Major Development in Judge Kirsten Nielson Hartig Judicial Tenure Investigation Reinforces Need for Mental Fitness Standards on the Bench.
For readers interested in how Michigan could prevent this kind of breakdown before it reaches crisis, learn more about my proposed Fit-Bench Act here.
Today brings an important update in the ongoing Judicial Tenure Commission (JTC) proceedings against 52-4 District Court Judge Kirsten Nielsen Hartig, one that underscores a systemic issue the Michigan courts and Legislature can no longer ignore.
As previously reported, the JTC filed Formal Complaint No. 109 against Judge Hartig after a lengthy investigation that included a psychological evaluation ordered by the Commission. Early reporting from Clutch Justice revealed that report concluded Judge Hartig was “unsafe to practice” based on disruptive behavior and personality dysfunction emerging from the evaluation.
That finding was not speculative. It is now part of the public record. The First Amended Complaint, filed January 9, 2026 and running 17 pages, is publicly posted by the Judicial Tenure Commission and archived below by Clutch Justice. The amended pleading confirms that the judge’s mental health and cognitive capacity were not peripheral issues. They were central to the Commission’s case from the beginning.
And according to their report, not only was she unsafe in 2024, but she has gotten worse.
What has now come into view through that amended complaint is more serious than previously known.
What the Commission is Now Alleging
Count Five of the First Amended Complaint is titled “Mental Disability.” It lays out in clinical detail what the JTC is formally alleging: that Judge Hartig is experiencing a progressive neurocognitive disorder consistent with early dementia that prevents her from safely performing the duties of a judge.
The complaint states that Hartig underwent two independent neuropsychological evaluations while the case was pending.
The first occurred on September 30, 2024, at Bright Pine Behavioral Health, during a period when Hartig was refusing to provide the Commission with a separate All Points North report that had already raised these concerns.
This was just one week after she had requested the JTC’s case be dropped, a request which was ultimately denied by the Michigan Supreme Court.
Bright Pine’s cognitive testing found:
“Respondent has significant challenges with the ability to learn and recall visual details. Her immediate visual learning recall score placed her in the 2nd percentile, meaning 98 percent of others in her age group would be anticipated to have learned more information than she did.”
The complaint continues:
“Respondent’s ability to spontaneously remember context based visual details after a delay was at the 9th percentile… her ability to memorize additional visual details after four repetitions of those details was at the 5th percentile for both initial learning and delayed recall.”
It further states:
“Respondent also demonstrated vulnerability in the ability to quickly encode specific facts (score in 16th percentile) or memorize specific facts (score in 9th percentile).”
And:
“Respondent made multiple mistakes when she needed to change focus from one task or idea to the next… her difficulty with changing focus from one idea to the next was of particular note because it could cause further confusion of information while presiding over a case.”
Bright Pine also documented fluctuating attention:
“Respondent’s attention was in the ‘low average’ range… compounded by fluctuating attention, suggesting that respondent has intervals of becoming inattentive or missing important information or potentially making some mistakes in detail recognitions within a 15-minute window of time.”
These are not abstract impairments. These are the exact cognitive functions judges use to track testimony, evaluate evidence, rule on objections, and apply law in real time.
Knowing all of this makes it even more concerning that she was allowed to stay on the bench and oversee cases, such as that of Susie Weiss and the allegedly predatory 1-800-Hanson’s case.
The Decline Documented in 2025
On December 15, 2025, Hartig underwent a follow up neuropsychological evaluation by Corewell Health employee Dr. Michael Lawrence, a board certified neuropsychologist. The complaint states the results showed decline.
According to Count Five:
“Respondent’s performance on the task of alternating attention, mental flexibility and sequencing was low average and representative of decline… Respondent committed two different ‘set shifting’ errors. Respondent also struggled previously on this test in 2024.”
The amended complaint further states:
“Respondent’s initial learning for visual information is well below premorbid expectations and abnormal… her significant number of repetition errors on a list learning and memory task placed respondent in the exceptionally low range of abilities.”
Dr. Lawrence found those errors medically meaningful:
“Respondent’s significant number of repetitions on a list learning and memory task was pathognomonic, meaning specifically characteristic or indicative of a particular disease or condition.”
The Commission alleges:
“Respondent’s neuropsychological profile is abnormal… neurocognitive findings are evidence of neurocognitive decline, and consistent with a clinical diagnosis of Mild Neurocognitive Disorder.”
And most significantly:
“Given respondent’s age [59], in combination with neuropsychological findings that are evidence of underlying executive dysfunction… an emerging dementia type syndrome is high on the differential list.”
The complaint specifically raises concern for:
“Behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia, which would impact respondent’s emotional regulation and personality as well as her judgment, problem solving and planning.”
Why the Pattern of Decline is Concerning
Behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia, sometimes called Pick’s disease, does not usually begin with memory loss. In its early stages, it more often presents as changes in judgment, behavior, impulse control, emotional regulation, and decision making, while basic memory can remain relatively intact.
That is why the pattern documented in Judge Hartig’s neuropsychological testing is especially concerning. Both the 2024 and 2025 evaluations show significant impairment in visual memory, delayed recall, and learning, along with executive dysfunction and language decline. Those findings are not typical of the very earliest phase of frontotemporal dementia.
The fact that memory impairment is already prominent, combined with a documented decline over a 15-month period, suggests a neurodegenerative process that is not static and not minimal. It indicates progression.
This matters because cognitive decline in neurodegenerative disease is not reversible. It does not plateau. It advances. When that progression is occurring in someone exercising judicial power, the risk to fairness, consistency, and due process grows over time, not smaller.
What is Behavioral variant FTD (bvFTD) Frontotemporal Dementia, or Pick’s Disease?
Pick’s Disease is a specific form of frontotemporal dementia, a progressive neurodegenerative brain disorder that primarily affects the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain. The frontal lobe is the primary “judgment center,” handling decision-making, problem-solving, impulse control, personality, and complex behaviors, while the temporal lobe, located below it, manages memory, hearing, understanding language (like speech comprehension and distinguishing sounds), and smell recognition, working with the frontal lobe for complex tasks like integrating sensory input with decisions.
Pick’s Disease is often used to describe what doctors now call the behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), which is the most common form of FTD.
In bvFTD, the earliest and most prominent symptoms are changes in personality, social behavior, judgment, self-control, and empathy rather than memory loss that typically defines Alzheimer’s disease. People with Pick’s Disease commonly show marked disinhibition, apathy, emotional blunting, compulsive behaviors, and executive function problems, and they often lack insight into their own changes. Unlike Alzheimer’s, memory is usually relatively preserved in the early stages.
What the Commission Says This Means
The JTC is not simply describing medical findings. It is alleging legal incapacity.
Count Five states:
“The results of respondent’s neuropsychological evaluations coupled with other evidence of her mental status establish that respondent has a mental disability that prevents the performance of her judicial duties, in violation of MCR 9.202(B).”
Those duties include:
“Reading, analyzing, and recalling facts from testimony, documents, and exhibits; applying law to facts accurately and consistently; making credibility determinations; and writing coherent, legally sound opinions and orders.”
This is a formal allegation that a sitting Michigan judge is absolutely cognitively impaired while exercising judicial power.
Memory loss is not common in early stage Pick’s disease. the fact that memory has been impacted suggests this is fairly advanced, especially when you consider the 15 month decline.
The totality of all of this also begs the following questions:
- How many other Michigan judges are mentally unfit to serve right now?
- How many medical conditions or even personality disorders are putting disproportionate strain on defendants?
Why Clutch Justice Has Been Warning About This
Chief Judge Travis Reeds knew in February 2025 about Hartig’s state, and was clearly concerned, as he twice contacted the State Court Administrative Office to have her pulled from cases. She was ultimately removed from Felony cases in May 2025.
Beginning in June and through July 2025, Clutch Justice reported on Judge Hartig’s emergency motions, denials, and refusal to provide key mental health records during the JTC investigation. At that time, we reported that a Commission ordered psychological evaluation had already found her “unsafe to practice.”
In September 2025, we published Fit for the Bench, arguing that Michigan’s courts rely on assumption of competence rather than actual verified cognitive fitness. Judges are not required to undergo periodic cognitive testing. There is no public disclosure regime. There is no early intervention system.
The Hartig case now shows what that failure looks like in practice.
Two independent neuropsychological evaluations over fifteen months documented:
- visual memory collapse
- executive dysfunction
- language decline
- abnormal learning patterns
- disease specific neurological markers
- progressive deterioration
All while a sitting judge continued to preside over cases involving liberty, custody, and civil rights. It’s absolutely unconscionable that this was allowed to happen.
Why the Timeline Matters
The Judicial Tenure Commission’s original and anended complaints do more than describe misconduct. It establishes a timeline that aligns closely with how frontotemporal dementia, including Pick’s disease, actually progresses.
Behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia does not begin with memory loss. It begins with changes in judgment, impulse control, emotional regulation, social awareness, and respect for boundaries. People in the early stages often become more rigid, more controlling, more impulsive, and less able to recognize limits, often years before a formal diagnosis is made.
In Judge Hartig’s case, the Commission documented escalating judgment and boundary failures beginning in 2018, including repeated attempts to control court staff she had no authority over, hostile and inappropriate comments toward attorneys and employees, and increasingly rigid and punitive behavior. Those patterns intensified through 2020 and 2021 and culminated in 2022 with unlawful dismissals of criminal cases that violated basic court rules governing jurisdiction and probable cause.
By May 2024, an independent psychological evaluation ordered by the Commission found Judge Hartig unsafe to practice. By December 2025, follow-up neuropsychological testing documented measurable cognitive decline consistent with a mild neurocognitive disorder and an emerging dementia-type syndrome.
In neurodegenerative conditions like frontotemporal dementia, this kind of progression typically unfolds over many years. The medical literature recognizes that behavioral and judgment changes often appear long before formal testing confirms cognitive impairment. That means the conduct documented by the Commission between 2018 and 2022 is not separate from the later medical findings. It fits the known clinical pattern of a disease that slowly erodes executive function and self-control.
This is why the Hartig case raises far larger questions than individual misconduct.
A judge who was later found to be unsafe to practice and then shown to have progressive neurocognitive decline remained on the bench during a period when thousands of criminal, probation, and civil cases were being decided. Michigan has no routine system for evaluating cognitive fitness of sitting judges. The result is that a neurodegenerative illness was allowed to operate inside the courtroom until it became impossible to ignore.
That is the systemic failure now confronting the state.
Why This Matters for People Facing Addiction and Medical Decisions
Judge Hartig’s role on the 52-4 District Court is not limited to traffic tickets or procedural matters.
In those cases, judges make determinations that directly affect whether a person receives medically assisted treatment, whether continued testing or treatment compliance is required, whether someone is diverted into a treatment-based program rather than incarceration, and whether alleged noncompliance justifies sanctions that can include jail. Those rulings are not abstract legal calls. They shape real people’s access to healthcare, recovery pathways, and family stability.
The Judicial Tenure Commission’s complaint now alleges that Judge Hartig suffers from executive dysfunction, memory impairment, attention fluctuation, and declining ability to organize, retain, and accurately process information. These are the very cognitive functions required to weigh medical evidence, track compliance over time, understand treatment protocols, and apply conditions consistently and fairly.
When a judge’s neurocognitive testing shows difficulty with visual memory, fact retention, task switching, and delayed recognition, it raises serious concerns about how medical information, treatment plans, probation reports, and compliance records are being interpreted in cases involving addiction and mental health. These cases depend on accurate, nuanced understanding of evolving medical facts, not just legal theory.
This is why the Hartig matter is not just an internal judicial issue. It directly implicates the safety, fairness, and medical outcomes of people whose recovery and liberty depend on the court’s ability to process and apply complex health information correctly.
Why Judges With Neurocognitive Decline Often Keep Working
One of the most misunderstood aspects of neurocognitive illness is that it often damages the ability to recognize the illness itself. In medicine, this is called anosognosia. People with early dementia or frontotemporal disorders frequently do not experience themselves as impaired, even when objective testing shows significant decline.
This is not denial in the ordinary sense. It is a neurological symptom. When the parts of the brain responsible for insight, self monitoring, and executive judgment are compromised, a person’s internal perception no longer matches their outward functioning.
That dynamic helps explain why Judge Hartig fought disclosure, resisted medical reporting, and continued to assert fitness to serve even as two independent neuropsychological evaluations documented cognitive decline. Those behaviors are medically consistent with the very executive and frontal lobe dysfunction the Commission now alleges.
In 2019, Judge ShawnDya Simpson, New York State Supreme Court, was also subject to a New York Judicial Conduct Commission investigation after litigants and attorneys reported “erratic” behavior. A judicial conduct commission investigated and ordered a neuropsychological evaluation; she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
There is also a powerful human factor. Judges build their professional identity around decisiveness, competence, and authority. Stepping away from the bench is not just a career decision. It is a loss of status, purpose, and self. For someone experiencing cognitive decline, that loss can feel existential.
Finally, Michigan’s judicial system provides no protected, nonpunitive path for judges to step aside when health issues emerge. There is no routine screening, no confidential medical review process, and no graduated transition system. The only mechanism is a public disciplinary case, which creates powerful incentives to dig in rather than step down.
This combination of neurological impairment, identity threat, and institutional rigidity creates a system where impaired judges often remain in power long after it is safe to do so.
This Is a System Failure, Not a Personal One
Pursuant to MCR 9.230(B), Judge Hartig must file a response within 14-days of receiving the amended complaint. The public JTC trial begins on February 2, 2026, but this is not about blame. It is about public safety and institutional integrity.
Pilots, surgeons, and air traffic controllers must demonstrate cognitive fitness before they are allowed to place lives at risk. Judges who decide whether people go to jail, lose custody of their children, or are ordered into medical and addiction treatment face no such requirement.
The Hartig case now puts a hard truth into the public record: Michigan’s judicial system has no meaningful mechanism to prevent cognitively impaired judges from continuing to preside over criminal, family, and civil cases while serious medical concerns are unfolding behind the scenes.
That means defendants, families, and vulnerable people may be standing before a judge whose own doctors have documented deficits in memory, attention, executive functioning, and decision making, without the courtroom, the parties, or the public being told.
This is not a theoretical risk; it cuts to the core of due process. A person’s liberty, parental rights, probation status, or access to treatment should never depend on whether a judge’s neurocognitive decline happens to be mild that day.
Michigan now has documented proof that its system allows a judge with an emerging dementia syndrome to remain on the bench until the harm becomes impossible to ignore. That is a blatant and dangerous policy failure the Michigan Legislature must address.
Mental fitness standards for judges and clear safeguards for defendants can no longer be optional; legislative work is necessary.
Read more about my proposed Fit-Bench Act here.
