The Michigan House of Representatives passed a package of five bills on Wednesday that would establish mandatory minimum prison sentences for the state's most serious criminal sexual conduct convictions and reclassify a lower-level offense as a felony. Lawmakers repeatedly pointed to a violent Orion Township carjacking case as the reason the changes are needed now.
House Bills 6259 through 6263 would rework Michigan's four-degree Criminal Sexual Conduct statutes, according to Michigan House Republicans. Rep. Alicia St. Germaine of Harrison Township is one of the package's sponsors. The package would set mandatory minimums for first-, second-, and third-degree offenses. House Bill 6262, sponsored by Rep. Donni Steele of Orion Township, would set a five-year mandatory minimum for third-degree convictions while raising the potential maximum to life in prison.
Reclassifying the Lowest-Level Offense
House Bill 6263, sponsored by Rep. Thomas Kuhn of Troy, would reclassify fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct from a misdemeanor into a felony. Under current law, that offense — which involves illegal sexual contact accompanied by force, coercion or abuse of authority — is punishable by up to two years in prison, per WomensLaw.org. The remaining bills in the package, also carrying mandatory minimums, were introduced alongside sponsors Rep. Ann Bollin of Brighton Township and Rep. Mark Tisdel of Rochester Hills, according to ClickOnDetroit.
Under existing law, statutory maximums across the four degrees range from two years to life imprisonment, depending on the specific offense and its aggravating factors, according to Shelton Legal Services.
The Orion Township Case That Became the Rallying Point
Steele and her colleagues repeatedly cited a case out of her own district as the clearest example of why the changes are necessary. In May 2026, a woman was shot in the hip during what authorities described as a random carjacking outside a shopping plaza in Orion Township while she was with her young son, per the same ClickOnDetroit account. The suspect, 25-year-old Ann Arbor resident Mauriel Dashawn Hearn, was subsequently charged with carjacking, assault with intent to murder, fleeing police, carrying a concealed weapon, resisting a police officer and three counts of felony firearm, according to ClickOnDetroit's earlier reporting.
What drew lawmakers' attention wasn't just the shooting itself, but what came before it. At the time of the Orion Township incident, Hearn was serving a two-year probation sentence in Washtenaw County stemming from an earlier case in which he was accused of duct-taping and hog-tying a woman, briefly suffocating her with a plastic bag, and threatening her with sexual violence. Investigators had sought an assault-with-intent-to-murder charge in that earlier case, but Hearn ultimately received a lesser charge and probation instead of prison time, as reported by FOX 2 Detroit, which noted that Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard publicly criticized the plea deal that kept him out of prison.
“These are not minor offenses,” Steele said, according to ClickOnDetroit's report, adding that “these crimes will be taken seriously” and “those who commit them will be held accountable.” Steele called the Orion Township case exactly the kind of egregious crime the legislation is designed to address.
Hearn's underlying criminal case has not moved quickly. In June, an Oakland County judge ordered a psychiatric competency evaluation for Hearn at the request of defense attorneys, temporarily pausing proceedings in the carjacking and shooting case, Hoodline previously reported.
The package addresses public safety.
With House passage secured, the criminal sexual conduct package now heads to the Michigan Senate. How the Senate handles the bills, and whether it amends the mandatory minimums or the felony reclassification, remains the central open question as the legislation moves forward.
