By Jon King / jking@whmi.com

The Michigan Attorney General’s Office says the two men charged with the deaths of 11 Livingston County residents should face a jury.

In a pair of filings Tuesday, the AG’s Office refuted a motion by attorneys for Barry Cadden and Glenn Chin that the second degree murder charges they face should be dismissed. The men were charged last year for their roles in running the New England Compounding Center where authorities say lax conditions were allowed to infect steroids 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. The brief argues that Cadden, who was the co-owner of NECC “knowingly created a very high risk of death or great bodily harm knowing that death or such harm would be the likely result of his actions” while Chin, as supervising pharmacist, “put in motion a force that could and did in fact cause great bodily harm and death.” The defendant’s attorneys have both asked Livingston County Circuit Court Judge Michael Hatty to overturn the decision in August by 53rd District Court Judge Shauna Murphy to send the case to trial. The AG’s Office argues that decision was correct and based in law and that the issue of whether they committed 2nd Degree-Murder “must be left for a jury’s consideration.” Originally the motions were to have been heard at hearings set this week, but they have now been rescheduled for December 10th for Cadden and December 17th for Chin.