Last summer, four Chinese nationals were arrested in Iosco County for their involvement in what law enforcement officials dubbed an "organized crime" marijuana operation spanning multiple states with ties to China.
Meiqing Chen, Wenying Wu, Changning Zhen and Zhenhong Nie were all arrested after the Michigan State Police executed a search warrant for a 5,700 square foot Alabaster Township warehouse and found 5,045 illegally grown marijuana plants, worth over $5 million.
Investigators had inquired about the facility after finding evidence of excessive energy use at the location. A police report obtained by WCMU via a public records request show the facility racked up a $260,000 energy bill.
Two of the four defendants, Zhen and Nie, were detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and were not criminal prosecuted. They were later deported back to China.
Chen and Wu were released on bond following their arrest and made another court appearance in February for sentencing.
They were originally charged with manufacturing 45 kilograms or more and maintaining a drug house, a Class C felony that could have landed them 15 years in state prison.
Court documents detail Wu and Chen's respective plea deals amounted to one count of delivering/manufacturing marijuana which, as a Class E felony, offering a much lighter sentence.
In the state of Michigan, maximum sentences for felony cases are statutory. But minimum sentences are determined using a set of advisory guidelines, which are not legally binding.
The outcome of this case was determined by the Michigan Sentencing Guidelines, which have not been updated in decades, and some say it's time for a change.
How sentencing works in Michigan
The guidelines use two variables to determine the severity of a minimum sentence: a defendant's prior record and the offense level.
These variables are scored using a point system of sorts. Defendants score higher when they have previously engaged in criminal activity and when the crime committed causes harm to other people, public order or property.
Given a defendant's score, prosecutors, defense attorneys, the Michigan Department of Corrections and judges then use grids within the guidelines to determine an appropriate range for their sentence.
Iosco County Prosecuting Attorney Jim Bacarella, who tried Chen and Wu's case, said neither defendant had any prior criminal history.
There was evidence, Bacarella said, the defendants were victims of human trafficking. They were not in charge of running the operation, he added.
"With that, [the] Department of Corrections looked at it," Bacarella said. "Their recommendation was the three days each of them had previously spent in jail with no further time being incarcerated. And then there were fines and costs that were also associated with it."
J. Dee Brooks, the prosecuting attorney for Midland County, said the guidelines were developed in order to enable judges across Michigan to hand out consistent and predictable sentences.
"The idea was that it shouldn't matter whether you commit an offense in Wayne County in Detroit or in Mount Pleasant in Isabella County or in the UP," Brooks said. "If it's that crime, they should be looking at a similar type of punishment.”
Up until 2015, judges were obligated to use the guidelines when determining a defendant's sentence. That changed when the Michigan Supreme Court ruled the guidelines could only be advisory because the legislature had not enacted them into law.
Now, they have discretion to deviate from the scored sentence ranges suggested by the guidelines.
“If a judge is going to depart, they have to not only give reasons for the departure, but they also have to give objective reasons for why the particular sentence that they give is the right sentence,” Brooks said.
A judge departing from the guidelines is rare, Brooks said.
Chris Becker is president of the Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan, and the prosecuting attorney for Kent County. He echoed Brooks' sentiment regarding the consistency of the guidelines but said they do fall short in some areas.
“The guidelines for violent crimes are usually fairly high and consistent," Brooks said. "But you get somebody that steals $200,000 and the guidelines are relatively small because there's nothing violent, there's no injury, there's no death or destruction or anything like that.”
There are also idiosyncrasies that the guidelines perpetuate, Bacarella said. For example, he said, the Michigan legislature requires any sentence less than 17 months to be served in county jail, while any greater sentence is served in a state prison.
However, sentences served in a county jail are limited to 12 months.
"If someone scores out 17 months, then we know automatically they're not going to go to jail for more than 12," Bacarella said. "It's one of those fallacies inside the criminal sentencing guidelines where you may have scored something higher, but you're going to get something lower."
The future of state sentencing guidelines
As reported by Bridge Michigan, the Michigan Sentencing Commission met for the first time in almost 30 years in May after lawmakers reinstated it in 2024 to review the sentencing guidelines.
This comes at a time when, according to a report from the Crime and Justice Institute, the average minimum sentence in Michigan is increasing.
The report details the average minimum sentence length went up from 3.8 years in 2020 to 4.7 years in 2023.
Typically, the increases in minimum sentences apply to violent and drug-based crimes, which are the most common offenses within the prison population.
According to a 2025 MDOC report, inmate population in state prisons has decreased from 43,359 in 2014 to just under 33,000 in 2025. The population has started to trend upward again in recent years but is predicted to decrease again in the future.
Elias Muawad is a defense attorney in Michigan. He said he hopes the commission places a greater emphasis on how mental health concerns factor in to determining an appropriate sentence.
“I don't think the guidelines delve into enough mental health problems in the state to try to curtail maybe some of the incarceration,” Muawad said.
The MSC has not yet made any changes to the guidelines. A spokesperson for the MDOC liaison to the MSC declined to comment for this story.
“I don't think they're going to do away and change all completely the sentencing guidelines," Muawad said. "I think they've been around too long. For the most part, they're pretty accurate in how they figure stuff out."
