Did you know courts hand out “random” satisfaction surveys? Except they’re anything but random.
Those survey results are calculated and recorded by the Michigan State Court Administrative Office as a measure to guarantee effectiveness and public satisfaction in courts.
Every year since 2015, the Barry County court (and likely other courts too) disproportionately favored divorce cases for surveys. The real uptick occurred when Judge Michael Schipper took over the Circuit Court. Barry County court increasingly relied on divorce courts to get satisfactory surveys results, coming in at 49% of the survey sample in 2021.
Divorce and child custody cases tend to favor women. So who better to give surveys out to after a hearing goes in their favor?
You can find the full 2021 report here.
How the Michigan Court Public Satisfaction Survey Works
For one week a year, everyone who leaves the courthouse should receive a survey. However, the court controls the docket, and can control which cases are on the schedule that week.
Obviously this is flawed because it’s only showing what the court wants the state system to see.
Why Does It Matter?
By scheduling and distributing surveys to cases that they know will give them a favorable review, they are not getting a true representation of court performance or satisfaction. It’s skewing the numbers.
According to their 2021 Court Caseload report, there were 300 criminal cases in Barry County 5th Circuit Court.
They only surveyed 5 individuals.
There were only slightly more divorce cases; 172 with children, and 161 without for a total of 333. They chose to survey 17 individuals within that population.
This is called cherry-picking. It’s easy to control your score and be graded well when you also control where the surveys go.
🖤 Love what we do? Support Clutch.
