New Michigan Supreme Court Rule Will Let Judges Toss One of Their Ow
Fair Courts E-lert
Bibliographic Info:
Author: Dawson Bell
Source: Michigan Free Press
Date: 11/26/2009
After announcing in early November that it would adopt a rule to strengthen recusal standards for state Supreme Court justices, the Michigan high court released the details of its new administrative rule last week. Most significant among the rule’s provisions is one that allows the full Supreme Court to review an individual justice’s decision not to recuse. According to Mark Hornbeck of the Detroit News, “the rules were crafted in reaction to a decision handed down this summer [in Caperton v. Massey] by the U.S. Supreme Court.” The court had considered revising the Supreme Court’s recusal practice in past terms, but there had been insufficient support for reform among the court’s justices. The adoption of a new recusal rule now, writes Dawson Bell at the Michigan Free Press, “is the most obvious indication . . . of the change wrought by last year’s election in which then-chief Justice Clifford Taylor was defeated by Justice Diane Hathaway.” The 4-3 decision to adopt the new recusal procedure has provoked bitter disagreement on the bench, with Justices Corrigan and Young not only opposing the rule, but warning of internecine battles among the justices over disqualification issues. As Ed White of the Associated Press reports, “Justice Maura Corrigan . . . had predicted a ‘constitutional crisis’ and ‘permanent siege’” on the bench if justices can decide when their peers must recuse.