Free tools for the system that counts on you not knowing how it works.
Everything free at Clutch Justice lives here: interactive tools, accountability databases, case libraries, puzzles, and the crochet-along, built to make Michigan’s judicial accountability systems legible to the people most affected by them. No account, no paywall.
Accountability reporting is only useful if the people most affected by the systems being reported on can actually engage with what gets published. The Lab is the infrastructure for that engagement: tools that teach, tools that translate, research libraries that put the documents in one place, and puzzles that make the vocabulary of Michigan courts feel less like a wall.
Start HereSomething just happened. Start with these two.
Evidence Preservation Checklist
What to screenshot, photograph, and save in the first 24 hours after an incident, before voicemail auto-deletes, footage gets overwritten, and memory fades. Covers digital evidence, physical evidence, people to document, and communications, plus the mistakes that most often compromise a case before it starts. Applies to any matter, not only Michigan cases. Not legal advice.
Download the Checklist →Do I Need an Attorney?
Answer a few questions about your Michigan court situation and get a plain-language assessment of whether you need legal representation, why it matters in your situation, and which Lab resources apply to your case.
Use the Guide →Translate the paperwork.
Plain-language guides, generators, and checks for the documents Michigan courts put in front of you.
The Interpreter
Select your Michigan court document type and get a plain-language breakdown of what it means, what it requires, key dates and deadlines, and when to get an attorney involved. Covers bond orders, PPOs, probation, plea agreements, JTC notices, and more.
Open The Interpreter →The Dossier
A step-by-step interactive guide to filing a complaint with the Michigan Judicial Tenure Commission. What qualifies, what to document, what filing actually requires, and what to realistically expect.
Open The Dossier →Michigan Courts Glossary
Forty terms from Michigan courts, the JTC, public defense, and judicial accountability. Filter by category, flip cards to reveal plain-language definitions, and drill the terms you haven’t learned yet.
Open the Glossary →Michigan FOIA Generator
Fill in a short form and get a complete, properly formatted Freedom of Information Act request letter citing MCL 15.231 et seq., ready to print and send by certified mail.
Generate a Letter →PDF Redaction X-Ray & Risk Scanner
Upload a redacted PDF and scan for hidden text under black boxes, author metadata, embedded annotations, form fields, JavaScript actions, and embedded attachments. Built for pro-se litigants and advocates who need to verify redactions before filing. All processing happens in your browser. Your document never leaves your device.
Scan a PDF →Track the people with the power.
Searchable, sourced, and free. Built for defense advocates, journalists, researchers, and anyone tracking how judges and prosecutors use their authority.
The Michigan Brady-Giglio-Santobello List
Most Brady lists track police credibility. This one tracks the prosecutors: known and alleged disclosure failures, impeachment-evidence problems, and broken plea agreements in Michigan criminal cases, organized around the three Supreme Court decisions that define a prosecutor’s core obligations to the defense.
- Brady: suppression of evidence favorable to the accused
- Giglio: undisclosed deals and credibility information about government witnesses
- Santobello: plea agreements the prosecution did not honor
Judicial Misconduct Database
Michigan judicial misconduct cases documented by Clutch Justice: judges, courts, complaint types, and outcomes. What the JTC’s confidentiality rules are designed to obscure.
Search the Database →FitBench Interactive Audit
Rate a Michigan judge across the eight FitBench performance categories based on what you’ve directly observed, and generate a structured scorecard using the framework from the proposed FitBench Act.
Open the Audit →BGS entries are drawn from public sources. Conduct is noted as alleged or documented; no formal adjudication of prosecutorial misconduct is implied unless specifically stated. The explainer covers how entries are sourced, how to submit documents, and how to take part in the doctoral research behind the list.
Case Libraries · Free · No SignupOne clean reference for every case.
Interactive timelines, structured Who’s Who references, annotated reading lists, and maps where the case calls for one. Free, no signup. Every evidentiary claim is sourced to a named document, outlet, or public filing.
Lansing River Trail Deaths
Five unhoused men found along the Lansing River Trail in eleven months, one death never announced, and the question of a connection raised first by a victim’s family.
Open Library → Live · Cases OpenOCCK & North Fox Island
The Oakland County Child Killer investigation and the North Fox Island operation, mapped together across five decades of documented overlap.
Open Library → Live · Investigation OngoingErik Cross
The 1983 Vicksburg murder: four prosecutorial declinations, five people named in a 2017 sheriff’s referral, and zero charges filed.
Open Library → Live · Series in ProgressThe Michigan Murders
The 1967 to 1969 Washtenaw County murders, the forensic science behind the Collins conviction, and the six cases the institutions never closed.
Open Library → Live · Collection OngoingAmbrose Sullivan
The 2016 hit-and-run death, the charge that was filed and the ones that were not, and the documented financial network around the defendant’s family.
Open Library → Live · Series ActiveJoey Nagle
The 2022 officer-involved shooting death of Joseph “Joey” Nagle, the missing body-camera footage, and the investigating detective’s documented history.
Open Library → Beyond Michigan · Victims UnidentifiedIsrael Keyes
An Anchorage contractor who killed across the country for more than a decade without being linked to a single crime, and died in an Alaska jail before trial. The FBI believes 11 homicides; at least seven victims remain unidentified.
Open Library → Beyond Michigan · New · 30 Years UnsolvedJonBenét Ramsey
Thirty years of released documents sorted from thirty years of noise: every document labeled by where it came from, what testing each item of evidence received, what the police file still holds back, and the Michigan warrants and court files most coverage skips.
Open Library → Series Library · 17 Cases TrackedAfter the Diary
Every case Michelle McNamara wrote about on True Crime Diary that this series revisits: what she reported, what has happened since, and how well each fact has been verified. Filter by solved, partly resolved, or unsolved, from Kathleen Lombardo to the Golden State Killer finale.
Open Library →After the Diary is an independent Clutch Justice project, not affiliated with or authorized by the estate of Michelle McNamara, Patton Oswalt, HBO, or the publishers of I’ll Be Gone in the Dark. Individuals named as suspects, subjects, or persons of interest have not been convicted of the conduct under investigation unless a conviction is specifically documented, and are entitled to the presumption of innocence. These are research references, not legal findings.
Timelines & Research ToolsHow we got here, and where to dig.
An interactive chronology of the doctrine that decides whether accountability is even possible, and a curated toolkit for doing the digging yourself.
The Qualified Immunity Timeline
Congress never passed qualified immunity. The courts built it. This timeline traces the doctrine from the 1871 civil rights statute that became Section 1983, through the Supreme Court decisions that created and expanded it, to the state-level reform fights happening now.
Open the Timeline →Free OSINT & Investigation Toolkit
A curated, filterable directory of open-source intelligence tools for accountability journalism, public-document research, and institutional forensics. Most need no login.
Open the Toolkit →Learn the vocabulary the fun way.
Four puzzle series built on Michigan courts and evidentiary logic. Every past issue stays playable.
Cold Case Crossword
Clues drawn from case files, court transcripts, autopsy reports, and investigative journalism. No trivia, no filler.
Play →The Docket
Four fictional judges, four Michigan counties, four JTC complaint types, four outcomes. Work out who did what.
Play →Chain of Custody
Put evidence handling, forensic procedure, and legal process in order. One broken link and the chain fails.
Play →Clutch Connects
Sixteen Michigan court terms, four hidden groups, four guesses, and one term that looks like it belongs somewhere else.
Play →Want a longer case? The Clutch Cold Case Files are full fictional investigations you solve over a few hours, with a free sample to start.
Crochet · The Detective ClubEvidence you can hold.
Justice-themed crochet patterns with every stitch count audited before publication. Free base patterns live on the blog; Full Editions with the charts, size math, and audit tables are in the shop.
The 2026 Clutch Blanket Mystery
Twenty free squares. Twenty Saturdays, August 1 through December 12, 2026. One serialized fictional mystery, The Harlow County File, solved one document at a time. By December, it’s one finished blanket: The Clutch Justice Investigation Blanket™.
- All 20 weekly 8-inch square patterns
- All 20 chapters of The Harlow County File
- The free Mystery Notebook and materials guide
- Certified Clutch Investigator certificate at completion
The Pattern Shelf
The Crime Scene Tape Scarf, the Clutch Cuties mascots, the Evidence Bag Pouch, the Amigurumi Gavel, and the rest of the line. Read the free versions on the blog, or get the Full Editions in the shop. Every Full Edition is also in the Clutch Confidential members area. The Investigation Blanket™ Complete Edition arrives week 20.
The Harlow County File is a work of serialized fiction. Harlow County, its offices, and every person and case in it are invented, and the story is not based on any real case Clutch Justice has reported on. Finished items from any pattern may be sold; the patterns themselves may not be republished or resold.
How The Lab is builtNo app. No login. No data collection.
Every tool runs inside a WordPress Custom HTML block or downloads as a static PDF. The puzzles are self-contained. The Interpreter, Dossier, and Glossary are built on publicly available information about Michigan court processes. The research libraries are compiled from public documents, court files, and named investigative journalism, with every claim sourced to the document or outlet that reported it.
The Lab is a living section of the site, and tools are added as they’re ready. Coming next: a case timeline builder for active investigations and a conviction rate explorer built on Michigan caseload data. Have an idea for a tool that would have made a difference in your own experience with Michigan courts? Email hello@clutchjustice.com.
What The Lab is notQuestions, answered.
How do I know if I need a lawyer?
Use the Do I Need an Attorney guide. It walks through the most common Michigan court situations and explains whether legal representation is urgent, strongly advisable, worth considering, or optional, and why each answer applies to your situation.
Does any of this cost money?
No. Every tool in The Lab is free, with no subscription, no account, and no paywall. If you want to support the work, Clutch Confidential is $10 a month, but it’s never required to use a tool.
Can I share these tools with someone going through a Michigan court case?
Yes. That’s exactly what they’re for. The Interpreter and The Dossier are the most directly useful for people in active situations, the Glossary helps with vocabulary, and the BGS List helps anyone tracking prosecutorial disclosure. Send the URL, not a screenshot.
What is the Michigan Brady-Giglio-Santobello List?
Most Brady lists track police credibility. This one tracks prosecutors: known and alleged disclosure failures, impeachment-evidence problems, and broken plea agreements in Michigan criminal cases, organized around Brady v. Maryland, Giglio v. United States, and Santobello v. New York. Conduct is noted as alleged or documented. It’s a public accountability resource, not legal advice.
Are the OCCK, Michigan Murders, and Erik Cross libraries conclusions about who is responsible?
No. All three are compiled research references built from public documents, court files, and named investigative journalism. Investigative theory is labeled as such throughout. No person identified as a suspect or person of interest in any library has been convicted of the crimes described, and in the Erik Cross case, no one was ever charged. Cases remain open.
I found an error in a tool. How do I report it?
Email hello@clutchjustice.com with the tool name, what you found, and what the correct information should be, or send it through the Clutch Intel portal. Factual corrections are taken seriously and addressed promptly.
Sources and Documentation
How to Cite This Page
Rita Williams, The Lab: Interactive Tools for Understanding Michigan Courts, Clutch Justice (Apr. 10, 2025), https://clutchjustice.com/the-lab/.
Williams, R. (2025, April 10). The lab: Interactive tools for understanding Michigan courts. Clutch Justice. https://clutchjustice.com/the-lab/
Williams, Rita. “The Lab: Interactive Tools for Understanding Michigan Courts.” Clutch Justice, 10 Apr. 2025, clutchjustice.com/the-lab/.
Williams, Rita. “The Lab: Interactive Tools for Understanding Michigan Courts.” Clutch Justice, April 10, 2025. https://clutchjustice.com/the-lab/.
The Lab is free. Keeping it that way isn’t.
Clutch Confidential members fund the tools and libraries for everyone, for $10 a month.