Daily Briefs

 Human trafficking report urges state to adopt new laws 

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — A state human trafficking commission says Michigan should pass laws to ensure teens ensnared in the sex trade are presumed as victims, not prostitutes.

By granting them safe harbor, the focus can be on providing services to help young girls, according to a report unveiled Wednesday. Another recommendation from the six-month review would toughen criminal penalties for traffickers and “johns” who solicit sex from 16- and 17-year-old girls.
 
Attorney General Bill Schuette, lawmakers, advocates and experts say Michigan must do more to raise awareness of and stop trafficking for sex and labor. The commission has identified more than 300 confirmed victims but believes trafficking is underreported.

The Legislature also is being urged to give prosecutors more time to freeze assets gained from trafficking and let victims erase their convictions.
 
 

Attorney elected as Fellow of trust and estate counsel

Dickinson Wright attorney James Spica has been elected as a Fellow of the American College of Trust & Estate Counsel.
 
Spica is a member in the firm’s Detroit office. He focuses his practice on estate and tax planning, trust banking and trust litigation. He was the principal author of the Greenleaf Trust perpetuities reform proposal enacted as the Michigan Personal Property Trust Perpetuities Act of 2008 and of the Greenleaf “trust decanting” proposal enacted as 2012 Michigan Public Acts Nos. 483, 484 and 485. He served on the ad hoc committee of the ABA’s Real Property, Trust and Estate Law Section that drafted the Section’s response (dated September 10, 2012) to the Treasury Department’s request (in IRS Notice 2011-101) for comments on the tax implications of trust decanting. His most recent publication is “Spilt to Last: Longevity Planning for Tax Advantaged Trusts under a New Statutory Decanting Regime in Michigan,” 48 Real Prop. Tr. & Est. L. J. 35 (2013). 

Spica has an LL.M. (in Taxation) from New York University, was clerk to the Hon. Richard C. Wilbur, United States Tax Court, and held a series of law professorships, from 1988 to 2000, at the University of Detroit Mercy, where he lectured, latterly as a tenured associate professor, on taxation, trusts and decedents’ estates. Spica is a coauthor of the Michigan Estate Planning Handbook (2nd ed. 2006 & Supp.) and Trust Administration Under the Michigan Trust Code (2010 & Supp.), a member of the Council (governing body) of the Probate and Estate Planning Section of the State Bar of Michigan and a Consultant to the Trust Counsel Committee of the Michigan Bankers Association.

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