People v. Williams Goes Back to the Court of Appeals on June 10.
This Is the Case That Made Me.
The brief on remand from the Michigan Supreme Court is the same one we submitted. Judge Schipper is under JTC reinvestigation again. The SCAO is investigating record tampering in 56B. And the hearing is six weeks away.
- People v. Williams, Docket No. 371219, is scheduled before the Michigan Court of Appeals on June 10, 2026, following a Michigan Supreme Court remand.
- The brief on remand is substantively identical to the appeal co-written by this author. We won at the Supreme Court level. The appellate record now says so.
- Ryan Williams never received a copy of the Barry County Prosecutor’s Brief. Proof of Service discrepancies are documented and preserved.
- Judge Michael Schipper is once again under JTC reinvestigation for failing to be faithful to the law, running parallel to the June 10 hearing.
- The SCAO is actively investigating court record removal and potential tampering in the 56B District Court, the same court system at the center of this case’s record failures.
- A favorable ruling would establish a formal appellate record of constitutional failure in Barry County’s 5th Circuit Court and carry consequences well beyond one case.
June 10, 2026. Mark it.
People v. Williams, Docket No. 371219, is scheduled before the Michigan Court of Appeals. This is the case that turned me into an advocate. It is the case that turned me into a whistleblower. And more than any other case I have covered, it is the one that shows what happens in Michigan when a court decides that protecting an outcome matters more than following the law.
I co-wrote the appeal. We won at the Supreme Court level. The brief on remand from the Michigan Supreme Court is substantively identical to what we submitted. The Court of Appeals is now reviewing it.
This is not a technicality. The Michigan Supreme Court agreed that something was wrong enough to send this case back down. The brief we wrote is the brief the court is working from. June 10 is where that matters.
This is real, it is moving, and it matters for everyone in Barry County who has been watching what their courts actually do when they believe no one is paying attention.
The Proof of Service Problem Nobody Wants to Talk About
One of the things that came out of building this record was a Proof of Service discrepancy that is, to put it plainly, inexcusable. Ryan never received a copy of the Barry County Prosecutor’s Brief.
Read that again.
The incarcerated person at the center of this appeal did not receive the brief filed against him. You cannot respond to arguments you were never given. The Proof of Service said one thing. The reality said another. And this is the same court system that is currently under SCAO scrutiny for how records in the 56B District Court are being handled, including the removal and potential tampering of court records.
“These are not isolated incidents. They are a pattern. The record confirms it every time someone looks closely enough.”
We have covered the record failures in this case at length in When the Record Breaks, Part II. The Proof of Service failure is not a footnote. It is a structural problem in a case that already had structural problems before the first day of sentencing.
What the Court of Appeals Is Looking At
Without getting into the particulars of the legal arguments, the core of this case has always been simple: a sentence was imposed before the factual record existed to support it. Restitution figures were disputed, acknowledged as disputed on the record by both the judge and the prosecution, and a dramatic upward departure from sentencing guidelines was handed down anyway.
Michigan law does not allow that. It has never allowed that. The Michigan Supreme Court agreed, which is why this case is back before the Court of Appeals on remand.
The brief we submitted and the brief on remand are the same document. That tells you everything you need to know about how strong the argument is, and how thin the legal justification for the original sentence always was.
Judge Michael Schipper Is, Again, Under Investigation
This case heads back to oral argument while Judge Michael Schipper is once again under JTC reinvestigation for failing to be faithful to the law. That is not this publication’s characterization. That is the framework the Judicial Tenure Commission operates from when it evaluates whether a judge has met the constitutional obligations of the office.
We have covered the reinvestigation here.
Upward departures that get remanded back down are not flukes. A pattern of behavior resulting in multiple appellate corrections and a renewed JTC investigation is a pattern the system is slowly being forced to acknowledge, case by case, filing by filing. The June 10 hearing lands directly in that context.
What happens next will say a great deal about whether Barry County’s accountability infrastructure is functional or performative. Those are not the same thing, and the distinction is not subtle at this point in the record.
The SCAO Investigation Into 56B District Court
This hearing also arrives while the State Court Administrative Office is actively investigating court record removal and potential tampering in the 56B District Court. The record discrepancies in this case, including altered timestamps, missing filings, and the Proof of Service failure described above, are documented and preserved.
The SCAO does not launch investigations because someone filed a complaint and walked away. It investigates because something in the record warrants investigation. The fact that this is happening in parallel to a Court of Appeals hearing rooted in record integrity is not a coincidence. It is a consequence.
When you build a case on unverified math and then spend years suppressing the people who noticed, eventually the institutional weight of that decision catches up with you. The SCAO investigation and the June 10 hearing are part of the same reckoning.
Why This Case Matters for Barry County
If the Court of Appeals does what the record supports, the implications for Barry County are significant and they extend well beyond one defendant.
A ruling that affirms the constitutional failures in the original sentencing is not just a win for one person. It is a formal appellate record confirming that due process was violated in Barry County’s 5th Circuit Court, that the Proof of Service system failed, and that a judge imposed a sentence before the factual predicate required by law existed.
That is a public record. It attaches to every future proceeding, every insurance review, every SCAO audit, and every accountability conversation about what Barry County courts are willing to do and willing to hide. Michigan Municipal Risk Management Authority will have some decisions to make. So will the county.
This case would change a great deal for the better in Barry County. The record has already changed things. June 10 is the next step. Stay tuned.
About the Author
Rita Williams
Rita Williams is a Michigan-based judicial oversight analyst and founder of Clutch Justice, an investigative platform focused on court system accountability, sentencing integrity, and SCAO policy. Her work examines how courts, policies, and administrative systems operate in practice, with a focus on where process breaks down and harm is created. Drawing on lived experience and systems-level analysis, she writes to make legal structures more readable, expose institutional gaps, and advocate for reforms grounded in both evidence and human impact. Rita’s writing bridges legal analysis, institutional critique, and public education, with a consistent focus on accountability without losing sight of the people most affected by the justice system.
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