, or otherwise influenced prosecution decisions.
Third, require the prosecutor’s office to identify which defendants received Brady/Giglio disclosure about Fuller, when the disclosure was made, what was disclosed, and whether any disclosure was made in the 2020 Braddum or Morgan matters.
Fourth, require the prosecutor’s office to produce its written Brady/Giglio policy, including any office procedures adopted after PAAM’s June 17, 2016 recommendation and any police-agency process used to identify officer impeachment evidence.
Fifth, fund outside conflict counsel to review Fuller-touched cases, not selected by Pratt’s office and not connected to the same Barry County legal network.
Sixth, require a public accounting of what Pratt, the Board of Commissioners, county administration, and county counsel knew about Fuller’s federal civil-rights lawsuit before the October 2022 defunding vote, including whether Fuller’s role in the Leaf dispute was discussed in any meeting, closed session, legal communication, budget record, AGC response, or prosecutor-office email.
Seventh, require an appellate-cost report identifying cases where the prosecutor’s office forced avoidable appeals, resentencings, remands, nolle prosequi outcomes, or post-conviction litigation because of unsupported positions, hidden evidence, or late correction.
Eighth, require a public accounting of all county-paid legal fees used to defend the prosecutor’s office, Julie Nakfoor Pratt, assistant prosecutors, or office employees in Attorney Grievance Commission matters, ethics complaints, civil claims, FOIA disputes, and records disputes.
Ninth, require independent review of declinations and non-prosecution decisions involving stalking, domestic violence, child safety, law-enforcement misconduct, women complainants, and public officials, measured against cases where the office charged or threatened people who spoke out, appealed, filed complaints, or challenged institutional power.
Tenth, require public reporting on threats or pressure involving appeals, post-conviction relief, represented defendants, appointed counsel, or SADO attorneys. Allegations of that kind cannot be handled through internal reassurance. They require outside review.
Eleventh, create a public disclosure policy for law-enforcement impeachment material, including MSP officers, sheriff’s deputies, local police officers, and any officer whose credibility, evidence handling, truthfulness, or constitutional compliance has been challenged in litigation, internal affairs, civil verdicts, settlements, or court findings.
Twelfth, ask the Michigan Legislature, Attorney General, State Court Administrative Office, and county boards to support a statewide prosecutor-office audit of Brady/Giglio practices, appellate rework, conflict appointments, legal-defense spending, AGC-response costs, declination patterns, and case-integrity failures. Barry County should be the beginning of that audit, not the exception that lets every other county look away.
The Question Commissioners Have to Answer
Barry County commissioners already told Dar Leaf that public-safety money is not personal money. It has a purpose. It has limits. It can be revoked when the public is not getting what it was promised.
So here is the question now: why does that standard stop at the prosecutor’s door?
Julie Nakfoor Pratt cannot have it both ways. She cannot invoke fiscal seriousness when the waste belongs to another elected official and then ask for deference when the waste belongs to her own office. She cannot publicly demand evidence from Dar Leaf while her own office refuses a full public accounting of evidence hidden from defendants. She cannot claim to protect Barry County while forcing Barry County to pay for avoidable constitutional exposure her office helped create.
The county defunded a detective position because the money was not going where it belonged.
Now the money is going to a prosecutor’s office that needs an audit before it gets another blank check.
Barry County already knows how to do this. Defund the waste. Fund the audit. Protect the record.
Jonathan Oosting, “Barry County to Dar Leaf: Election probe waste of money, defunds detective,” Bridge Michigan, October 28, 2022.
McCann v. Fuller, No. 1:19-cv-01032, Western District of Michigan. Filed December 2019; jury verdict September 19, 2023.
Ken Kolker, “Exonerated man wins $14.5 million in lawsuit against detective,” WOODTV Target 8, September 19, 2023.
David Reutter, “$11 Million Settlement for Exonerated Michigan Prisoner,” Prison Legal News, August 2024.
State of Michigan v. Jacob Wilhelm Braddum, Case No. 2020-0000000193-FH, 5th Circuit Court, Barry County. Prior Clutch Justice coverage identifies Fuller as investigating detective based on public reporting and docket review.
State of Michigan v. Eric James Morgan, Case No. 2020-0000000482-FH, 5th Circuit Court, Barry County. Prior Clutch Justice coverage identifies Fuller as investigator, Gordon Shane McNeill as defense counsel, an August 11, 2020 discovery demand, and an August 19, 2020 nolle prosequi dismissal under a related plea file.
Attorney Grievance Commission response materials and case exhibits reviewed by Clutch Justice, including emails between Pratt’s office and Bryan Fuller regarding the planned Barry County turn-in and related text-message records documenting the turn-in failure.
Williams, Rita. “The Detective Who Was Found Guilty of Violating Someone’s Constitutional Rights. He Was Still Working Cases.” Clutch Justice, June 24, 2026.
Williams, Rita. “Barry County Prosecutors Were Alerted of MSP Bryan Fuller Four Days Before the Wrongful Conviction Verdict.” Clutch Justice, June 29, 2026.
Williams, Rita. “Whatever Happened to Sigmund Rumpf?” Clutch Justice, July 1, 2026.
Williams, Rita. “The Same Playbook. Four Women. One Prosecutor.” Clutch Justice, June 27, 2026.
Barry County Board of Commissioners meeting minutes and claims records reflecting legal-fee payments connected to defending the prosecutor’s office and responding to Attorney Grievance Commission complaints. On file with Clutch Justice.
Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan, “Best Practices Recommendation: Brady/Giglio Material,” approved June 17, 2016.
Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963); Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150 (1972); Michigan Rule of Professional Conduct 3.8(d).
How to Cite This Article
Bluebook: Williams, Rita. Barry County Defunded a Sheriff’s Detective Four Years Ago. Here’s Why it Should Defund their Prosecutor’s Office Right Now., Clutch Justice (July 2, 2026), https://clutchjustice.com/2026/07/02/barry-county-defunded-sheriffs-detective-defund-their-prosecutors-office/.
APA 7: Williams, R. (2026, July 2). Barry County defunded a sheriff’s detective four years ago. Here’s why it should defund their prosecutor’s office right now. Clutch Justice. https://clutchjustice.com/2026/07/02/barry-county-defunded-sheriffs-detective-defund-their-prosecutors-office/
MLA 9: Williams, Rita. “Barry County Defunded a Sheriff’s Detective Four Years Ago. Here’s Why it Should Defund their Prosecutor’s Office Right Now.” Clutch Justice, 2 July 2026, clutchjustice.com/2026/07/02/barry-county-defunded-sheriffs-detective-defund-their-prosecutors-office/.
Chicago: Williams, Rita. “Barry County Defunded a Sheriff’s Detective Four Years Ago. Here’s Why it Should Defund their Prosecutor’s Office Right Now.” Clutch Justice, July 2, 2026. https://clutchjustice.com/2026/07/02/barry-county-defunded-sheriffs-detective-defund-their-prosecutors-office/.
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