Coffee clears the air between Oakland County prosecutor and sheriff

Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald and Sheriff Michael Bouchard met for coffee Sunday, clearing the air between them after a public dustup over their roles in the Oxford High School shooting case.

"I've been on the phone with Mike Bouchard at least five times since this morning," McDonald told the Free Press on Monday afternoon. "We made a point of sitting down yesterday afternoon to try to open the lines of communication to make sure that we are on the same page."

McDonald said she was confident the two offices were cooperating on the case and will continue.

"I feel really good about it actually," she said.

Bouchard wasn't available Monday afternoon but Undersheriff Michael McCabe said the relationship between the two offices is professional.

"The sheriff and the prosecutor are in regular communication and yesterday they spent time together over coffee," McCabe said. "They're working together hand-in-glove on this investigation."

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The comity is a switch from Friday when McDonald announced involuntary manslaughter charges against James and Jennifer Crumbley, the parents of Ethan Crumbley, the defendant in the shooting at the school on Nov. 30.

The Crumbleys were not in custody when the charges were made public and didn't appear for an afternoon arraignment, despite assurances from their lawyers that they would. That prompted a manhunt that ended early Saturday in the dark of night when the couple was found in an industrial building in Detroit near the Belle Isle bridge.

McCabe blasted McDonald publicly, telling the Free Press: "In my entire 44-year career, I have never, ever seen a prosecutor announce charges in a major case without the suspect being in custody first."

McDonald told CNN that night that the Crumbleys fleeing "wasn't on anyone's radar," adding it was unfortunate that there was a discussion on national TV "about who is to blame" for the couple's disappearance.

"I don't care who is to blame," she said. "What I really care about is the victims."

The two offices need to work together on cases every day, not just major ones like the Oxford High shooting.

McDonald said that they do, though there has been a bit of a learning curve.

Bouchard, a Republican and former state senator who once ran for U.S. Senate, has been sheriff since 1999. McDonald, a Democrat, took office in January after giving up a safe seat as a judge to run for prosecutor.

McDonald trounced incumbent Jessica Cooper by an almost 2-1 margin in the Democratic primary last year, before easily beating Republican Lin Goetz in the November general election.

She ran on a platform of transparency and communication and fashioned herself as a more progressive prosecutor.

She brought new scrutiny of the Sheriff's Office and other law enforcement agencies over their use of jailhouse informants in criminal cases. She reexamined the handling of informants, who had sometimes had a dubious history. Ultimately, Juwan Deering, who had been convicted of murder and arson in a fire that killed five children, was released and charges dropped after he spent 15 years in prison in a Sheriff's Office case that relied heavily on informants with questionable credibility. She put a new policy in place that all use of informants must be with her approval.

"Keep in mind that Jessica Cooper was in office for 12 years and that this is a new relationship," she said. "I'm not just a new prosecutor, but I'm a different kind of prosecutor."

McDonald said that about 20% of her office's cases come from the Sheriff's Office, with the rest coming from local police departments. She said she's established a Law Enforcement Advisory Council and meets regularly with police chiefs from across the county.

She is a different prosecutor, but she said she's confident that police across the county recognize her commitment to public safety.

"It's unfortunate that there was a public perception, even for a small period of time, that we were at odds," she said. "We just have to be on the same page and we have to work together to try to bring justice to these victims, and also to help support the people in both of our offices and in this community."

Free Press staff writer Paul Egan contributed to this report. Contact John Wisely: 313-222-6825 or jwisely@freepress.com. On Twitter @jwisely

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Oakland County prosecutor and sheriff clear the air over coffee