Attorneys Gary Springstead and Mike Bartish have been named Super Lawyers in 2017, by Super Lawyers magazine.   Attorneys are selected based on peer nominations, professional achievements, practice area, and peer reviews.  Less than 5% of attorneys in the State of Michigan earn this prestigious designation, according to Super Lawyers. Springstead and Bartish began practicing together […]

On May 10, 2017, much to the dismay of many advocates of criminal justice reform, United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions informed federal prosecutors in a memorandum that the Justice Department would return to aggressively enforcing Federal drug laws.  This change, which represents a sharp departure from the policies of the Obama administration, almost certainly […]

U.S. Supreme Court Declares Armed Career Criminal Act Unconstitutional Sixth Circuit Applies Decision Retroactively In In re: Watkins, The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the Supreme Court’s ruling in Johnson v. United States, which struck down as unconstitutional the “residual clause” of the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), is retroactive to cases on […]

The US Attorneys Office in Grand Rapids continues to crack down on health care related/drug diversion schemes (click here for article).

Whenever the federal government targets a group of people for federal criminal prosecution, whether it’s a gang or another organized group like the mafia or a drug trafficking organization, federal criminal defense attorneys face several challenges in how to defend the case.

John Agar of MLive has a good article summarizing the federal prosecution and dismantling of the Holland Latin Kings in federal court in Grand Rapids (Click here to read the article). From the perspective of a federal criminal defense attorney in West Michigan, I believe this case will prove to be a very important case […]

In my first guest blog on the Red Dog Defender, a blog started by a great, young attorney at the Federal Defender’s Office in Grand Rapids, I analyze a recent criminal appeal in the Sixth Circuit stemming from a drug trafficking conviction in the Western District of Michigan.  Check it out and let me know what […]

If you are looking for a federal criminal defense attorney / lawyer in West Michigan, look no further than Springstead Bartish & Borgula Law.  I just updated our federal criminal defense homepage and will be providing a lot of new, relevant content to our federal criminal practice pages in the coming days, including an FAQ […]

An autopsy has revealed that a young man, who died at the Electric Forest Festival in 2014, died as the result of “acute methylnedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) toxicity,” or an overdose of MDMA.  Click here for more from a news article on the autopsy.

Yesterday, the Electric Forest Festival Attorneys at Springstead Bartish & Borgula Law learned that serious felony drug charges in two separate cases, where we had just filed legal briefs asking the Court to suppress evidence the week before, were being dismissed by the Prosecutor.  While it is unusual for a prosecutor to dismiss such charges […]