Supreme Court Bickering Diminishes Its Esteem

If you practice law long enough, you get to see everything. I’ve been practicing law now beyond a quarter-century and have witnessed for the first time three Justices from the Michigan Supreme Court ask for a probe of one of their colleagues. Justices Corrigan, Markman, and Young all claim that Justice Weaver has violated a hotly contested administrative order. Justice Weaver denies any wrong doing and claims that her opponents want to turn the Supreme Court into a "secret club."

I think we should wait for the results from the Judicial Tenure Commission before we make assessments about what is going on at the Supreme Court, but at a minimum this timing of this action seems suspect.

We are supposed to have a non-partisan election process, where Justices do not run as official party candidates. Yet, we know that Justice Robert Young has already been on Off the Record with Tim Skubick and has indicated that while both he and Justive Weaver are Republicans, he would not run with her.

Those of us in the legal community, and those who have followed Michigan politics, know that there is a long history of battling at the Supreme Court, but taken as a whole this last tactic in my opinion lowers the esteem of the Supreme Court and the Judiciary as a whole. While it’s supposed to be something citizens look up to and count on for impartial application of the law, this recent conduct will likely gather less prestigious respones and opinions.