Judge in Trouble For Appearing in Case as an Attorney for Friend

[00:00:00]Welcome once again to Lato's Law. Here's Steve Lato.

[00:00:03]>> You might ask yourself, who out there should know the law? And people say, well, law enforcement. They're going to enforce the law, they need to know it.

[00:00:10]Well, yeah, I'll I'll I'll buy that.

[00:00:11]I'll buy that. Who else?

[00:00:13]Judges? Yeah, I would think a judge needs to know the law. So, this headline is kind of surprising then.

[00:00:20]From WXYZ-TV out of Detroit, Wayne County Judge rebuked for trying to represent a loved one in OWI case.

[00:00:29]Operating while impaired.

[00:00:31]And it took an East Lansing District Court Judge to call this out.

[00:00:36]And the East Lansing District Court Judge called out the Wayne County Judge's actions as wholly improper, adding that she was going to refer the case to the State Bar of Michigan.

[00:00:48]A Wayne County Judge was called on the carpet last month during a virtual court appearance inside an East Lansing courtroom.

[00:00:56]So, the judge was scolded by the District Court Judge in June after the Wayne County Judge appeared on behalf of a young woman she'd once been the guardian of that she described as like my daughter.

[00:01:12]And so, the judge in Lansing, East Lansing, said, are you a sitting judge?

[00:01:19]Asking the question during an arraignment.

[00:01:22]To which the sitting judge responded, I am.

[00:01:25]>> [clears throat] >> Adding that she was appearing in her capacity as an attorney and that she was only there for this limited purpose.

[00:01:32]This limited purpose. Um the question is, even as a limited purpose, is that okay?

[00:01:39]That drew a sharp rebuke from the judge in East Lansing who said that the Wayne County Judge's appearance was wholly improper and in conflict with the law and court statutes.

[00:01:51]So, the Wayne County Judge was trying to represent a young woman on an operating while impaired charge, in addition to other offenses, inside the East Lansing District Court.

[00:02:02]"My understanding was if it was an immediate family member, there could be a limited representation."

[00:02:09]The judge said, "Like I said, I only came today to try to talk with the prosecutor.

[00:02:14]You can only talk with a prosecutor on behalf of this defendant if you are their attorney."

[00:02:20]And the question is, can you be their attorney when you are a judge?

[00:02:24]The answer, of course, is no.

[00:02:26]At that point, the District Court Judge interrupted the Circuit Court Judge.

[00:02:31]"Okay, well, I would find that to be wholly improper, too. It could raise the appearance of impropriety you using our office to speak with a prosecuting attorney."

[00:02:42]So, WXYZ went out and asked some questions of somebody who spent a decade leading the Judicial Tenure Commission. And the Judicial Tenure Commission investigates and oversees judges and their conduct.

[00:02:59]And the person they spoke to said the judges are barred from practicing in other courtrooms so they don't use their positions to influence rulings and that other judges don't feel pressured to rule in their favor, which makes complete sense.

[00:03:12]And the third reason is appearance of impropriety.

[00:03:15]>> [sighs and gasps] >> It's to help ensure the public doesn't perceive that one judge is granting favoritism to another judge.

[00:03:21]So, during this arraignment, the District Court Judge said she would not move forward with the Circuit Court Judge representing her loved one, adding later, "I'm sorry to say, I have a duty now to report this to the Michigan State Bar."

[00:03:35]And so, one thing you have to be aware of is that judges have a duty imposed upon them that if they see misbehavior, they have to report it. It's It's not discretionary.

[00:03:49]>> [snorts] >> So, if one judge sees another judge doing something wrong, they report it to the judicial tenure commission or the state bar.

[00:03:58]It was not immediately clear now if a complaint has been filed with either the State Bar of Michigan or the Judicial Tenure Commission, but turns out this judge has been questioned before about her actions.

[00:04:10]Uh, in 2024 she was found with a loaded unregistered firearm inside Detroit Metro Airport.

[00:04:16]She later pleaded no contest to weapons charge, was given probation, and was eligible to have the case removed from her record down the road.

[00:04:24]Last year, she also drew the ire of Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy after she dismissed a murder case involving a 9-month-old girl.

[00:04:34]Uh, the judge tossed the case after learning that Detroit police failed to share all body camera footage with the defense.

[00:04:40]Prosecutors said the discovery violation didn't warrant dismissing the entire case and appealed that ruling and it is still on appeal.

[00:04:48]As for the June hearing inside the East Lansing District Court, it was adjourned and rescheduled with the judge being told she could not return. So, this defendant will have to come back either by herself or with an attorney or ask the court to appoint one, but she cannot bring a judge, okay? I mean, think about this.

[00:05:09]You get arrested.

[00:05:11]I'm not going to hire an attorney, I'm going to hire a judge.

[00:05:14]A phone call and a text message to the judge seeking comment for the story was not returned and that is of course a phone call to the courtroom of the judge who was the one from Wayne County. So, Wayne County is the county in Michigan where Detroit is and there is a circuit court housed in Detroit that is for the entire county of Wayne. Um, but you should know that there is a code of judicial conduct in Michigan and many states have a similar thing. It might have a different name, but there are a a of rules that judges must follow once they've been made a judge.

[00:05:51]And the code of judicial conduct specifically has two things in there that would address this directly.

[00:05:57]One of which is the general avoid the appearance of impropriety.

[00:06:02]That is don't do anything improper and don't do anything that even appears to be improper. So, you want to avoid the actuality of it and the appearance of it.

[00:06:18]And so, that will get you around the argument that people would make and go, "Well, a judge could get favors, but what if they don't? It doesn't matter.

[00:06:31]The fact that the judge could get a favor from another judge is all that matters. The fact that it could happen means there'd be an appearance of impropriety.

[00:06:39]But the other one is that the court rules, excuse me, the canons of judicial conduct specifically state, "You cannot You cannot represent somebody as their attorney when you are a judge.

[00:06:55]You can't. It just says you can't. Don't do it. And so, you can argue all you want about the appearance of impropriety, but you can't argue the one that says you can't do this. You simply can't do it. And you can immediately see the problem that would arise if you're allowed to do it.

[00:07:11]So, you become judge someplace and then you hang out a shingle and say, "And by the way, I'm still taking cases.

[00:07:18]I just can't take cases in my own courtroom."

[00:07:21]I mean, [laughter] I Maybe you could at that point, but And then what you do is is you go into court.

[00:07:28]Why don't you go into court wearing your robe? Wouldn't that look cool? But either way, you get to you get to appear on behalf of people and say, "Hi.

[00:07:34]Uh I am the honorable so-and-so.

[00:07:38]And and I'm here on behalf of my client.

[00:07:41]Let's talk, judge.

[00:07:42]The other foolishly only brought an attorney.

[00:07:45]>> [laughter] [snorts] >> And this is the kind of thing I wonder if this would have happened if this hadn't been a Zoom hearing.

[00:07:54]Would the judge have driven to East Lansing from Detroit to appear on behalf of her friend?

[00:08:03]Would she have done that? I don't know.

[00:08:04]I have to imagine one of the reasons this happened is that it was so easy for her to do that she thought she'd try it.

[00:08:09]>> [snorts] >> But if she did not know that she wasn't allowed to do this, I'd be surprised because when you become a judge, I mean, the code of judicial conduct is not that lengthy. It's actually just a few pages, but they're very, very clear rules and one of the rules says you can't do this.

[00:08:27]And so, when she says that she thought she could do this for an immediate family member, where where did that come from?

[00:08:37]Because nowhere in the code of judicial conduct does it actually say these rules only apply with um you dealing with people who are not immediate family members.

[00:08:48]>> [laughter] >> I I never saw that phrase immediate family member.

[00:08:52]And I I don't know where that could have come from.

[00:08:56]I don't know. I don't know. And so, it might just be that she was kind of hoping that, you know, friend of mine, maybe people understand this, but no.

[00:09:03]No, you can't do that. And I have seen situations where judges have gotten in trouble because a friend of theirs got in trouble and they wanted to help.

[00:09:15]They wanted to help. And I can think of a case a few years ago, it was in the news, where somebody got pulled over by a police officer.

[00:09:22]And they're at the side of the road. And all of a sudden, another car pulls up a few minutes later.

[00:09:27]And out gets a judge who comes walking up the police officer and says, "Hey, by the way, you know, I know this person.

[00:09:33]Can we somehow go easy on them?"

[00:09:37]The cop is like, "Judge, what are you doing here?"

[00:09:41]And uh it's not good. Can't get involved in something like that. That would appear improper, I would think. I would think.

[00:09:49]Now, there at the side of the road, the judge wasn't trying to represent this person, but the judge was apparently trying to help this person out.

[00:09:57]And because the police in that jurisdiction would know the judge and they'd recognize the judge cuz they're in the courtroom all the time, you know, the judge is hoping I'll pull this person a favor because they're a friend of mine and I know the cops.

[00:10:09]Not supposed to happen either. Shouldn't happen.

[00:10:12]So, but [snorts] here, the one judge in East Lansing doing her job sees someone appear on behalf of a defendant who's in front of them and that person is a sitting judge.

[00:10:28]And and says, "Excuse me, are you a sitting judge?" "Yes, I am." "Oh, okay.

[00:10:33]You You're not allowed to be here."

[00:10:34]"I thought I was allowed to be here on behalf of a uh family friend." "No. No. No, you're not."

[00:10:41]That's not what the code says. So, again, the attorneys in Michigan have got to follow the rules of ethics.

[00:10:49]Judges in Michigan have got to follow the rules of ethics and the code of judicial conduct. They're held to a higher standard. And so, no question, filing the appearance and coming into court and saying, "I represent this person."

[00:11:02]would violate those rules. So, we'll see what happens. We'll see what happens.

[00:11:05]This is from WXYZ-TV, one of the coolest set of call letters in the country, by Ross Jones. Wayne County judge rebuked for trying to represent loved one in an OWI case. Questions, your comments, put them below. Otherwise, talk to you later.

[00:11:17]Bye-bye.

[00:11:18]>> Thank you for watching Leto's Law.

[00:11:20]If we were meant to stay in one place, we'd have roots instead of feet.