Clutch Justice has covered Judge Michael Schipper’s sentencing record across multiple cases. All claims about Schipper’s conduct in this piece are drawn from court records, the published Court of Appeals decision in People v. Velasquez, the audio of the oral argument, and prior Clutch Justice reporting. Schipper is referenced here with his documented record: JTC-confirmed 2014 misconduct, MSC remand in Docket No. 167549, and a pattern of upward departures documented across multiple Barry County cases. He is not characterized beyond what that record supports. For the full archive, see the Judge Schipper tag and the Barry County tag.
On April 17, 2025, Barry County Circuit Judge William Doherty resentenced Mr. Velasquez to time served, releasing him from the remaining two-year house arrest term that Judge Michael Schipper had imposed following the first remand. The Court of Appeals had barred Schipper from presiding over the resentencing after he twice departed from sentencing guidelines of 0-6 months — first imposing 36-60 months in prison, then on remand imposing 396 days plus 2 years of house arrest. Judge Doherty’s time-served sentence is consistent with the Court of Appeals’ remand order and with the guidelines that should have governed the original sentence. The case required multiple rounds of appellate intervention before reaching a result that should have been reached at the outset.
The Case Timeline
Mr. Velasquez’s sentencing guidelines were 0-6 months. That range reflects the Legislature’s assessment, through the Michigan sentencing guidelines framework, of the appropriate sentence for the offense and offender characteristics presented. Departing above that range requires documented, articulated reasons that survive appellate review.
Judge Schipper sentenced Velasquez to 36-60 months in prison — six to ten times the top of the guidelines range. During the ensuing appeal, the assistant prosecutor took the unusual step of filing a Confession of Error, acknowledging that the plea bargain in the case had been broken. A Confession of Error by the prosecution concedes that reversal is warranted and signals that the government itself does not defend the result below. The Court of Appeals remanded for resentencing.
On remand, Schipper resentenced Velasquez to 396 days and 2 years of house arrest. The sentencing guidelines remained 0-6 months. The Court of Appeals found the remand sentence also inconsistent with both the guidelines and its prior order. In a step that reflects the seriousness with which the court viewed the departure pattern in this specific case, it barred Schipper from presiding over further resentencing proceedings and remanded the case for a second time. The oral argument in the appeal is available in the court’s public audio archive.
On April 17, 2025, Judge William Doherty resentenced Velasquez to time served and released him from the remaining house arrest. That sentence is within the 0-6 month guidelines range. It is the sentence the guidelines contemplated when the case was first before the court.
Judge Schipper’s upward departure sentencing pattern has been documented by Clutch Justice across multiple Barry County cases. His JTC-confirmed 2014 misconduct and the Michigan Supreme Court’s remand in Docket No. 167549 are matters of public record. The Velasquez case adds to that documented record: a case that required two appeals and three sentencing proceedings before a within-guidelines sentence was imposed, including a remand order from which the Court of Appeals found it necessary to bar the original judge. For the full archive of Clutch Justice coverage, see the sentencing departure analysis and the Judge Schipper tag archive.
Rework as Systemic Waste
Process improvement frameworks use the term “rework” to describe work that must be done again because it was not done correctly the first time. In manufacturing and operations, rework is recognized as waste — it consumes resources, adds time, and produces no value beyond restoring the state that should have existed at the outset. The principle applies directly to judicial proceedings that require multiple rounds of appellate correction.
The Velasquez case required two appeals, three sentencing proceedings, and the extraordinary step of a judicial bar before a sentence within the guidelines was imposed. Each of those proceedings consumed court time, assistant attorney general resources, defense resources, and the defendant’s time — spent, in part, under conditions of incarceration or supervision that the guidelines did not contemplate. The cost of that rework was not abstract. It was measured in years of a person’s life and in public resources expended on proceedings that should not have been necessary.
Upward departures that resist correction on remand do not just harm the individual defendant. They impose compounding costs on a system that depends on appellate correction functioning efficiently. When a sentencing court requires two remands before producing a within-guidelines result, the appellate mechanism has been used not as a backstop but as a multi-year iterative process — and every step of that iteration costs more than doing it right at the outset would have.
Judge Doherty brought reason and justice back into this courtroom. Watching this case finally reach its correct resolution — after years and multiple rounds of appellate intervention — is a reminder of why appellate oversight matters and why it is not sufficient on its own. The correction mechanism worked. But the case required it to work twice over before producing an outcome the guidelines had contemplated from the beginning.
Citizens asking for their elected judiciary to follow the Rule of Law are not asking for the world. They are asking for the minimum the system is designed to provide. At the end of the day, all that was ever required here was following the guidelines. That is not a high bar.
Sources
Rita Williams, Barry County Defendant Resentenced: Court of Appeals Decision Upheld in People v. Velasquez, Clutch Justice (Apr. 25, 2025), https://clutchjustice.com/2025/04/25/barry-county-defendant-resentenced-court-of-appeals-decision-upheld/.
Williams, R. (2025, April 25). Barry County defendant resentenced: Court of Appeals decision upheld in People v. Velasquez. Clutch Justice. https://clutchjustice.com/2025/04/25/barry-county-defendant-resentenced-court-of-appeals-decision-upheld/
Williams, Rita. “Barry County Defendant Resentenced: Court of Appeals Decision Upheld in People v. Velasquez.” Clutch Justice, 25 Apr. 2025, clutchjustice.com/2025/04/25/barry-county-defendant-resentenced-court-of-appeals-decision-upheld/.
