The state grants are intended to support creative approaches in the court system. The Peacemaking Court is described in a staff memo:

Like tribal peacemaking programs and restorative justice programs, the Peacemaking Court will provide a great benefit to youth and the community in juvenile cases by reducing recidivism and giving youth a diversionary option to avoid a record that can preclude future educational and employment opportunities. Domestic relations and other family cases will benefit from more durable and tailored solutions that result from a clearer understanding of the different perspectives or “truths” of all those involved. This, in turn, will enable the healing of important relationships, in contrast to the harm and polarization that too often results for families through the adversarial process.

The Peacemaking Court will allow the parties and those most affected by the conflict to talk about the event, its impact on them, and to look at the whole conflict in a comprehensive context that leads to understanding and meaningful solutions that address the needs of all those involved. When participants are respected and the individuals responsible for causing the problem are part of the decision process and take responsibility for their actions in a meaningful way, the resolutions are more comprehensive and address the needs of everyone involved, as well as the issues that underlie the problem. An important difference between the traditional system and the peacemaking court process is that the resolution is determined WITH the court not BY the court.

According to the grant application, key members involved in this project are 22nd Circuit Court judge Timothy Connors, 14A District Court judge Cedric Simpson, project director Susan Butterwick, and Robert Carbeck, 22nd Circuit Court deputy court administrator and budget director. [.pdf of grant application] Connors, who has spearheaded this initiative, was on hand at the Dec. 4 meeting to describe the project and answer questions.

This brief was filed from the boardroom of the county administration building at 220 N. Main St. in Ann Arbor, where the board of commissioners holds its meetings. A more detailed report will follow: [link]

Washtenaw County Courthouse at Main and Huron streets in downtown Ann Arbor.

However, in the course of oral arguments heard this week, Shelton appeared to indicate basic agreement with the points of the presentation given by Dick Soble, one of the plaintiff’s attorneys in the case, who had asked for sanctions against Worthy. The Wayne County prosecutor is involved in the case as an intervenor, and was represented during oral arguments by Donn Fresard, the Wayne County prosecutor’s office chief of staff. Sanctions had also been sought against Fresard.

Soble and other opposing counsel had asked for sanctions against the Wayne County prosecutors because of their motion for recusal of judge Timothy Connors from the case – a motion filed on Nov. 1, 2012, five days before the Nov. 6 election. Soble contended that the motion had no legal merit, and instead had political motives. The incumbent Connors was opposed in the race by Michael Woodyard, who works as an assistant prosecuting attorney in Worthy’s office. Connors prevailed in that election.

The oral arguments and Shelton’s ruling from the bench came on Jan. 16, 2013 at the Washtenaw County courthouse at Huron and Main in downtown Ann Arbor.

Despite his decision not to sanction the Wayne County prosecutors, Shelton had some sharp words for their actions. He indicated that if similar filings were to come before him again in connection with the case, he would not hesitate to impose sanctions.

The case has previously been handled by Connors, who had denied the motion for his own recusal in late November. Yet it’s Shelton, not Connors, who will now be handling the rest of the Neal v. MDOC case. It was reassigned to Shelton as the result of a court reorganization to accommodate the addition of a new judge, Carol Kuhnke. She was elected on Nov. 6 in a race against Jim Fink, and replaces the retiring judge Melinda Morris on the 22nd circuit court. Because of the reassignments, Shelton said at the Jan. 16 hearing, “This case fell in my big lap.”

Shelton’s Ruling

After hearing oral arguments, Shelton began his remarks by saying that he found the motion to recuse Connors – in its content and especially in its timing – to fit a term he described as deriving from his own dated vernacular: “smeggy.” He continued by saying that he could hold an evidentiary hearing to determine whether the motive in filing the motion was an attempt to influence the outcome of the election between Connors and Woodyard. However, he was “choosing” not to do that, he said. He also said he was “choosing” not to begin his assignment to “whatever is left of this case” by sanctioning the attorneys.

In his choice of the phrase “whatever is left of this case,” Shelton seemed in part to be echoing an aspect of Soble’s oral arguments for sanctions. By way of a background sketch, the Neal v. MDOC case dates from the late 1990s. It involved women prisoners held by the Michigan Dept. of Corrections who were found to have been subjected to abuse by prison guards. They were awarded a settlement of $100 million in installments over a six-year period, paid into an escrow account and then distributed to the attorneys and class members according to an allocation plan.

The settlement prompted the involvement of the Wayne County prosecutor’s office, which had an interest in ensuring that the victims of crimes committed by the women prisoners were paid any restitution they might have been owed – from the settlement of the Neal v. MDOC case. Soble argued that the agreement for the distribution of settlement had been signed by parties to the case on Oct. 31, 2012 – just one day before the motion for recusal was filed – and that this agreement essentially excluded Connors from future involvement in the process of distribution. With nothing left for Connors to rule on in the case, Soble’s argument went, why was recusal necessary?

The motion for recusal claimed that some remarks Connors from proceedings on June 10, 2011 had lumped the prosecutor’s office in with the MDOC as part of the same government that had abused the prisoners, and thus showed bias. An excerpt from Connors’ remarks: “The record had established that the class action involved individuals who were victims of sexual abuse by the government. Three of the — all of the intervenors are a portion of the government who committed, on behalf of the government, part of that same entity.” But at the time, no party had objected to that statement as reflective of a bias that required recusal, Soble argued.

If it was too late now to use a June 10, 2011 statement by Connors as the basis for a motion for recusal, then the Nov. 1, 2012 filing of that motion was unnecessarily early, according to Soble. He sought to undercut Worthy’s claim that the motion for recusal had to be filed before the Nov. 6 election – by questioning whether an Oct. 21 visit to the Secretary of State’s campaign contribution website by the Wayne County prosecutor could sensibly be taken as the start of a 14-day window for filing such a motion. Soble pointed out that no campaign contributions were listed on that website until Oct. 25, and a 14-day window would have left room to file after Nov. 6, the date of the election.

Campaign Contributions in Judicial Race

The campaign contributions at issue were Soble’s and those of other opposing counsel, who had contributed the maximum under the law to Connors’ campaign – $3,400. But Soble cited the 2006 Adair v. State Dept. of Education opinion, which concluded: “It is simply impossible for the Supreme Court, as well as most other courts in Michigan, to function if a lawful campaign contribution can constitute a basis for a judge’s disqualification.” Soble called it “outrageous” to contend that Connors could be bought, or that Soble and his co-counsel were a part of the buying.

Soble also pointed to the various choices of words and phrasing in the motion for recusal that had no bearing on the argument for recusal – and concluded they were crafted for a “different audience” than the court. For example, the motion for recusal described “alleged mistreatment” of women prisoners by guards, when the conclusion that the guards had in fact mistreated prisoners was supported by the findings and the settlement in the case. Soble concluded that the Wayne County prosecutor had not so much filed a motion as “filed a press release.”

As Fresard reviewed the claims in the motion before Shelton, Shelton rejected the relevance of the older incidents, telling Fresard that they were long since past, and that the only thing left for Fresard to argue potentially were the campaign contributions. Fresard responded by telling Shelton that he didn’t think the campaign contributions should be considered in a vacuum.

On the question of campaign contributions, which Soble had defended by citing Adair, Fresard attempted to question the relevance of that case by noting the Adair case predated a change in court rules that now allow for a recusal to be based on the appearance of impropriety. [.pdf of original Nov. 1, 2012 filing of motion for recusal]

Based on his remarks in connection with the ruling, Shelton was not moved by Fresard’s arguments and found those of Soble to be persuasive – but chose to exercise discretion in not imposing sanctions.

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Candidates for one of two races for judge of the 22nd Circuit Court in Washtenaw County: Tim Connors (left) and Mike Woodyard (right).

This write-up includes some of the responses of candidates in just one of those races, described on the ballot at the “incumbent position.” The ballot itself also labels the incumbent, Tim Connors, as “Judge of Circuit Court.” Voters on Nov. 6 will have a choice between Connors and Ann Arbor resident Mike Woodyard, who has worked for the last 10 years as an attorney in the Wayne County prosecutor’s office. Before attending law school, Woodyard worked for a time as a newspaper reporter.

Connors was initially appointed to the 22nd Circuit Court in 1997 by then-Gov. John Engler, a Republican, to replace judge Karl Fink – the older brother of Jim Fink, who is running in the other race along with Carol Kuhnke for the non-incumbent 22nd Circuit Court judgeship. Before making the circuit court appointment, Engler had previously appointed Connors in 1991 to a seat on the 15th District Court in Ann Arbor.

Vacancies created by resignations, like that of Karl Fink, are filled through gubernatorial appointments – but judges must stand for election at the first opportunity to serve out the remainder of the partial term. After being appointed in 1997, Connors stood for election in 1998, and then again in 2000 and 2006 for successive six-year terms. On each of those three occasions, Connors was unopposed, which is fairly typical for incumbent judges.

At the forum, that’s one reason Woodyard indicated he’s running for judge – not to run against Connors, but rather to provide voters with the kind of contested judicial elections described by Michigan law. It emerged during the forum that in law school Woodyard had taken a trial advocacy course taught by Connors, and had received an A in the class. Woodyard mentioned the class as helpful in one of his first trials, which resulted in getting a “live nude girls” establishment shut down.

The WCBA had prepared questions for the candidates covering standard topics like judicial temperament, experience and what led the candidates to consider a career in law. During the second part of the forum, questions from the audience were entertained as well. The requirement that all questions be suitable for all four candidates led to some grumbling – based in part on the fact that not all four candidates were running against each other.

Local attorney Peter Davis, who indicated he had a question just for Woodyard, responded to moderator Steve Borgsdorf’s enforcement of the rule by saying ”So you want softball questions?” Borgsdorf responded with, “No, they can be fastballs, but everyone’s got to get a chance to bat.” The analogy was apt, as at the time of the Oct. 16 forum, the Detroit Tigers baseball team was handing the New York Yankees a 2-1 defeat in the American League Championship Series.

Woodyard and Connors had previously participated in a candidate forum in June, prior to the Aug. 7 primary and hosted by the Washtenaw County Democratic Party. They also responded to five questions for inclusion on the 411vote.org website. Responses from candidates in the other race – Carol Kuhnke and Jim Fink – will be reported in a separate Chronicle write-up.

The campaign finance filing deadline was Oct. 26. According to documents filed with the state, Connors has raised $95,090 in contributions and spent $84,765. Woodyard’s campaign finance report shows contributions of $7,266 and expenditures of $6,830.

These candidates will be on the ballot for the Nov. 6 general election. To see a sample ballot for your precinct, visit the Secretary of State’s website. Additional information about local candidates and other voter information is available on the Washtenaw county clerk’s elections division website.

Introductions

Mike Woodyard: His background as a lawyer goes back about 10 years, he said. During that time, he has worked as a prosecuting attorney in Wayne County. He began working there after he graduated from Wayne State University. Before he attended law school, he worked as a newspaper reporter for a number of different publications around the country, he said. Before that he was self-employed and “making his way.” He graduated from Eastern Michigan University in 1997.

Mike Woodyard.

In the Wayne County prosecutor’s office he’s been assigned to a number of areas, Woodyard said. He began on a civil docket that he described as a “quasi-criminal docket” – where he handled nuisance abatement, asset forfeiture, and things of that nature. He moved from there to the domestic violence docket, and was then assigned to the child-abuse unit. He worked for six years with the child-abuse unit, where he developed a specialty in infant head trauma cases. Two years ago he was assigned to the public integrity unit, he said. That’s a small unit handling cases involving wrongdoing by public officials, including police officers, he explained.

Tim Connors: He began by noting the venue, which was the cafeteria of Bach Elementary School. He had attended Pattengill Elementary – another Ann Arbor school. He invited the audience to look at the map of the United States rendered on the back wall, saying it was really kind of neat – because we get all wrapped up in our lives and we lose sight of the things that are really important.

The context of the elementary school cafeteria brought home something that Connors thinks is really important to consider when people visit the courthouse – because it can be really impersonal and scary, he said. It’s important to make it feel like a safe haven for people, he said, and it’s important to keep our humanity.

It’s been a real pleasure to serve the legal community as judge, he said. He stated that Washtenaw County is the envy of most of the state’s legal community. That is not by accident, but rather by choice and design, he said. Washtenaw County has some of the best lawyers in the state, he contended, if not the nation. He counted himself as lucky to be associated with them. It has been a pleasure to serve as judge for the last 20 years and he hopes that with voters’ support he would be able to serve for another 12.

Judicial Temperament

Question: What does judicial temperament mean to you? If elected, what type of judicial temperament would you most like to convey?

Tim Connors: He said the most important thing is listening. He said he’s learned to listen – and not just to what is being said, but also to what is not being said. There’s usually something else going on, he said. It’s important to try hard to be patient, compassionate and caring. But in terms of temperament, listening is the most important factor, he concluded.

Mike Woodyard: The two keys to judicial temperament, he said, are being respectful and predictable. Showing respect is related to listening and hearing people. Being predictable is related to human nature. People are who they are. It would be his hope that when people come into his court, they would know that he would act in a predictable manner.

Budgetary Challenges

Question: How do you perceive your role as circuit court judge in addressing budgetary challenges?

Mike Woodyard: He began by saying that the financial challenges faced by the Washtenaw County Circuit Court are not unique. The trial court is funded through a blend of different sources, he said. The state provides salary and benefits, and the local entity provides the physical plant and other support.

The court system works with the county board of commissioners, he noted. The court has an understanding with the board that includes receiving a lump sum allocation, which it has to work with. That lump sum has been decreasing, he said, and projections through the year 2015 are that it will continue to decrease. So the idea of doing more with less involves improving various practices, cross-training staff and exploring other efficiencies, particularly with electronic and digital technology.

Tim Connors.

Tim Connors: He began by saying “I don’t think you can do more with less. I think that’s crazy. You can do less with less. And the question becomes what do you do with what you have.” He has a good history with judges in the county, he said. He’s handled every kind of case in every kind of courtroom in the county, he said. The flexibility and the work ethic among the judges allows work to be picked up and to be done so willingly.

As far as the budget goes, there will be a whole new group of nine commissioners after the election [down from 11 due to redistricting]. Having a personal relationship with the commissioners is important, so that they understand what the court does, he said. As judges, he felt that they need to fill the gaps. He suggested reaching out to law students to have them lend their efforts, given that there are two fine law schools right our own back yard, he said. Summarizing his thoughts in the budget, he said, “It is what it is.”

Experience with Types of Law

Question: The two seats on the court that are being contested are currently held by judges Melinda Morris and Tim Connors. Morris has a current docket that consists of criminal and civil cases, and Connors currently has a docket that consists of civil and family law matters. The chief judge could reassign those dockets based on the experience and expertise of the judges who are elected. Could each candidate please speak to their experience in each of those types of law and how you feel your experience would help you as a judge on the bench?

Mike Woodyard: He reiterated from his introductory remarks a description of his experience with the prosecuting attorney’s office in Wayne County – he felt he has a depth of experience in criminal law. What that teaches, he said, is not just the intricacies of the process of a criminal case – motions, trials, juries. It also teaches you a good deal about human nature, and how people behave one to the other, he said. Having spent some time in court, he’s come to learn a little bit about that.

With respect to the civil docket, Woodyard mentioned that he’d had an opportunity to handle a civil docket early in his career – dealing with assets foreclosure and nuisance abatement. He allowed that he did not have any specific experience in family law. But he observed that the child abuse cases that he’d handled as a prosecutor generally had a parallel case that was proceeding at the same time with the department of human services involving custody. And through that experience, he was able to gain an understanding of that aspect of family law.

Tim Connors: His docket is a civil and family docket, he noted. In the civil arena, he’s assigned a large portion of the docket because that is his specialty, he said. That was his background as a trial attorney. He said that Carol Kuhnke – in her remarks made in response to the same question – was exactly right about civil trials being complex and complicated.

He has been teaching civil trial skills for 19 years and he enjoyed that very much. In the area of family law, anyone has the right in the juvenile court to demand a judge, and if there is a demand for a judge, then he is that judge, Connors said. He’s also been involved with a specialized child welfare docket, he said, and he’s also very much involved in trying to bring peacekeeping principles to the family court. That’s been successful in the tribal community, he said.

Connor’s has become convinced over the years that advocacy in the family court is very different from advocacy in the criminal and civil court. He and his wife, Margaret Connors, have designed a class to teach at the University Michigan law school on that topic.

Experience with Trials

Question: What is your experience as a trial attorney? What’s your experience in civil versus criminal trials and bench versus jury trials?

Tim Connors: As a civil trial lawyer, he tried hundreds of cases, Connors said. He was proud of the fact that as a civil trial lawyer there was a no-fault case he’d tried that resulted in a new interpretation of the law that is still the law today.

Mike Woodyard: He said he tried about 100 cases. Most of them had been jury trials and some of them had been bench trials. When he was assigned to the civil docket in nuisance abatement, as an intern he had worked on a nuisance abatement for an old-fashioned “live nude girls”-type facility. It was one of the last such establishments like that in southeast Michigan, he said, describing it as a really filthy place. So as an intern, he was trying that case before judge Michael Sapala on the 3rd Circuit Court. The defendant brought in a high-profile defense attorney, he said, but the case all boiled down to the evidence. He said he was able to muddle through the rules and present the case, and the establishment was shut down.

Woodyard added that he owed a debt of gratitude to Connors, because he had taken Connors’ trial advocacy course at Wayne State University – and had received an A in the class. And he was able to take the skills he learned in that class and apply them to that case. He had experience in criminal cases, he said, and he had developed a real expertise in child abuse head trauma cases. Such cases are incredibly and extraordinarily complex, he said – involving a social work aspect, search and seizure issues, and access to medical records and issues of that nature.

Vocation to the Field of Law

Question: Why are you a lawyer? Why did you choose this profession? As part of your answer, identify a mentor or a role model who ought to be credited with where you are today.

Mike Woodyard: He began by saying that he did not have any lawyers in his family. He’s a lawyer because of his father, he said. But his father is not involved in the legal profession – rather, he’s a professor at Wayne State University. Ever since he was old enough to accompany his father to Detroit, his father would take him along to participate in programs involving food distribution or helping people in other ways. His father had taught them how important it is for people who are lucky – like all of the people in the room, Woodyard noted – to give back and to devote themselves to the improvement of others. So to that extent, he would identify his father as his role model.

Tim Connors: When he was growing up, he said, his mother was a TV anchor. And he recalled a TV program he participated in, when the moderator had gone around and asked all the kids what they wanted to be when they grew up. His answer was “a lawyer,” and his parents about fell over, he said. They asked him where that answer had come from. He told his parents that they’d never asked him that question. He said he had no idea why he wanted to be a lawyer, but for some reason he just had the sense that that’s what he was supposed to do.

Argument for Yourself, Against Opponent

Question: What do you see in yourself – in quality or experience – that you would bring to the bench that’s either absent in your opponent or that you’d be better at than your opponent. What’s unique to you that you would bring?

Mike Woodyard: He stated that “I really appreciate the question and I will absolutely not answer it!”

Woodyard stated that he’s not running against Connors. Rather, he’s running because he’s qualified. He’s running because since 1954, Michigan law has contemplated contested judicial elections, he said. If the elections are not contested, he felt that sets up a disservice to the community.

If the community has an opportunity to look at his commitment to public service, and his commitment to justice and his commitment to the rights of people who appear before the court – plaintiffs, defendants or people in family court – and they think that Connors would do a better job, then they should vote for Connors, Woodyard said. But if people think he would be a person to better serve the community than Connors, then they should vote for him. Serving as judge is a terrific opportunity to give back to his community, Woodyard said, in a meaningful personal and professional way.

Tim Connors: He said he was taught that you shouldn’t talk about yourself and why you are better than somebody else, so he indicated he wouldn’t be elaborating more than that.

Judicial Bypass: Abortion

Question: An audience question came from local attorney Tom Wieder. Wieder noted that one of the matters that can come before the circuit court is a so-called “judicial bypass case.” Those are cases where a minor wants to have an abortion and cannot obtain the consent of a parent or guardian, he explained. There’s been about 125 of those cases in last four years, Wieder said, which were decided on the circuit bench. Wieder then framed a question specifically for Jim Fink: “Mr. Fink, you’ve been endorsed by Right to Life of Michigan, a condition of which is that you agree to oppose abortion except in cases where the life of the mother is at stake. Given that pledge, aren’t you effectively saying to any young woman who came before you in a judicial bypass case, unless her life were endangered, you would not grant a bypass?”

[Fink's response was essentially that he'd not pledged that, and is described in more detail in the separate report of his and Kuhnke's responses. Other candidates responded to the general topic of the kind of judicial bypass case that Wieder had highlighted.]

Tim Connors: He noted that on the 22nd Circuit Court, the waiver of parental consent questions are handled by judge Donald Shelton. Connors is the backup judge for those questions, Connors said. He noted that he had never turned down a request. In every case, he felt that there had been good counseling given – and because such cases were held in closed session, he did not want to provide a lot of details about those cases.

Mike Woodyard: He brought the question back to one of the keys that he identified for judicial temperament – respect. A young woman who has the courage to ask the court to support her decision deserves respect. The law sets up a model to be followed and it needs to be followed, he said.

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