BERRIEN COUNTY COMMISSION UPDATE

By DEBRA HAIGHT
BCR Correspondent
ST. JOSEPH – Berrien County Commissioners heard an update from Berrien County Prosecutor Steve Pierangeli at their meeting last week. Pierangeli spoke on a number of topics but did not address the controversy over a book given to students by a Coloma teacher.
The Coloma issue was brought up in public comments after Pierangeli had left the meeting. Shawn Hill of St. Joseph questioned the prosecutor’s decision to not prosecute the Coloma Middle School teacher who gave a book titled “Looking for Alaska” with allegedly sexually explicit language to students over the Christmas break.
In a letter to the Coloma police chief, Pierangeli wrote that while the book sections he was given to review for possible criminal prosecution “do raise some concerns with the graphic nature of them”, he could not say that the teacher’s actions were criminal in nature.

“They may have been ill-advised, but that is a determination for the school to make and any ramifications must be handled by the school as they see appropriate,” he wrote. He added that recourse for the community is to appeal to the local school board or the state legislature to change the law.
He noted that state statute requires not only that the material in question could be seen as sexually explicit but also that it must also be “harmful to minors.” He added that the state law does not apply to teachers who distribute materials as part of a school program permitted by law.
Pierangeli also questioned whether the distribution of the book was patently offensive to community standards which is one element of the state law, noting that he had been told that several parents had thanked the school for distributing the book and said that it had led to “needed conversations” with their children.
Hill disagreed with Pierangeli’s assessment and asked county commissioners to come up with an ordinance so that the county’s children can be protected. “Let’s help protect kids from sexually explicit materials,” he said. “I’m asking you to come up with an ordinance and start to protect our kids.”
Commissioners did not respond to Hill’s concerns and also had not brought up the topic during Pierangeli’s presentation. The issue has become a flashpoint for disagreements at school board and other governmental meetings throughout the nation over the last few years with parents raising concerns about materials being taught to their children.
In this area, the issue has come up at the Brandywine school board meeting near Niles. Four members of the “We The Parents” organization were elected to the school board in November and took office in January. Their efforts to establish committees on curriculum and the review of books with explicit material have met with pushback from others in the community.
Pierangeli covered a range of topics in his report to the county board, from staffing and prosecution statistics to his ongoing outreach to the community to address ongoing concerns.
Pierangeli said the prosecutor’s office is still down three attorneys from the 22 attorneys they are authorized to have but are having new people coming in the next few months. “Sometimes we run short, but I won’t hire just anybody, it’s important to have someone with a passion for the job,” he said.
He did say the office has been blessed to have former Berrien County Prosecutor Michael Sepic coming back on a part-time basis. “Mike Sepic is coming back to help,” he said. “I hired him mostly for mentoring, he’s following the younger attorneys in court, giving them advice and helping them prepare for trials.”
He noted that Sepic has been a mentor to him in the 18 years he’s been in the office. “He’s been a tremendous mentor to me in my career too,” he said. “I’ve met with him once a month during the two years he’s been retired.”
Pierangeli reported that his office reviewed 4,157 felony charges which is more than in any other previous year. In addition, the office reviewed 3,913 misdemeanor charges brought to them from area police agencies.
He noted that his office is not a rubber stamp and approving all charges brought to them from area police agencies. “Multiple assistant prosecutors are looking at charges every day to review them,” he said.
“Last year in St. Joseph alone, 1,890 charges were denied for lack of evidence or because of questions of whether something was a crime,” he added. “Over 20 percent of cases in St. Joseph were not authorized, that shows that we take our oath seriously to represent the community. We don’t rubberstamp everything the police bring in.”
Other statistics he provided included the fact that his office conducted over 80 trials in 2022, 66 of them for felonies. He said the prosecutor’s office also saw a reduction in school threats reported after a large increase in late 2021 and early 2022.
Pierangeli also outlined efforts being done to reduce crime in Benton Harbor and credited the extra help the city has received from the Michigan State Police over the years. He said violent crime in Benton Harbor increased just four-tenths of one percent from 2020 to 2021 and that property crimes dropped 31.5 percent in that same period.
He said that the crime prevention squad of the Michigan State Police pulled 117 guns off the street in 2022 including one taken off a man during a traffic stop which eventually led to the person being arrested and convicted of murder.
He said he’s working with new County Commissioner Chokwe Pitchford and other officials on reducing gun violence. “It’s important to have that dialogue,” he said. “It’s a dynamic issue that police presence alone doesn’t solve. We can’t arrest or police our way out of the problem. We have to have cooperation and solutions to try something different.”
Ongoing community efforts he’s involved in include working with area pastors on criminal expungement and targeting elementary and middle school students for education efforts. He has talked to over 5,000 students about the dangers associated with cell phones and his office is also working with area schools to fight truancy and keeping kids in school.
In 2023, he said his office will be working to bring a prosecutorial dashboard online to show what trials are going on, getting pastors into the jail to counsel inmates and into schools to mentor young people, developing a parenting peer program to help parents and possibly starting a sobriety court.