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Practice Areas

Attorney Glenn Simmington's experience in the areas of constitutional rights,
professional liability defense, and general civil practice has been complemented
by successful handling of criminal defense and appellate matters.
Appeals

 

Glenn Simmington has been admitted to practice before all of Michigan's appeals courts, as well as the Sixth Circuit United States Court of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court.

 

 

Criminal Defense

Mr. Simmington has represented persons accused of misdemeanors and felonies in Michigan's district and circuit courts for all of his years in practice, and has represented dozens of defendants before the U.S. District Court for Michigan's Eastern District. 

 

Recent Cases

 

Federal
 
  • “Not Guilty” – the so-called “two-word verdict” that federal prosecutors fear, is also the verdict that defendants almost never hear.  (More than 90 percent of defendants in federal court actually plead guilty rather than go to trial.  See http://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/types-cases/criminal-cases .  And federal defendants combined – that includes those who choose to go to trial – are convicted 97% of the time.)
    But just last year, a “not guilty” verdict is just what “D.S.” – a federal defendant represented by Mr. Simmington, got from a federal court jury in the Eastern District of Michigan.  Accused by prosecutors of threatening to take the lives of a federal judge’s family, in order to retaliate against the judge for having ruled against him in an important federal matter, “D.S.” proclaimed his innocence at trial, with Mr. Simmington fighting by his side.  “Not guilty,” he then proceeded home to be with his family. 
  • Representing Melissa Mays in the landmark "Flint Water Case," (captioned, in the Eastern District of Michigan Federal Court as "Concerned Pastors for Social Action, et al., v. Nick A. Khoury, et al.”), Glenn teamed with the Natural Resources Defense Council and the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan to help achieve a settlement that will, once fully implemented, eliminate further water-borne lead poisoning of City of Flint residents.  In addition, the settlement will provide Flint residents with the critical health and medical services they need to mitigate the damage inflicted upon them by their lengthy, and unnecessary, exposure to lead-laced drinking water.
 
Filed under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, the comprehensive, 92-page settlement achieved by Ms. Mays and the "Flint Water Team" will result in the complete removal and replacement of all of the city’s lead and galvanized steel residential service lines. Those lines have been poisoning many thousands of Flint residents for well over a year – since April of 2014, when the city’s state-appointed "emergency manager" decided, in an effort to save money, to switch Flint’s public water source, from properly-treated Detroit water to corrosive and insufficiently-treated Flint River water.
 
Through this important lawsuit, the NRDC, the ACLU of Michigan, and Mr. Simmington were also able to secure for Flint’s citizens, at no cost to either the City or them, properly functioning water filters and safe bottled water, all while the removal and replacement of the lead-leaching lines is being completed.
 
  • In 2013, "Mr. “SJ” was indicted in the Eastern District of Michigan federal court and charged with being a "Felon in Possession of a Firearm," following his traffic stop arrest in the City of Flint. Facing prosecution under the Armed Career Criminal Act (“ACCA”), and facing a mandatory 15-year Bureau of Prisons sentence, "Mr. SJ” pled "not guilty," stating not only that he was unaware that the borrowed vehicle he was driving at the time had a gun located under the seat, but also that he had not "rolled through" a stop sign just before being stopped, as one of the arresting officers claimed.

    When pretrial discovery revealed that Mr. SJ's stop was conducted within a “designated” traffic enforcement "hot spot," (so designated because it was also a "high crime area"), Mr. Simmington obtained sworn, but conflicting and inconsistent, testimony from the arresting officers regarding their alleged basis for the stop. Thereafter, Mr. Simmington's motion to suppress the weapon was granted, the Trial Judge ruling, in effect, "No gun, no case." Mr.” SJ's” Fourth Amendment "right to be free from unreasonable seizures" having been vindicated as a result, he has been freed to return to his job and family.

     

  • In early 2012, "Mr. LG" was charged in federal court with multiple capital felonies, including the distribution of controlled substances in aid of racketeering.  When pretrial discovery disclosed that the vast majority of the drugs Mr. G. was accused of "possessing with intent to distribute" had been seized pursuant to a constitutionally questionable search warrant, Mr. Simmington successfully persuaded the trial judge to declare that those drugs had been illegally seized, were therefore the "poisonous fruit" of an unconstitutional search, and were thus required to be suppressed from the jury's consideration in Mr. "G's" trial.
     

  • In the early summer of 2011, “D.W.” was charged in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan with the crime of felon in possession of a firearm (FIP). Since “Mr. W’s” previous criminal record made him subject to the federal Armed Career Criminal Act, a conviction on his FIP charge would have resulted in a mandatory minimum federal sentence of 15 years in the Bureau of Prisons.

    Representing “Mr. W,” however, Glenn Simmington brought a motion to suppress the weapon and dismiss the case, based upon the constitutionally questionable nature of the client’s traffic stop arrest, and his search and seizure by the Michigan State Police. After a lengthy hearing, lasting parts of three days, and following the filing of briefs that consisted of 63 pages (not including exhibits), Mr. Simmington was able to negotiate a plea deal which not only avoided the 15 year mandatory minimum “Mr. W” was facing, but also resulted in a Bureau of Prison sentence of just 96 months.

  • “C.K.,” M.D., became disabled from practicing as a surgeon following a skiing accident in the mid-1970’s, and after receiving disability benefits for 25 years, had those benefits terminated by his insurer. “Dr. K” then filed suit in the U.S. District Court for Michigan’s Eastern District, asking that his disability benefits be reinstated. When the District Court Judge granted the insurance company’s ensuing motion for summary judgment of dismissal, Mr. Simmington successfully worked to appeal the dismissal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and Dr. K’s right to have a jury decide whether his disability benefits should be continued was restored.

State

 

  • “T.A.,” a Saudi Arabian student at the University of Michigan, was charged with criminal sexual assault, after a female UM student claimed he assaulted her at knifepoint while the two of them sat in her car on campus.  Despite a previous determination that the female student had falsely accused another man of a similar knifepoint sexual assault in the past, the Circuit Court Judge in “Mr. A’s” case denied a motion filed by Glenn Simmington to allow evidence of her previous false accusation.

    After the judge so ruled, Mr. Simmington, working with counsel representing the Saudi Arabian Consulate in New York, was able to successfully negotiate a plea deal which not only avoided “Mr. A’s” deportation, but also resulted in a sentence of probation.

 

  • Who knew that, even before the current presidential administration's deportation and removal policy changes, a permanent legal resident could face deportation for being charged with a non- alcohol/non-drug related traffic offense?  When recently contacted by just such a person – who faced a reckless driving-related charge – Glenn not only knew that deportation could result, but also agreed to     engage in every effort to assure that, in his/her case, it would not.  

       

A complicated, and intense, defense of the client by Mr. Simmington ensued, and after more than a year, the matter was resolved, not just with assurance that no deportation will occur, but also with a complete dismissal of the case.

 

(Client’s name withheld, by agreement.)

 

 

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