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This week, a Michigan Court of Appeals panel vacated the convictions of Pete Musico and Paul Bellar in the Wolverine Watchmen prosecution tied to the plot against Governor Whitmer. The ruling did not reach new facts. Instead, it followed an earlier appeals decision that found a jury was wrongly told kidnapping could count as a “violent felony” under Michigan’s Antiterrorism Act. The result is a legal tangle that threatens to undo convictions in a case many saw as a clear danger to public safety.
What the court actually decided
The panel said it was bound by the earlier Morrison opinion. That published ruling held that, after a 2006 change in state law, kidnapping no longer requires proof of physical force. Because Michigan’s definition of a “violent felony” requires an element of force, the court concluded kidnapping can’t be used as the violent-felony basis for the material-support-for-terrorism charges. In plain terms: the judges found the jury was given an incorrect legal theory, and that mistake tainted the verdicts against Musico and Bellar.
Why this matters beyond legal hair-splitting
Call it textualism, call it parsing the statute to death — either way, the practical effect is worrying. These men were tied to a paramilitary cell that trained with Adam Fox, the convicted leader of the plot who is serving federal time. Vacating state convictions because of a technical jury instruction hands a victory to the very kind of extremists the law was meant to stop. If courts keep overturning convictions on such formalistic grounds, the message to would‑be domestic terrorists is clear: find a legal loophole and the punishment might evaporate.
What comes next — appeals and political fallout
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has vowed to take this to the state Supreme Court, calling the appellate rulings legally suspect and promising further review. That appeal is the only real pathway to restoring the state convictions unless prosecutors choose to retry. If the Supreme Court declines review or agrees with the panels, the legislature will be left to fix a statute that is now being read in a way that lawmakers almost certainly did not intend. Either way, this will not end in the courtroom alone; it will be a political fight over how the state defines and punishes political violence.
Bottom line: fix the law or face the consequences
We should want judges to follow the law. But we should also want laws that protect citizens without inviting absurd results. Legislators can step in and clarify that kidnapping connected to terrorist plots counts as a violent felony — or the Michigan Supreme Court can correct the lower panels. If neither happens, prosecutors will face a higher bar to hold dangerous groups accountable. Either way, voters and lawmakers should not be surprised when slippery statutory language lets dangerous criminals slip through the cracks.
