An attorney told me directly: Judge Michael Schipper walked into that courtroom ready to ruin that defendant’s life. The information came from inside the Barry County Prosecutor’s Office. There was nothing anyone could have done to change the outcome. That conversation happened between two licensed attorneys. Neither one filed a Judicial Tenure Commission complaint. Both of them still practice law. And Schipper — a judge with a documented trail of unconstitutional sentences, defied Court of Appeals orders, and an entire county terrified to challenge him — is still on the bench.
He Walked In Ready to Ruin Someone’s Life
I’m going to tell you something that was told to me directly. Something I wish I had never heard, and that troubles me deeply. Because it makes me wonder how many other judges think just like this.
An attorney — an officer of the court, someone with a license to practice in the State of Michigan — told me that Barry County Judge Michael Schipper walked into a courtroom having already decided to ruin that defendant’s life. Not based on the evidence. Not after weighing the arguments. Before any of that. The information, they told me, came from inside the Barry County Prosecutor’s Office. Someone close enough to know had confirmed what many had already suspected: the outcome was decided before the proceeding began.
There was nothing anyone could have done to change it.
There they were. Two licensed members of the Michigan bar, both of whom have an obligation under Michigan Rules of Professional Conduct 8.3 to report conduct that raises a substantial question about a judge’s fitness for office.
Neither of them filed a JTC complaint. Both of them still practice.
Two attorneys — people who swore an oath to uphold the legal system — knew a judge had intentionally and maliciously prejudged a defendant before entering the courtroom. They knew information from inside the prosecutor’s office confirmed it. And they did nothing. Not a letter. Not a formal complaint. Not even an anonymous tip. That is not just a moral failure. It is an ethical violation. It is the culture of silence that keeps judges like Schipper untouchable.
This Is Not a Difficult Standard to Meet
Let’s be clear about what judicial impartiality actually requires. It is not aspirational language. It is the foundational requirement of the job. Canon 3(A)(1) of the Michigan Code of Judicial Conduct requires judges to be faithful to the law and to maintain professional competence in it. Canon 2(A) requires that a judge conduct themselves in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.
A judge who walks into a courtroom having already decided to ruin a defendant’s life — based on information circulating inside the prosecutor’s office before the proceeding begins — is not doing that job. A judge who predetermined the outcome is not exercising discretion. He is executing a personal agenda from a position of institutional power. That is not what judges are for. That is what judges are supposed to be removed for.
The 14th Amendment requires due process. Due process requires a neutral decision-maker. A judge who enters a proceeding having already decided the outcome is not a neutral decision-maker — they are a threat to every constitutional protection the proceeding is supposed to provide. It does not matter whether the ruling is technically defensible after the fact. If the outcome was decided before the evidence was heard, the proceeding was not a proceeding. It was a performance. And the defendant’s constitutional rights were not protected. They were staged around.
The Documented Record: What Clutch Has Been Covering for Years
I want to be clear: what was told to me is not an isolated incident. It is the explanation for a pattern that has been visible in the public record for years. Clutch Justice has documented Judge Michael Schipper’s conduct exhaustively. Here is what that record shows.
| Case | Guidelines | Schipper’s Sentence | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| People v. Arizola | 19–76 months | 240–480 months | Remanded; Schipper resentenced to 120–480 months — still wildly outside guidelines |
| People v. Velasquez | 0–6 months (OWI 3rd) | 36–60 months | Barry County prosecutor filed Confession of Error. Court of Appeals barred Schipper from resentencing. Case sent to Judge William Doherty. |
| People v. Myers (Dean Myers) | Within standard range | Trial penalty upward departure | Michigan Supreme Court granted remand. Schipper described as protecting defense attorney’s “subpar performance” in transcripts. |
| People v. Riddle | Standard range | Departure sentence | Schipper made public comments violating Canon 3(6) — the same violation he was cautioned about in 2019. Resentencing repeatedly delayed. |
| People v. Handley / People v. Cobbs | Same guidelines, same judge, same prosecutor | Radically different outcomes | Cobbs received 6 months and speaking engagements. Handley received far harsher sentence. No articulable distinction in the record justifying the disparity. |
This is not a list of close calls. These are documented cases where the Michigan Court of Appeals — and in one instance the Michigan Supreme Court — found that what Schipper did was wrong enough to require correction. In Velasquez, the appellate court was so fed up with Schipper’s refusal to follow their orders that they removed him from the resentencing entirely. They did not trust him to comply with a direct instruction from a higher court. And they were right not to.
“A policy disagreement does not support an upward departure.” That is a direct quote from the Michigan Court of Appeals regarding Schipper’s conduct in People v. Velasquez. He disagreed with the legislature’s sentencing guidelines. He thought they weren’t harsh enough. So he ignored them. That is not judicial discretion. That is a judge substituting his personal policy preferences for the law — which, last I checked, he did not write and is not authorized to rewrite from the bench.
The 2019 Warning He Ignored
In 2019, the Judicial Tenure Commission cautioned Schipper about making public comments on a pending case. That is a private, non-public form of discipline — a whisper, not a warning. He took it, nodded, and in 2021 made public comments to The Hastings Banner about Timothy Riddle’s case, violating Canon 3(A)(6) again. The same canon. The same conduct. Two years later.
A judge who receives a cautioning for a specific ethical violation and then repeats that exact violation is not someone who made a mistake. He is someone who learned that the consequences are so minimal he could (and would) do it again. And the JTC’s response was to close the complaint against him and send me a letter that someone probably crumbled up and threw in the trash.
Unfortunately, several people have filed complaints against Judge Schipper. Apparently the hostile, combative behavior — the belittling, the threats, the departures, the defiance of appellate orders — is for now, “completely acceptable” by their standard. Schipper acknowledged bad behavior during his run-ins and got a verbal slap on the wrist. I don’t know exactly what happened to these complaints and we may never know, because the JTC doesn’t have to tell anyone. Some judge got angry at a bike shop owner and was removed from the bench. Michael Schipper openly seeks to “ruin” people in his courtroom, threatens to “take them out,” and yet he is allowed to keep going. That is not justice. That is a protection racket.
The Culture That Keeps Him There
Here is something Schipper said in a 2023 podcast: he described a cozy relationship with the attorneys in Hastings. He said it openly. On a recording. Clutch even documented around that admission here. That is nepotism.
Multiple West Michigan attorneys, speaking anonymously to Clutch, have acknowledged that appearing before Schipper in Barry County carries a known professional surcharge. Some firms build a “Barry County premium” into their billing to account for the difficulty of the forum. They know what they’re walking into. And not one of them has filed a formal complaint about it.
Attorneys in West Michigan who practice in Barry County have a calculated professional interest in staying quiet. Filing a JTC complaint against a sitting judge you will appear before again is professionally risky. Local court-appointed attorneys depend on relationships with the bench for their caseloads. The “cozy relationship” Schipper described in his own words is not incidental — it is the mechanism that insulates him. The system is designed to make silence the rational choice. And defendants pay for that silence with years of their lives.
This Man Should Not Have Power Over People’s Lives
I want to say this plainly, because it deserves to be said plainly.
A judge who enters a courtroom having already decided to ruin a defendant — confirmed by someone inside the prosecutor’s office before the proceeding begins — is not fit to be a judge. Not because of one bad day. Not because of a single mistake. Because the fundamental requirement of the job is that the outcome has not been decided when the defendant walks in. Once that requirement is gone, nothing else in the proceeding is legitimate. The plea agreement means nothing. The evidence means nothing. The arguments mean nothing. The record is theater. And the defendant is the audience, being shown a performance of justice that was never going to be about them.
Schipper has been on the bench because no one ran against him. He is there because the JTC absorbs complaints rather than acting on them. He is there because the attorneys around him made a calculated decision that their professional relationships were worth more than the defendants whose lives were being decided. He is there because a system that was supposed to catch this has consistently looked the other way.
That is not an argument for patience. It is an argument for removal.
If You Have a Case Before Schipper: A Survival Guide
I understand that the accountability system is broken and you may be in front of this man right now. Here is what you can do to protect yourself as much as possible inside a system that was not designed to protect you.
Broken plea agreements are a documented pattern in Schipper’s courtroom. The assistant prosecutor in multiple cases is on record making assurances about sentence ranges that were later abandoned — and Schipper presided over those proceedings without consequence. A verbal assurance in Barry County is worth nothing. Get the terms, the agreed sentence range, the specific charges, and the prosecutor’s signature on paper before you enter a no-contest plea.
The Michigan Sentencing Guidelines are public. Your attorney should be able to tell you the minimum, recommended, and maximum range for your specific offense and prior record variable score. If the deal you’re being offered falls outside those guidelines — or if the prosecutor is pushing for something above the range — that is a red flag. Know the numbers before you sit in that courtroom.
Schipper’s behavior in the courtroom — the belittling, the blurring of lines with the prosecutor, the departures from procedure — only becomes actionable if it is documented. Request official transcripts for every hearing. If there is audio or video of a proceeding, request that too. Clutch has been waiting over two years for access to Barry County court video as part of a Michigan Department of Civil Rights complaint. The court is not going to make this easy. Start asking early and document every request and every refusal.
The Michigan Court of Appeals has reversed Schipper’s sentences. They can reverse yours too — but you have a strict timeline. Do not wait. Do not assume the sentence was final. Contact an appellate attorney within days of sentencing, provide the transcript, and ask directly whether the sentence can be challenged. In Velasquez, the Barry County prosecutor filed a Confession of Error. That is how bad the departure was. Your case may be just as reversible.
The JTC publishes aggregate data on complaints received. Volume matters. When dozens of complaints about the same judge pile up from unrelated people with unrelated cases, the statistical pattern becomes harder to dismiss as outcome disagreement. Write the complaint about conduct, not rulings. Cite the canons. Document the specific statements, the timeline, the pattern. And send it. Even if nothing happens immediately, you are building the record that eventually forces a reckoning.
Schipper is in his seat because no one ran against him. That is a solvable problem. Start a political action committee. Inform voters. Talk to local journalists. Talk to Clutch. The accountability machine that is supposed to remove judges like Schipper has failed — but elections are accountability mechanisms too, and Barry County voters deserve to know what has been happening in that courthouse in their name.
The Attorneys Who Said Nothing: Their Obligation, Their Failure
Let me return to where this started.
Two attorneys. One of them told me what they knew. Neither of them did anything with it. Under Michigan Rules of Professional Conduct 8.3(b), a lawyer who knows that a judge has committed a violation of applicable rules of judicial conduct that raises a substantial question as to the judge’s fitness for office shall inform the appropriate authority. The JTC is the appropriate authority.
Knowing that a judge walked into a courtroom ready to ruin a defendant’s life — with confirmation from inside the prosecutor’s office — raises more than a substantial question about fitness for office. It answers it. That judge is not fit for the office he holds.
And the attorneys who knew and said nothing are not bystanders. They are participants in the harm that followed. Their licenses permit them to appear in the courtrooms of this state. Those licenses come with obligations. The obligation to report was one of them. They chose not to meet it. That choice deserves to be named for what it is.
Michael Schipper should not be on the bench. He should not have power over people’s lives. He has used that power to ruin people — not as a side effect of aggressive but legal sentencing, but as a deliberate act, telegraphed in advance to the people around him before the defendant ever walked into the room. The JTC has failed. The local bar has failed. The court-appointed defense system has failed. And the defendant paid for all of those failures with time they will never get back. That is the record. It is time the record produced a consequence.
If you have been in front of Schipper, contact Clutch. If you have information about his conduct, contact Clutch. If you are an attorney who has witnessed what I have described and said nothing, you have a choice to make. The deadline for that choice is not in a court filing. It is in the next case he decides before the defendant speaks a word.
Sources and Documentation
Rita Williams, He Walked In Ready to Ruin Someone’s Life: The Case for Removing Judge Michael Schipper from the Bench, Clutch Justice (Apr. 27, 2026), https://clutchjustice.com/2026/04/27/2026/04/27/judge-michael-schipper-removal-barry-county/.
Williams, R. (2026, April 27). He walked in ready to ruin someone’s life: The case for removing Judge Michael Schipper from the bench. Clutch Justice. https://clutchjustice.com/2026/04/27/2026/04/27/judge-michael-schipper-removal-barry-county/
Williams, Rita. “He Walked In Ready to Ruin Someone’s Life: The Case for Removing Judge Michael Schipper from the Bench.” Clutch Justice, 27 Apr. 2026, clutchjustice.com/2026/04/27/2026/04/27/judge-michael-schipper-removal-barry-county/.
Williams, Rita. “He Walked In Ready to Ruin Someone’s Life: The Case for Removing Judge Michael Schipper from the Bench.” Clutch Justice, April 27, 2026. https://clutchjustice.com/2026/04/27/2026/04/27/judge-michael-schipper-removal-barry-county/.
