By Jon King / jking@whmi.com


A motion to move the trial of two men charged with the deaths of 11 Livingston County residents has been denied.

Barry Cadden and Glenn Chin are facing trial in Livingston County Circuit Court on second degree murder charges filed last year by the Michigan Attorney General’s Office for their roles in running the New England Compounding Center. At a hearing this morning in front of Judge Michael Hatty, two motions were put forward by attorneys for Cadden. One was to move the trial out of Livingston County, arguing that it will be impossible to find a panel of jurors not personally impacted by the outbreak. The other was seeking to dismiss the charges under the double jeopardy standard as both men had already been convicted in federal court on similar charges.

Judge Hatty denied both. On the change of venue motion, he said he was “fairly confident” the defendants could still get a fair trial in Livingston County. As to double jeopardy, Judge Hatty ruled that the state and federal governments had distinct jurisdictions and that the charges were valid at both levels. A third motion to overturn the decision by 53rd District Court Judge Shauna Murphy to send the case to trial remains pending.

Cadden was part owner and Chin was supervising pharmacist at the facility, in which authorities say lax conditions were allowed to infect steroids produced there that led to the 2012 outbreak that killed more than 100 people nationwide and sickened nearly a thousand others. Investigators connected the compounding pharmacy to Michigan clinics, including Michigan Pain Specialists in Genoa Township, which had dispensed the NECC contaminated steroids.