Whitmer kidnapping plot convictions have been thrown out by a state appeals court, the latest legal development in one of the most closely watched domestic extremism cases in recent American history.
The Michigan Court of Appeals vacated the convictions of Paul Bellar and Pete Musico on July 20, ruling that the legal basis on which jurors convicted them cannot stand under state law. Both men had been found guilty in the Whitmer case of providing material support for an act of terrorism in connection with the alleged Whitmer kidnapping scheme. But the appeals court determined that the underlying act those charges were built on, kidnapping, does not legally qualify as terrorism under Michigan’s statutory framework.
The distinction is technical but consequential. Michigan law defines an act of terrorism as an act that would constitute a violent felony under state statutes. Kidnapping, despite the gravity of the offense, does not meet the statutory definition of a violent felony under that framework. Because kidnapping cannot legally serve as the act of terrorism that grounds a charge of providing material support for terrorism, the convictions could not stand.
A prior ruling pointed the way
The panel deciding the Bellar and Musico case pointed explicitly to a ruling issued in June involving a third co-defendant, Joseph Morrison. A different appeals court panel had reached the same legal conclusion when examining Morrison’s conviction on the same charge, determining that kidnapping cannot properly form the basis for a providing material support for terrorism conviction.
In the Morrison ruling, the appeals panel found that jurors had received incorrect legal instructions about what qualified as an act of terrorism under state law, and that the erroneous guidance rendered the verdict unreliable. The Bellar and Musico panel followed that reasoning, applying the same statutory analysis and reaching the same conclusion that the jury instructions in their trial had been flawed in the same fundamental way.
The legal error did not require a showing that the men were innocent of any wrongdoing. It reflected a determination that the specific charge on which they were convicted was legally defective as applied to the facts of the case.
A case years in the making
The alleged Whitmer kidnapping plot became one of the most widely publicized domestic extremism cases in the United States after federal and state authorities announced arrests in October 2020. Prosecutors alleged that a militia group with anti-government extremist ties had planned to abduct Gov. Whitmer from her vacation home in northern Michigan, motivated in part by anger over pandemic-related restrictions Whitmer had imposed.
The federal prosecutions that came out of the case produced mixed results, with some defendants acquitted and others convicted after a second trial. The state-level prosecutions have now encountered their own legal complications, with the appeals court decisions vacating convictions that had followed lengthy and high-profile trials.
The rulings do not necessarily end the legal proceedings against the men in the Whitmer case. Prosecutors could potentially seek to retry them on different charges, or appeal the vacatur decisions to a higher court. No announcement about next steps had been made at the time the ruling was issued.
What the ruling does and does not mean
It is important to be precise about what the appeals court held. The decisions in the Morrison and related Bellar and Musico cases did not find that the alleged conduct never occurred or that the men played no role in any plot. The courts found a specific legal defect in how the charges were constructed and how jurors were instructed, making the resulting verdicts legally invalid.
The distinction matters because the public understanding of these cases often collapses the legal question of whether a charge was properly constructed with the factual question of whether certain conduct took place. Courts can and do overturn convictions on technical legal grounds without making any determination about the underlying facts.
For Michigan prosecutors, the Whitmer ruling is an unwelcome reminder that even high-profile prosecutions with significant political stakes are subject to ordinary appellate review, and that statutory precision matters when charges are built.
