Michigan 2012 Election: Michigan Supreme Court

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(By Andrew MacKie-Mason)

Justices of the Michigan Supreme Court are elected in a non-partisan election. (Importantly, this means that even if you choose to vote a straight party ticket in the partisan section, you must still select candidates in the nonpartisan section.)

Connie Marie Kelley is currently a family law judge in Wayne County with experience as a litigator in employment law and other fields. Her emphasis is on fairness, open-mindedness, and listening to the specifics of a case.

Stephen Markman is an incumbent on the Court, having served since 1999. He's a former US Attorney and Assistant Attorney General, and that experience bleeds into some troubling language about criminal law: "I believe that the first responsibility of government concerns the protection of citizens from violent criminal predators...Our criminal justice system is not a game, and it is not a sporting contest, but it is the means by which government carries out its first responsibility, and judges must treat this obligation as their first responsibility as well...courts do everything possible to ensure both that violent predators are segregated from society for as long as possible" This betrays an interest in sacrificing important procedural rules (often seen as "technicalities") in the interest of getting "predators" off the street. That's not to mention, of course, how Markman buys into the "us/them" dichotomy between lawful citizens and "violent criminal predators." A glance through the opinions that Markman chooses to brag about confirms that his reelection to the Supreme Court will only be bad for criminal justice.

Bridget Mary McCormack has a sister who acted on the West Wing, and that's pretty cool. But she's also highly qualified herself. She spent the first few years of her legal career working for Legal Aid in New York, and is now a clinical professor and dean at the University of Michigan Law School. She created a Domestic Violence Clinic and Pediatric Health Advocacy Clinic at Michigan, as well as the Michigan Innocence Clinic. The Innocence Clinic handles non-DNA innocence cases: some of the toughest but most important cases to get innocent people out of prison without the help of exculpatory DNA evidence. In four years, the Innocence Clinic has exonerated six wrongfully convicted individuals. (How's that for a contrast with Markman's denouncing "criminal predators"?) McCormack would bring an excellent and much-needed voice to the Michigan Supreme Court.

Kerry Morgan ran for Congress in Michigan's 15th District back in 2010. I wasn't impressed then (here and here) for reasons that I think are also relevant to him seeking a seat on the Supreme Court. He has an extreme view of the limits on government that he imagines are required by the Constitution, and rejects the idea that government should act to resolve collective action problems. A quick skim of his current website suggests that the last two years haven't changed him much. For instance, he asks, "Did you know that Congress has made so many laws contrary to the Constitution that the Constitution has become meaningless?...You are living in a dream world if you think the Congress, your Representative or Senator actually respect the written Constitution...The Supreme Court will not save us. The Supreme Court will destroy us." And Kerry Morgan believes in extreme limits on governmental action...except that he thinks the government should be able to force pregnant women to remain pregnant. Morgan doesn't belong anywhere near the Michigan Supreme Court.

Colleen O'Brien is currently a judge in the Oakland County Circuit Court and an adjunct professor at Cooley Law School. She is an originalist, a flawed judicial ideology that vitiates the democratic principles of self-rule. She presides over an alternative treatment court for non-violent drug offenders, a program that ought to be more accepted and expanded in Michigan and across the country. Like Kelley (and as is usual with trial judges) it's hard to evaluate what she would be like on the Supreme Court because she has not had the opportunity to develop a substantial record on relevant issues, but the originalist language is a significant red flag.

Bob Roddis's campaign for the Michigan Supreme Court is centered on his belief that the Federal Reserve is unconstitutional. I'm not sure why he's running for this office (rather than, say, Congress) but there you have it.

Summary: Morgan and Roddis are extremists. Markman has bad views and a bad record on criminal justice. That leaves Kelley, McCormack, and O'Brien. I think McCormack is a clear choice given her strong record at the University of Michigan in forming important clinics that serve the public interest. But I have no good way to choose between Kelley and O'Brien, so I'll leave that question open for now.