New Business Cards, Same Courthouse: Another APA Joins Barry County’s Public Defender’s Office

Alexandra Steele Rouse joins Jessica Payne in public defense. Their departures turn attention back to the conditions in Julie Nakfoor-Pratt’s office and the cost of pushing troubled cases through Barry County’s courts.

By Rita Williams | Clutch Justice

Barry County’s Public Defender’s Office has added another former prosecutor. Alexandra Steele Rouse, known as Allie, is now listed as a Senior Assistant Public Defender alongside Jessica R. Payne. The county’s paperwork tells part of the story through a $27.54 expense for business cards.

The county’s September 3 invoice report puts it plainly: “ROUSE BUSINESS CARDS REIMBURSE SELLEC.” The entry, which appears in the September 8 commissioners packet, names Kerri Selleck and charges the expense to the Public Defender’s Office. The reimbursement was still pending when the report was generated, but the purpose is clear: business cards for Rouse in her new office.

Rouse and Payne now work under Chief Public Defender Kerri L. Selleck, representing people prosecuted by the office they left. They know that office from the inside, and their clients will face it from the other side of the courtroom.

Two prosecutors moving from Nakfoor-Pratt’s office into public defense raises a harder question about what they were leaving behind. Clutch Justice has documented Brady/Giglio and Santobello problems in Barry County, plea agreements that did not survive the courtroom, and cases pushed forward under a lead prosecutor who has repeatedly resisted meaningful transparency. Add Judge Michael Schipper’s documented use of bond, sentencing exposure, and the plea process in ways that can pressure defendants to resolve cases rather than fight them, and prosecuting in that environment looks like a different job.

Prosecution is difficult, consequential work to begin with. It becomes something else when winning cases matters more than confronting the problems in them.

Now two attorneys who once stood in court for Julie Nakfoor-Pratt’s office have chosen to stand beside defendants instead.

Maybe they simply wanted different careers. But given what has been happening in Barry County, another possibility cannot be ignored: perhaps they had enough.

Payne’s Departure Took Years of Institutional Knowledge With It

Payne spent much of her career in that office. In December 2021, county commissioners recognized her for 15 years of service. By the time she left this summer, she had roughly two decades of experience with Barry County’s prosecutors, judges, police agencies, and cases.

She was still appearing for the prosecution on June 3, 2026. The plea transcript examined in Clutch Justice’s July reporting names her as the attorney for the People. In that proceeding, a defendant became eligible for release only after entering no-contest pleas and sitting for a presentence-investigation interview. The pressure created by that sequence is part of the history she leaves behind.

Someone who has spent that long in an office knows more than the filing system. She knows how cases get charged, how offers get made, and what happens when a defense attorney pushes back. That knowledge can be valuable to the people she now represents. It also means Pratt should have to account for her departure.

Both women now have a chance to put that experience to work for the people their former office prosecutes.

Rouse Is Now Listed Beside Her

As recently as the June 23 commissioners meeting, Pratt was publicly praising Rouse’s appellate work, as Clutch Justice reported in July. That work has also drawn criticism from this publication, including our reporting on an appellate filing that never reached the incarcerated person entitled to answer it.

By September 3, the business-card expense appeared in the Public Defender department’s paperwork. Rouse’s new title is Senior Assistant Public Defender. A lawyer whose job included defending the prosecution’s work now sits in an office whose job is to challenge it.

Elsworth Left. The Withheld Records Did Not Follow.

Elsworth belongs in the departure count, but the criticism of his conduct should be stated plainly. Clutch Justice has documented his denial of plea communications, both on the court record and to the Attorney Grievance Commission. People with direct knowledge confirmed those communications existed. Years later, the documentation is still withheld. Denying that it exists while keeping it out of reach is dishonest, and moving to another county does nothing to resolve it.

After nearly two decades as a Barry County assistant prosecutor, Elsworth moved to Kalamazoo County’s Family Court Division in January 2025. Attorneys familiar with the situation told Clutch Justice he was moved because of the Brady/Giglio and Santobello problems surrounding his work. They referred to the assignment as “kiddie court.” Kalamazoo’s directory lists him as an assistant prosecuting attorney. He is still practicing, while the records needed to confront his Barry County conduct remain withheld.

Consider the plea agreement Clutch Justice examined in June. At the October 26, 2022 plea hearing, the court was told there was no agreement. Sources with direct knowledge confirmed written terms providing for no incarceration and a cap on probation. At sentencing on January 12, 2023, Elsworth acknowledged that the complaining company did not want incarceration, then argued for it anyway. The defendant received 10 to 20 years. After appeal, the sentence was reduced to five to 20 years.

The company’s wishes and the prosecutor’s promise are two separate parts of that account. The promise is what brings Santobello into the story. The Supreme Court held that when a prosecutor’s promise significantly induces a plea, the prosecution must keep it. An office is responsible for making sure its lawyers know what was promised, and that obligation does not disappear when one of them changes jobs.

Elsworth’s departure left Barry County with cases his colleagues still had to handle and conduct that still needed an answer. The question was whether Pratt’s office would confront what he left behind. His new employer and new assignment could not do that work for her.

What It Means to Work in Pratt’s Office

Clutch Justice’s July investigation traced a written notice about Michigan State Police Sgt. Bryan Fuller’s credibility back to September 15, 2023. Pratt’s office had it. The reporting found that it was not passed along when Elsworth’s cases went to Rouse, Carter, and Payne. The attorneys taking over the work were missing information their own office already had. The same investigation examined Payne’s failure to pursue disclosure in the separate Jeffrey Snowden matter after a police-evidence problem was brought to her attention.

Then there was the appellate filing that never reached the person expected to answer it. Clutch Justice’s August reporting described an MDOC response showing no corresponding legal-mail record. For someone representing himself from prison, receiving the prosecution’s filing is how he learns what he must answer. A piece of paper saying it was sent does not help him respond to a document he never received.

Pratt’s response to scrutiny deserves the same attention. Clutch Justice reported that at the November 25, 2025 commissioners meeting, she said she did not keep personnel records for her office. The discussion concerned a FOIA appeal over Elsworth’s records. Commissioners approved Megan Moryc’s appeal that day. Even learning the employment history of the attorney at the center of this reporting required a fight over access.

This is the work waiting on the next attorney’s desk: a case with missing disclosure information, an appeal built on a challenged record, a plea promise the office denies while the defendant serves the sentence. Someone has to walk into court and speak for the office again. What happens when that lawyer reads the file and concludes the office got it wrong?

That work can be soul-crushing when professional judgment keeps colliding with an expectation that the case must move forward. A prosecutor needs room to acknowledge a mistake, question a police witness, reconsider a charge, or tell a supervisor that a conviction cannot responsibly be defended. Pratt’s office has kept cases moving past the warning signs described in this reporting. Rubber-stamping the last decision leaves the burden on the next attorney and the consequences with the defendant.

The question for Pratt is what happens inside her office when an attorney wants to stop and address one of those problems. Is there room to change course? Does recognizing a defect lead to corrective action, or to another argument for preserving the result? The answers would tell us far more about working for Pratt than another hiring advertisement.

Pratt Is Looking for Help. What Will the Next Lawyer Walk Into?

Pratt has been recruiting. A PAAM advertisement dated May 26 offered $71,219.20 to $96,844.80 for an assistant prosecutor, and the county’s employment page also lists an opening.

On June 23, she asked commissioners to approve an experienced hire at $96,844.80. The attached unsigned agreement named Aaron Bir and credited him with 14 years as a licensed attorney. The draft minutes record approval of that pay placement. As of September 28, however, Bir does not appear on the county’s roster, and the packet does not say whether or when he started. For an office that has lost three prosecutors, the questions are straightforward: did the hire happen, and if so, whose cases did he take?

Down Three Prosecutors, With Staffing Requests Marked “Not Recommended”

The September 22 commissioners packet brings the staffing issue directly into the 2027 budget discussion. On PDF page 34, the prosecutor requests funding for two full-time positions through the General Fund: an assistant prosecutor at a projected $130,273 in salary and benefits, and a legal assistant at $74,048. Together, the requests total $204,321. Both carry the status “Not Recommended.”

Nakfoor-Pratt is down three prosecutors: Elsworth, Payne, and Rouse. The requests have to be read against that loss. The office is seeking capacity after losing attorneys who carried its cases, and describing the request as a simple expansion overlooks the depleted office behind the budget paperwork.

The request sheet labels the positions “New” and cites caseload as the rationale for each. Those are budget classifications, not evidence that the office has kept its previous complement of working prosecutors. The $204,321 covers one attorney and one support position, so it cannot buy three replacement prosecutors. The support-position row is titled “Legal Assistant,” while its rationale calls the position a legal secretary.

The budget’s position table lists one vacancy, but a budgeted position does not tell us who is actually doing the work. The county still needs to account for the departures, the hires, and the cases passed from one attorney to another.

“Not Recommended” is a budget recommendation, not a final board rejection. The packet calls for an October 27 hearing, and Administrator Eric Zuzga notes that spending requests exceed projected revenue by $526,438 across county government. Money is tight, which makes it even more important to ask what Pratt would change with the money she is requesting.

Cases keep coming when attorneys leave. Someone still has to prepare for hearings, talk to witnesses, read the evidence, and deal with the problems already sitting in the files. But replacing people without examining why an office struggles to keep them leaves the next hire facing the same conditions.

Who took Payne’s cases? Who took Rouse’s? How much work is each remaining lawyer carrying, and what happens when one of them says a case should be dropped? Pratt owes the county answers about the work and about how she runs the office. A bigger payroll will not supply them.

A Smaller Staff Should Force a Harder Look at the Cases

Being down three prosecutors should also push Nakfoor-Pratt to examine the work her office chooses to pursue. Before asking the county to pay for more capacity, she should explain how she reviews charging decisions, identifies cases without adequate evidentiary support, and decides when continued prosecution serves no proportionate public purpose. Caseload is partly a consequence of those decisions. Her office has discretion over which cases it brings and which it keeps pursuing.

My view is that Nakfoor-Pratt needs to stop over-prosecuting and stop taking cases forward in the expectation that pressure in Schipper’s courtroom will produce a plea. Defendants should not be bullied into agreements by the prospect of staying in jail, the fear of a dramatically harsher sentence, or a process that makes exercising their rights feel unaffordable. A case should be strong enough to withstand a prepared defense and real scrutiny of the evidence. A defendant’s exhaustion is no substitute for that.

Clutch Justice’s July 5 reporting followed a defendant who spent about 110 days in custody before the June 3 plea hearing. Release on a personal-recognizance bond became available only after the pleas and the presentence interview. Consider the choice that presents to someone who has already spent months in jail. Accept the deal and a way home opens. Keep fighting and the uncertainty continues. Calling that a resolved case does not answer whether the person had a fair chance to defend it.

The county should demand a charging and case-review plan alongside any staffing plan. Which pending cases can be supported by reliable evidence? Which should be dismissed, reduced, or considered for diversion? Are disputed disclosures being resolved before plea deadlines? Are defendants getting a meaningful chance to prepare a defense? Adding personnel without examining those decisions risks funding more of the practices already under scrutiny.

Adequate staffing is still necessary to handle legitimate cases fairly. But the goal should be a manageable docket of justified prosecutions, with time for careful evidence review and respect for the people involved. Nakfoor-Pratt’s responsibility is to justify the cases her office pursues, not just the number of employees she wants to process them.

I Want Rouse and Payne to Succeed

I have been openly critical of both Rouse and Payne. That criticism has concerned their work, the records connected to it, and the consequences for people moving through Barry County’s courts. I also wish both of them the best in the Public Defender’s Office. I sincerely hope they work to transform the landscape of justice in Barry County and push for fairness and dignity in the courtroom.

Holding that hope does not require withdrawing scrutiny of the past. People facing prosecution need attorneys who listen carefully, investigate what the police report leaves unanswered, insist on complete disclosure, and make sure a client understands what a plea will actually mean. They need advocates willing to question an unsupported assertion even when it comes from a familiar colleague. A client’s income, reputation, or difficulty navigating the system should never determine how much dignity they receive.

Rouse and Payne bring knowledge of the prosecutor’s office that can help them see where a defense needs more attention. I hope they use it to secure fuller records, better preparation, clear agreements, and real opportunities for clients to be heard. If their work produces those changes, Clutch Justice should document that progress with the same seriousness it brings to documenting failure.

Barry County needs a strong public defense office. Success here would mean that people who cannot afford an attorney receive representation capable of challenging the government and protecting their choices. That outcome is worth wanting, for their clients and for the entire courthouse.

What They Left Behind

The September 3 entry is $27.54 in routine county paperwork. “ROUSE BUSINESS CARDS” takes up part of one line. Alongside the staff directory, it documents another move out of the prosecutor’s office and into a new role in the same county’s justice system.

Payne and Rouse now have work to do for their defense clients. Nakfoor-Pratt has work to account for in the office they left. The public deserves to know who is carrying the cases, which prosecutions should still be pursued, and whether the office has corrected the failures already identified in those records. Restoring staff without changing charging and plea practices would leave the central problem intact. Recruiting another lawyer will fill a position. It will not, by itself, change what that lawyer is expected to defend in court.

What is happening inside the Barry County Prosecutor’s Office, and how many attorneys have to walk out the door before Barry County demands a clear answer?