by P.D. Lesko

On Jan. 24, 2025, Washtenaw County Circuit Court Judge Julia B. Owdziej ordered portions of the background check done by the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Special Investigations Unit on Sheriff’s Deputy D’Angelo McWilliams and released accidentally to the public in a public court filing be “corrected.” At the same hearing, the Judge refused to grant the County’s request that she clawback the public record accidentally released by the County’s attorney Josh Apel of Miller Johnson. The Judge also refused to force the newspaper to unpublish “County Sheriff and Dir. of Engagement Lied, Knew About Deputy’s Background Check Rape Investigations.”

It was the Court’s final decision in a straightforward lawsuit brought under the auspices of the state’s FOIA statute that became complicated by the County’s accidental release of the public record for which the newspaper had sued.

On Sept. 18, 2024, the Honorable Julia B. Owdziej ordered redacted and released a public record sought by the Ann Arbor Independent from Washtenaw County in a March 2024 Freedom of Information Request. The newspaper sought the background check of a Sheriff’s Deputy who, 15 months after being hired in May 2019, was charged with a dozen sex crimes by the Washtenaw County Prosecutor.

The County filed a Motion and asked the Judge to reconsider her ruling. In doing so, the County attached an unredacted copy of the McWilliams background check to its Motion as an exhibit. On Dec. 10, the newspaper published “County Sheriff and Dir. of Engagement Lied, Knew About Deputy’s Background Check Rape Investigations.“

On Dec. 16, 2024, the County then filed a Motion to Correct Clerical Error. In that Motion, the County’s lawyer-for-hire Josh Apel from Miller Johnson, asked the Judge Owdziej to force the newspaper to unpublish the Dec. 10, 2024 article. Apel also asked the Judge to force the newspaper to destroy the released record in its possession. Both of these requests for relief have been ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court, as both qualify as restraint of the free press.

In his pleadings on Jan. 24, Apel said that the County would need to evaluate its intention to appeal Judge Owdziej’s Sept. 18, 2024 ruling that ordered pages of the McWilliams background check released subject to redaction.

The Judge pointed out that no further judicial controversy exists as the record has been published. In cases such as these, Michigan’s higher courts, having no relief to grant to a Plaintiff, will refuse to hear appeals such as the one the County had indicated it would file.

While Josh Apel asked the Court to correct his clerical error, the Judge stated in her comments from the bench on Jan. 24 that the “clerical error” had been hers, and had been brought to her attention in a Dec. 10, 2024 filing.

Whether the inclusion of the unredacted public record in a public court filing was a “clerical error” which can be corrected is not consistent with the legal definition of “clerical error,” or federal case law.

The inclusion of the unredacted record in the County’s filing influenced the outcome of the case; the County is now precluded from appealing, as the public record sought has been obtained and is in the public domain.

A clerical error in the legal sense is a minor error which does not influence the outcome of a case. According to Black’s Law Dictionary, a “clerical error” is defined as “a minor mistake or inadvertence, usually in writing or copying something on the record, and not arising from judicial reasoning or determination; essentially, a small mistake made in paperwork, like a typo or incorrect number, that can be corrected without affecting the overall legal decision.” 

The newspaper will not appeal the Judge’s decision to redact the County’s exhibit included in the case file as a “clerical error” on her part. It means members of the public who view the public court case file, will not be able to read the unredacted portions of the McWilliams background check, a public record which Josh Apel released to the public in Dec. 2024.

Because the Plaintiff prevailed only in part, the award of all, some or none of court costs is awarded solely at the discretion of the judge. Judge Owdziej repeatedly refused to order that Washtenaw County pay the Plaintiff’s court costs, a $175 filing fee and $60 in fees for Motions.

On Jan. 24, Judge Owdziej once again characterized her ruling to release portions of the McWilliams background check “an extraordinary situation,” and a decision she would not make in 99 out of 100 instances.

In reality, cities and counties in Michigan and across the nation release police records, including background investigations, personnel files, police investigations, disciplinary and conduct reports to the media (and the public) as a matter of course. Washtenaw County’s refusal to release the McWilliams background check in light of his arrest and trial on charges of alleged criminal sexual conduct, including rape, allowed former Sheriff Jerry Clayton to tell the public he did not have any knowledge of McWilliams’s alleged crimes when placing McWilliams on unpaid leave 15 months after hiring McWilliams. It also hid the contents of a background check that had been completed by Clayton’s Special Investigations Unit.

Washtenaw County’s refusal to release the McWilliams background check effectively hid from the public the fact that before D’Angelo McWilliams had been hired by the Washtenaw County Sheriff as a deputy, he had been the subject of two sex crime investigations, copies of which had been attached to the background report. Washtenaw County’s refusal to turn over the public record also hid that despite the fact McWilliams had lied to the background investigator about those sex crime investigations, Clayton had hired the man.

At an Aug. 2020 press conference at which former Sheriff Jerry L. Clayton and his then Dir. of Communications Derrick L. Jackson, announced D’Angelo McWilliams had been placed on unpaid leave. Clayton and Jackson told the media and the public they’d had no knowledge of McWilliams’s alleged sex “crimes.” Jackson is said to have been told about the two sex crime investigations and to have termed the hire of D’Angelo McWilliams as a “diversity hire.”

In Dec. 2024, Derrick Jackson, who lost his bid to be the County’s next Sheriff in Aug. 2024, was hired as Washtenaw County’s Racial Equity Officer.

In Nov. 2024, the Ann Arbor Independent filed suit in the Washtenaw County Trial Court to compel Supreme Felons, Incorporation, a local non-profit funded entirely by Washtenaw County, to release their financial records. That suit is pending.