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Litigation

: The Gavel

MI High Court Rebukes Former Justice

By Peter Hardin

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During a heated election season, a former Michigan Supreme Court justice surprised observers when she disclosed a partial transcript she had made from a secretly recorded conference with her fellow justices.

Today, the high court issued a letter censuring former Justice Elizabeth Weaver for her actions. It was signed by five of seven justices on the bench, according to a Detroit Free Press article. The letter said, ?It is truly a sad day when this Court is forced to censure a former colleague.?

Former Justice Weaver (in photo) contended the partial transcripts reflected inappropriate language used by Justice Robert Young. She said he ought not be reelected. Michigan voters reelected him this month (see Gavel Grab).

The justices signing the letter released today said the other justices didn’t know that recordings were made, and they would not have permitted it. The court’s internal deliberations, they wrote, are private   for ?the same reasons juries deliberate in private. We wish to be able to speak freely, explore differing views, take straw voters and change our position on matters without concern for how sensitive matters might be construed in the media.”

Three of the five justices signing the letter were Republicans, and two were Democrats. Former Justice Weaver, a Republican, did not always agree with her fellow Republican justices.

“We as Justices owe a duty to the Court and to the public to make clear that we do not condone your behavior as outlined in this letter,” the justices wrote. “Your actions in recording and then in making public discussions that were part of the court’s deliberative process as well as internal Court memoranda, compel us to do so.”

A state Supreme Court spokeswoman, Marcia McBrien, said there were no consequences as a result of the letter.

“There is a former term ‘censure’ that is used for judicial tenure proceedings ? that is not what’s happened here because we didn’t have a judicial tenure proceeding,” McBrien said, according to a Detroit News article. “It’s in the nature of a public rebuke.

Full post as published by The Gavel on November 22, 2010 (boomark / email).

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