Clutch Justice Weekly 015: Barry County’s Decade Without Brady Disclosure

The Clutch Justice Weekly briefing for Issue 015: a decade-long disclosure gap in Barry County, a new Michigan Judicial Tenure Commission report, and three attorney discipline notices.

The Lead Investigation: Fuller’s Hastings Post Career, Mapped

MSP Sgt. Bryan Fuller’s own Michigan State Police biography places him at the Hastings Post before, during, and after his years on a regional narcotics task force. Clutch Justice’s lead piece this issue reconstructs that career against a Barry County drug docket, and against a press record that had already named Fuller in connection with fabricated evidence years before those cases were charged. Read the full investigation.

Timeline

1995 to 2010: Hastings Post, then an undercover assignment with a regional narcotics task force. 2016 to 2017: WOOD TV8 names Fuller in Parrack cold case coverage and disputed surveillance testimony. December 2019: McCann v. Fuller is filed, and the press names Fuller and Det. Shane Criger three days later. 2019 to 2020: the seven-defendant Hastings meth ring batch pleads and sentences while the federal case is pending. 2023 to now: a $14.5 million jury verdict, an $11 million settlement, and MSP’s first written Brady and Giglio disclosure policy.

Institutional Integrity Index: Barry County and the Hastings Docket

Overall grade: D minus. The Barry County Prosecutor’s Office and MSP’s disclosure of Fuller’s credibility history to local prosecutors both grade F. The defense bar’s record of raising Brady and Giglio challenges in these cases grades D. The public press record from 2016 to 2019 grades B, the strongest mark on the board, because reporters surfaced Fuller’s name years before prosecutors appear to have accounted for it.

Five Minutes in the File: A Decade Without Disclosure

McCann v. Fuller was filed in December 2019. Barry County had it in writing by September 2023. No public record shows a disclosure log for either date, which puts the county nearly seven years into a Brady and Giglio problem with no visible accounting. The documented floor, not the ceiling, is nine defendants: the seven person Hastings meth ring batch charged in 2019, plus the Braddum and Morgan cases in 2020, all built on Fuller touched work and all resolved with no Brady or Giglio challenge appearing anywhere in the public docket.

That number is a floor because Fuller’s assignment history runs from 1995 to 2011 at the Hastings Post alone, and no public roster yet accounts for every warrant, plea, or case he touched across that span. Reading a file for what it does not say is as important as reading it for what it does. Nine named defendants is where the count starts, not where it ends.

This Week’s Discipline Watch

Three Michigan attorneys were disciplined this week, drawn from the Attorney Discipline Board’s record.

Document of the Week: The 2025 JTC Annual Report

Michigan’s judicial discipline agency logged its largest single year grievance increase on record in 2025, closed 99 percent of cases with no misconduct finding, and confirmed in writing a pattern in Judge Kirsten Nielsen Hartig’s case that Clutch Justice had already been reporting. Read the full analysis.

Related Investigations

Barry County already defunded a sheriff’s detective once when commissioners decided public safety money was not going where it was promised. Clutch Justice’s related piece argues that same standard now points at the prosecutor’s office. Read the piece.

A manslaughter sentence built on a discredited sentencing variable, a judge who left the bench without explanation, and a prosecutor’s office pattern that outlasted her: Clutch Justice revisits the Sigmund Rumpf case. Read the piece.

A written record shows Julie Nakfoor Pratt and Christopher Elsworth were warned about Fuller four days before the $14.5 million verdict. Read the piece.

Tools and Resources This Issue

The Lab this week features the Brady, Giglio, Santobello List, 64 documented entries across 33 Michigan prosecutors and the working reference behind this issue’s Barry County reporting. Explore the list.

This week’s free downloadable tool is the OCCK and North Fox Island Research Reference Library: a searchable case timeline, a who’s who reference, a geographic map, and an annotated reading list, with special thanks to Catherine Broad, whose research underpins much of the library. Download the library.

The Case Timeline Builder gives readers the same structure Clutch Justice uses to turn scattered dates, dockets, and sources into a defensible sequence of events, the backbone of this issue’s lead investigation. Explore the Case Timeline Builder.

For readers filing their own records requests to Barry County, MSP, or MCOLES, MuckRock tracks public records requests and archives what agencies have already turned over to other requesters. Visit MuckRock.

Quick Fact

Michigan’s Judicial Tenure Commission received 698 grievances in 2025, a 32 percent jump from the year before and the largest single year increase on record. Only five became public complaints.