I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Unfortunately, not all judges have integrity. And very frequently, it’s judges from little counties that behave the worst. When you run into this, it’s disorienting; it goes against everything you’ve ever been told about the criminal justice system.
Many people, myself included, jump right to the step of filing a complaint with the state’s Judicial Oversight or Review Board. This is a good start, but not the best path.
If I had to do it all over again, this is how I would approach the situation.
DO NOT file your judicial misconduct complaint immediately. Create a change.org petition first.
If your state has a fairly generous statute of limitations on judicial misconduct complaints, you’ve got some wiggle room before you MUST file your complaint.
Creating the Change.org petition will help you accomplish three things right out of the gate:
- Find other survivors of misconduct
- Create public awareness of the Judge’s behavior
- Hold the Judicial oversight board accountable and create public pressure to act.
Finding Other Survivors of Judicial Misconduct
Speak your truth and encourage others to come forward with their stories. Putting myself out “there” meant that people now had a real person who understood them; someone to talk to and share their story with. This enables you to look for patterns, and build your complaints with others.
If you can amass enough support, you may be able to start a Political Action Committee.
Creating Awareness of the Judge’s Behavior
I received substantial success right away in calling out Judge Michael Schipper for his erratic and unprofessional behavior. To this day, you cannot google this man without finding the petition I filed complaining about his behavior.
It’s result number three in the Google search results (not too shabby!). I find this to be helpful, as people regularly come to me to ask questions. It also ensures people will be on the lookout for this man’s absolutely rotten behavior.
Holding the Judicial Oversight Board Accountable
The thing I find most deplorable about the Michigan Judicial Tenure Commission, is in a nutshell, they protect bad judges.
It’s an organization with absolutely no teeth.
They dismissed my complaint against Michael Schipper citing “No wrong doing” even though he was (and still is) a nasty, unpleasant person to me in a case that wasn’t even my own.
I guarantee you: next year there will be an anonymous entry in the JTC’s yearly BS report about a Judge being slapped on the wrist for yelling at and intimidating an innocent woman with Complex PTSD. The way these entries are written, you would never know it is about a particular person unless you were involved, a witness to the situation, or somehow stumbled into a news article.
Creating the Change.org petition effectively destroys their shot at anonymity.
This is crucial, as many people make complaints against Judges and Lawyers and they are regularly swept under the rug in Michigan. Every part of the system is failing to do what it should do. This creates a paper trail that the JTC can never, ever hide again.
Write a Complaint at JudgeWatch.net
Taking away the secrecy is how other people are warned and can protect themselves from whistleblower retaliation.
JudgeWatch.net is ran by the Judicial Watch Network, and maintains a database of judicial misconduct. I’ve embedded their form below:
The Takeaway: Publish the Petition, THEN File the Complaint.
Remember: sunlight is the best disinfectant. No one should be living in fear of elected officials.
If we put them there, we should be able to remove them.
