How Ingham County Prosecutor John Dewane is trying to curb gun violence

LANSING — John Dewane has worked as a prosecutor in Ingham County for more than two decades, and he’s seen first-hand the controversies that have dogged the office in the past eight years.

The last two elected prosecutors left office under duress. One went to jail. The other retired midway into her second term amid calls from local police and a county judge to resign over her progressive policies.

Dewane, 53, was appointed on Dec. 31, 2022. He immediately directed his staff to resume use of two criminal charges his former boss, Carol Siemon, had been reluctant to use because of how they disproportionately impacted Black residents.

With shootings in Lansing and many major cities across Michigan at record highs since the pandemic, the 1998 Cooley Law School graduate told his assistant prosecutors he would enforce Michigan’s statutes on felons caught with firearms and charge habitual offenders as such.

"I think there was this disconnect between my office and (the) law enforcement community," Dewane said, adding that another one of his first tasks on the job was meeting with every police chief in the county.

'I had the blessing of my wife'

Dewane had twice passed up opportunities to seek the top job in an office where he'd worked since 2001, including eight years as a trial attorney when he prosecuted some of the county's most high-profile criminal cases.

But when Siemon announced her retirement in late 2022, the timing was different.

"I had the blessing of my wife (to pursue the job)," Dewane, a 1998 graduate of Cooley Law School, told the State Journal. "Now my kids were in college. I wasn't coaching football anymore. I could commit the time efforts that need to be done. But then also I knew there had to be a change within my office."

Dewane, who the county’s Circuit Court judges appointed to finish Siemon's second term, said reducing violent crime drove those Day 1 directives to his staff.

"And that was one of my goals. Not only reducing violent crime and gun violence in our community, but to restore the relationship between my office and law enforcement."

Dewane's memo to staff officially resumed the use of felony firearm and habitual offender charges at the start of cases where they applied.

Felony firearm can be used when someone has a firearm while committing another crime. If convicted, the charge, in essence, adds two years to any sentence.

Habitual offender status can be added if someone charged with a crime has multiple previous felony convictions. The charge increases the possible prison sentence for an offense.

Dewane’s office used the felony firearm charge 447 times last year, compared to 95 times in 2022, Siemon's last in office. It’s one of the strategies Dewane and other leaders in the law enforcement community are using to address skyrocketing gun violence.

He said he believes the message sent by the charging decisions is getting through to those most likely to pick up a firearm. And if that message means someone thinks twice before grabbing a gun to settle a grudge, Dewane said, "that's a win."

Impact from policy changes could take time

Shootings have persisted.

The city saw 15 homicides in 2023, slightly above its historical average but lower than in any year since 2019, according to State Journal records. About two dozen people in Greater Lansing died from violence in 2023.

Lansing also had at least 62 non-fatal shootings last year, four more than in 2022, the Lansing Police Department said.

Lansing Police Chief Ellery Sosebee was one of the local officials vocal in their criticism of Siemon, especially when it came to how her office used the felony firearm charge. He told the State Journal this week he believes Siemon's policy "100% emboldened the criminals in the city."

While there hasn't been a significant decrease in shootings or gun crimes in Dewane's first year, Sosebee said he thinks the impact might take time.

"You're not going to have a distinction in that crime culture just because you have one person" who changed policies, he said.

Sosebee said Dewane’s first meeting with LPD was on a day when officers had training meetings. Dewane, Sosebee said, wanted to introduce himself to the officers, and he got a standing ovation when he did.

Dewane said he was "very well received" in those meetings, in part due to his long history and reputation as an assistant prosecutor.

A year in, Sosebee said both the relationship with the prosecutor's office and how his department can pursue cases has "gotten a lot better."

"So far he's not let me down" on any of the promises made in that first week, Sosebee said.

Dewane has filed paperwork to run for election to a full four-year term. He's running as a Democrat and, as of Wednesday, no one had filed paperwork to challenge him. The filing deadline for candidates to appear on August primary ballots is April 23.

Reform efforts fall flat

Siemon, the first woman elected prosecutor in Ingham County, announced her retirement effective Dec. 31, 2022, after 17 years with the county, the last six as its chief law enforcement officer.

Siemon was elected in 2016, while now-Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was serving a six-month appointment made by local judges to fill a gap after longtime Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III resigned earlier that year.

Dunnings left office after he was arrested and charged with 15 prostitution-related crimes. He later pleaded guilty to a felony charge of misconduct in office and was sentenced to a year in jail.

By her second election in 2020, Siemon, the former chief of the office’s juvenile division, was implementing policies she said addressed racial disparities in the criminal justice system. Her charging and plea bargain policies and decisions led to a public rift with key leaders in the law enforcement community.

Opposed to life-without-parole sentences, which are automatic with a first-degree murder conviction, she offered a plea deal to a domestic violence parolee accused of bludgeoning two women to death who police arrested with a list of two other women he planned to kill.

The victims' parents objected to the plea deal. Ingham County Sheriff Scott Wriggelsworth called the plea offer “ridiculous.”

Ingham County Circuit Judge Rosemarie Aquilina, who later called for Siemon to resign, rejected the deal, saying the prosecutor was trying to “get around the judge and the Legislature, and quite frankly, the law.”

In at least two other cases, victims' families complained when Siemon charged teenage murder defendants in juvenile court where they faced less punishment than if they had been charged in adult court.

By the summer of 2021, Wriggelsworth and a group of police chiefs were criticizing Siemon's decision to limit the use of felony firearm possession charges, calling her actions “misguided.” Siemon said her office would limit using that charge as her office implemented reforms to decrease racial disparities in the criminal justice system. She added that the chiefs’ “emotional and inaccurate statements” played on fears about the rise of gun violence.

Siemon declined to comment for this story.

Dewane not opposed to reform efforts

Dewane doesn't dismiss criminal justice reform as wasted effort.

He said he's a proponent of bail reform for those charged with non-violent crimes or without a history of violent crimes. And he supports specialty courts — like ones for addiction or gun crimes — that can offer help, and not just incarceration.

He also wants to work with community violence intervention groups such as Advance Peace, one of a few operating in Lansing. Those partnerships, plus working with state and federal law enforcement, is the better way forward in addressing gun violence, Dewane believes.

He said Siemon's reform efforts failed in Ingham County, in part, because they couldn't slow the rising violence.

"I really think that our community and our citizens got fed up with the amount of gun violence that we had," he said. "I go speak to a lot of different groups, (including) neighborhood associations, and the one overwhelming theme that I hear is, 'We are tired of people shooting in our neighborhood. We're tired of our children being murdered.'"

Dewane waited more than two decades to take the office he has now. In eight months, voters will decide if he keeps it.

Contact reporter Matt Mencarini at 517-377-1026 or mjmencarini@lsj.com.

This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: How Ingham County Prosecutor John Dewane is trying to curb gun violence