November 29, 2010 — More fallout from a paper that wants less information

Michigan Supreme Court Justice (retired) Elizabeth Weaver is taking more hits following the release, last week, of the High Court’s bobbled censure.  The Detroit Free Press took her to the woodshed in this editorial.  The Livingston Daily followed suit this morning, really nothing more than a reprint.

Here’s where I think the Freep should have left the above condemnation:

Weaver spent her last term as an increasingly alienated member of the high court’s Republican majority, which exercised partisan control of the nominally apolitical court for most of the last decade. First elected to the court in 1994, she was the only GOP justice whose ascent came without a career boost at some point from former Gov. John Engler ….

In her final six years on the court, Weaver was an increasingly independent voice who railed against both the Engler court’s published jurisprudence and its administration of court business, which she regarded as excessively secretive.

We shared many of her concerns, especially her conviction that special interest contributions were undermining public confidence in the justices’ independence. We believe, as she does, that the explosive growth of untraceable campaign contributions compelled the need for reform of both the judicial selection process and the rules governing a justice’s disqualification for conflicts of interest.

That would have been fine and in line with the work of a newspaper, but they couldn’t leave it there.  Nope, had to go to back-room deals with the governor to appoint Alton Tom Davis, had to go to the transcript: [We] were dismayed by her unilateral decision to release excerpts of case status conferences she had secretly recorded in an effort to embarrass Justice Robert Young Jr., whose re-election Weaver opposed.

The leaked recordings betrayed the confidence of Weaver’s colleagues without revealing any significant evidence of unethical behavior or even incivility.

So, as far the Freep is concerned it’s perfectly ethical and civil to call people N_____s and to suggest that officers of the court be referred to as sluts.  Got it.  You mean you don’t think Justice Robert Preston Young, Jr., SHOULD have been embarrassed?  For goodness sakes, he had to have his momma come out and tell everybody he was a good boy.

Next, the Freep said this:

If Weaver possesses records that document criminal or unethical behavior on the part of her former colleagues, she should bring them to the attention of the appropriate authorities. But the actions that earned her colleagues’ censure appear to have been animated by more personal and puerile motives, and they disserve the reform agenda she purportedly hopes to advance.

The Appropriate authorities…let’s see…the Judicial Tenure Commission.  Nah, that’s busted.  And anyway it would all wind up back at the Supreme Court.  The Attorney Grievance Commission?  Ditto.  So…where, then?

And she’s been trying to bring it to the attention of the press for quite some time, beginning wth her objections to the “gag order” the rest of the court tried to impose on her in 2006, an order that clearly flies in the face of both the Code of Judicial Conduct (see especially Canon 3A6) and the Michigan Constitution (especially Article VI, section 6).  Isn’t that illegal?  How about the dealings of the Supreme Court Administrator Carl Gromek in dealing with the Macomb County Probate Court?  Wasn’t that unethical?  What about the In re: JK in Grand Rapids?  Didn’t that violate the way the Court historically went about business and didn’t the prejudgement result in unjust and unethical treatment to those represented in the case at hand?  Was it illegal?  Alas, one of the dictates of the system is that unless challenged, the Court itself gets to dictate what’s legal.  What about JTC’s Paul Fischer attempting to coerce the retirement of Kent Court Dictrict Court Judge Steven Servaas?  That was an act of extortion.  …At least that’s how Servaas’s attorney Jon Muth–himself a former president of the Michigan Bar–described it.  And there is more and more much yet to come out.

I think the most telling half sentence from the Freep editorial is this: We were more skeptical of Weaver’s assertion that most of the court’s deliberations should be public ….

Is this the opinion of a newspaper?  Wow!  You’d think they’d be lining up and cheering.

In her response to the bobbled censure, Justice Weaver reiterated her willingness to open her files for inspection.  Has anybody taken her up on that?  I have.  Anybody else?Now, that’s some serious journalism.

Interesting to note that the only organ that seems to be taking her seriously is the Wall Street Journal in its Law Blog.

Some time ago I was thinking that the in-state news media really were not paying much attention to the substance of what was occurring at the court.  Into mind popped the image the late Martha Mitchell.  She was a Southern lady of distinction who had become known as The Mouth of the South.  And it was she who–at the risk of being a laughingstock–dropped the dime on presidential wrongdoing.  As Richard Nixon later said, if there had been no Martha Mitchell, there would have been no Watergate.  They tried to control her but still she spoke out, alarmed that no one was paying attention.  I trust that Justice Weaver might receive better hearing.  But you never know.  And it may be history that writes the final evaluation on this chapter at the Court.