Michigan Supreme Court Rules Against Fieger
Fair Courts E-lert
Bibliographic Info:
Author: Dawson Bell
Source: Detroit Free Press
Date: 1/28/2010
At the Michigan Free Press, Dawson Bell reports that “In the first test of its new judicial disqualification procedure, a surprisingly unified Michigan Supreme Court declined . . . a request by Southfield attorney Geoffrey Fieger to remove the court’s three most conservative justices from hearing a case” in which Fieger is counsel. Fieger had requested that Justices Maura Corrigan, Stephen Markman, and Robert Young, Jr. step aside “because of what he said was a record of hostility on their part toward him and his clients.” According to Rick Pluta, at NPR, Fieger’s claims of hostility largely stem from the fact that “two GOP justices have used Fieger as a foil in campaign speeches,” though that was several years ago. The three justices in question did not participate in the decision regarding their disqualification; rather, consistent with the court’s recently adopted recusal rules, the remaining members of the court made the decision. The ruling was especially significant given that, in vigorously dissenting from the new rules, Justices Corrigan, Markman, and Young had predicted that their colleagues on the bench might exploit the new procedure and vote to disqualify judges in the minority for partisan purposes. Last week’s decision should allay fears that the majority justices will exploit the recusal rules to marginalize the three conservative justices in the minority.
See Rick Pluta, Michigan: Court Refuses to Remove 3 GOP Justices from Case, NPR, January 28, 2010; See also, Dawson Bell, New Michigan Supreme Court Rule Will Let Judges Toss One of their Own, Detroit Free Press, November 26, 2009.