Before she took the bench in January 2026, Judge Tanya A. Grillo spent years implementing Michigan’s indigent defense standards across four counties, work her own court biography describes as improving access to justice. Her published courtroom policy holds PPO hearings and show cause hearings in person, grants Zoom appearances only in extraordinary circumstances with a week of advance staff approval, and refuses USB flash drives outright. On June 8, 2026, in a matter set at the attorney call time, she terminated a self-represented petitioner’s protective order and struck every supplemental filing that petitioner had submitted. That petitioner lives 170 miles away. I am that petitioner.
The Access Record
Judge Tanya A. Grillo was appointed to the 16th Judicial Circuit Court of Macomb County by Governor Gretchen Whitmer on January 6, 2026, filling the vacancy left by the retirement of Judge Diane Druzinski. The appointment is to a partial term expiring January 1, 2027.
Her court biography is not the biography of someone indifferent to access. She served as Regional Manager for the Michigan Indigent Defense Commission from roughly 2017 to 2019, working with courts in Lapeer, Macomb, Oakland, and St. Clair counties to implement statewide indigent defense standards. The page describes that work as improving access to justice. She served as Managed Assigned Counsel Coordinator for the City of Southfield, overseeing delivery of indigent defense services. She practiced criminal defense and took appointed cases. She is President of the Women Lawyers Association of Michigan’s Executive Board and a board member of the National Conference of Women’s Bar Associations. Macomb Chief Judge James Biernat Jr. publicly noted having worked directly with her during the development of MIDC and the county’s defender office.
That record is real, and this article does not dispute it. It is the reason the courtroom policy is worth reading closely.
The Policy, As Published
The 16th Judicial Circuit’s page for Judge Grillo sets out her courtroom procedures. Under the heading for matters held in person, the page lists motion hearings before the judge, default judgments, settlement conferences, trials, evidentiary hearings, all juvenile and neglect and abuse matters, and, specifically, PPO hearings and show cause hearings.
Under the heading for matters held via Zoom, the page states that requests to appear via Zoom will be granted only under extraordinary circumstances
, and adds that such requests must receive prior approval from the judge’s clerk or secretary no less than one week before the scheduled hearing.
Two further provisions matter for anyone litigating from a distance without money. The page states that USB flash drives will not be accepted for matters before Judge Grillo, that printed documents and photographs may be submitted for review, and that audio or video evidence may be presented using a device the party brings in. It also states that judge’s copies are required for all motions and responses, that they must be hand delivered or received by mail by 9:00 a.m. on the Friday before the hearing, and, in capital letters, that the judge’s staff will not print them.
The Two-Tier Call
The same page sets the Monday PPO docket at 8:30 a.m. for attorneys and 1:30 p.m. for self-represented parties. Motion day follows the same split, 9:00 a.m. for attorneys and 1:30 p.m. for pro pers.
On April 24, 2026 at 3:58 p.m., a Friday, Ellison emailed to say his office was assuming representation of the respondent and that he had spoken with the Macomb scheduling clerk. Both matters, he wrote, had been adjourned to June 8, 2026 at 8:30 a.m. I objected at 4:39 p.m. He replied at 4:50 p.m. that the email was notice the Court had requested he send.
June 8, 2026 was a Monday. Under the published schedule, 8:30 a.m. Monday is the attorney PPO call. I was pro per.
Every Michigan judge publishes procedures, and almost nobody reads them until it is too late. The Lab has the tools I use to map a courtroom in advance: FOIA generation, PDF redaction scanning, and Michigan court decision trees.
Open The Lab ?June 8, 2026: Two Orders
The first is Michigan form CC 385, the standard order on a motion to modify, extend, or terminate a personal protection order under MCR 3.707. It is marked as entered after hearing. It records a motion to terminate the personal protection order dated February 11, 2026. At item 3, the court checked the finding that circumstances do not exist that would require continuation of the term of the order. At item 6, the motion to terminate is granted and the clerk is directed to file form MC 239, Removal of Entry from LEIN. Signed June 8, 2026.
Read the form carefully, because the form is the point. CC 385 offers a finding about whether circumstances require continuation of the order. It does not offer, and this order does not contain, any finding that the petition was meritless, that the allegations were false, or that no evidence supported them. Those are three different things, and only the narrowest of them happened.
The second order grants the respondent’s motion to strike all petitioner’s supplemental filings and for other relief. It directs that all supplemental filings submitted by the petitioner, and all petitioner-filed motions not set for hearing before the court as of that date, are stricken in the court file. Beneath the judge’s signature, the line marked approved as to form and substance carries the signature of Philip L. Ellison, P74117, counsel for the respondent. The line for petitioner’s counsel is blank, because there was no petitioner’s counsel.
Striking is not denial. A denied motion stays in the record and a reviewing court can read it. A stricken filing is treated as though it was never properly there. In one order, the documentation I had submitted about what was being done to my family stopped being part of the file, and stopped being something any reviewing court would ever see.
What Was In Those Filings
The stricken material was not only evidence of violations. It was also the record of why I would not be standing in that courtroom.
My supplemental filings set out the harm, the fact that I had started a new job, and the fact that I could not absorb a five-hour round trip to Mount Clemens. They stated on the record that the court had refused to permit me to attend by Zoom. I had confirmed that refusal through the Macomb County Prosecutor’s Office, which was to represent me at the contempt hearing. Under Michigan practice the prosecutor may prosecute a criminal contempt arising from a PPO violation, so the office was not a bystander to the scheduling question. It was the entity that would have carried the enforcement action I was ultimately unable to pursue.
Not a Single Motion
The June 8 strike is the one that succeeded, and it is not the only filing of its kind. Across two courts, the relief repeatedly sought against me has been directed at the record rather than at the merits.
In Saginaw County, a re-notice of hearing dated March 25, 2026 set a May 15, 2026 hearing on a motion styled, in part, as one to compel initial disclosures and a witness list and to strike the filed PPO petitions and PPOs. In Macomb County, the June 8, 2026 motion sought and obtained an order striking all of my supplemental filings and all of my motions not already set for hearing. In Saginaw County again, a motion dated August 18, 2026 seeks sanctions against me, asks the court to investigate a potential violation of MCL 750.539c and MCR 2.412(C), asks that the deferral of adjudication be lifted and pending contempt proceedings decided immediately, and asks for protections governing past and future settlement communications.
The Accommodation Question
Macomb County Circuit Court publishes an ADA accommodations procedure. It directs applicants to complete SCAO form MC 70, Request for Reasonable Accommodations and Response, and return it to the Case Management Office on the fifth floor of the courthouse. If a request is denied, the applicant may file for review, considered under the court’s Local Administrative Order 2019-14J, with the decision communicated in writing or another accessible format. The court publishes ADA coordinator telephone numbers. Under the SCAO model procedure, a denial may be reviewed on form MC 70a by the chief judge, and a chief judge’s denial may be submitted to the State Court Administrator for final determination.
That path exists on paper and it is separate from the judge’s Zoom policy. It runs through the ADA coordinator and, on review, through the chief judge. It is not the same thing as asking a judicial secretary for permission a week in advance.
I have a medical condition, documented by a treating provider since December 2025, that arises directly from the conduct underlying these proceedings and that is materially aggravated by repeated in-person proximity litigation. I raised hardship and accommodation in the Macomb proceedings. In my experience of that court, it was not substantively addressed. I am not publishing my medical records or my diagnosis here, and the absence of that detail is deliberate rather than evasive.
August 3 and 5: The Saginaw Testimony
Nine weeks after obtaining the strike order, Ellison testified in the Saginaw County civil action he brought against me, before Hon. Julie A. Gafkay, on August 3 and August 5, 2026.
My account is that Ellison testified he had supplied information concerning me to his clients. He gave that testimony after the September 2025 cease and desist demand, which he confirmed in writing that he forwarded to his client, and after he had moved successfully to terminate my protective order and strike my filings from the Macomb file.
July 16: What the Federal Court Was Told
On July 16, 2026, Outside Legal Counsel PLC filed a forty-seven page response opposing dismissal in Murray v. Doe, No. 2:25-cv-14148-MFL-APP, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan before Judge Matthew F. Leitman. The docket caption reflects the original Doe pleading; the operative caption on the brief names the Michigan State Police official sued in his official capacity. The suit challenges Michigan’s nondomestic PPO statute as an unconstitutional prior restraint. The plaintiff is the respondent from my Macomb matter. I am a non-party.
The brief recites that the state court terminated the PPO after the plaintiff had to hire counsel, file a motion to terminate, and conduct a hearing. It then states, at PageID.333, that Williams never appeared or offered any evidence to support her allegations
. Elsewhere it describes the petition as advanced by someone with misguided intent and no evidence.
On June 8, 2026, on that attorney’s motion, a Macomb County judge struck every supplemental filing I had submitted in that case from the court file. On July 16, 2026, the same attorney told a federal judge that no evidence was ever presented.
One Signature on All Three Documents
The federal brief does not read like a filing by someone reconstructing an unfamiliar state docket. It was signed by the attorney who built that docket.
Philip L. Ellison, P74117, emailed on April 24, 2026 to report that he had spoken with the Macomb scheduling clerk and that the matters were set for June 8 at 8:30 a.m. He appeared in the Macomb matter as counsel for the respondent. He moved to strike my supplemental filings and signed the resulting June 8 order as approved to form and substance. He then signed the July 16 federal response describing the state record as one in which I never appeared or offered evidence.
The role stacking is not confined to one case. In the Saginaw County action he is the named plaintiff, he is counsel of record for himself and his firm, and on August 3 and 5, 2026 he testified as a witness. Michigan Rule of Professional Conduct 3.7 restricts a lawyer from acting as advocate at a trial in which the lawyer is likely to be a necessary witness, subject to exceptions, and the rule’s application to a self-represented attorney litigant is not straightforward. This article raises the configuration as a question worth asking, not as a violation, and takes no position on how the rule applies.
The Record the Strike Order Did Not Reach
The June 8 order strikes filings in this court file. The file it names is No. 2026-000730-PH. The companion matter, No. 25-0006455-PH, carries a separate case number and a separate file, and nothing in the order reaches it.
That distinction matters, because the February 2026 proceedings are recorded in the companion case.
My account is that both parties appeared in Macomb County on February 5 and February 10, 2026, on the show cause motion the respondent had brought against me. Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Christine Wright prosecuted the contempt allegation. Under Michigan practice the prosecuting attorney carries a criminal contempt arising from a PPO, so the allegation against me was pressed by the state rather than by a private attorney. I was represented by Mike Smith Law.
My account is that I testified on the record at those hearings about the harassment directed at my children and me, and that the exhibits used to do so were the court exhibits from those same proceedings. Those exhibits were then filed with my petitions. Judge Rachel Rancilio, APA Wright, and the respondent had and saw the same evidence.
My account is further that APA Wright informed the respondent, at the courthouse and before she left, that I would be seeking PPOs, and that Judge Rancilio directed my then-counsel to file the petitions and indicated she would sign them. The orders entered the following day, February 11, 2026. Judge Rancilio issued them. Judge Grillo terminated them.
The federal brief describes that February 11 order as having entered ex parte, without prior notice to the respondent, without an adversarial hearing, and without any finding that notice was impossible. It separately states that the petition was never caused to be served, and that no evidence was ever presented to support the allegations concerning the respondent.
Carroll does not condemn ex parte orders for the label. It condemns them because, without evidence and argument from both sides, a court lacks the balanced record that First Amendment adjudication requires. The federal brief quotes that reasoning at length. If Judge Rancilio took sworn testimony on this evidence on February 5 and February 10 with the respondent present, and signed the orders on February 11, then the specific deficiency Carroll exists to prevent is the one thing that did not occur here.
Whatever those documents show, they were not before the federal court, and the order that removed my filings from one Macomb case did not touch the case where the February proceedings are recorded. That record still exists. It can still be ordered. Anyone evaluating the factual premises of a federal constitutional challenge can read it.
What Remains Pending
A contempt proceeding against me remains pending in Macomb County before Judge Grillo in No. 25-0006455-PH, on an allegation that I authored a March 13, 2026 social media publication. I did not. I have submitted contemporaneous employment correspondence, document metadata, family messages, health data, revision history, and a complete browser history group for that date containing no Facebook access. I have submitted Meta’s own export records showing that the profile attributed to me was created May 23, 2026, seventy-one days after the post.
What no one has produced is provider-level attribution: registration records, login history, IP records, device identifiers. Those records exist and Meta has them. Criminal contempt requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and identity is an element of every offense. Screenshot characteristics are not a substitute. Neither is a printout.
What This Article Does Not Establish
Precision is the only thing that makes an article like this worth anything.
This does not establish that Judge Grillo violated any rule, canon, or statute. Publishing courtroom procedures is required practice, not misconduct. In-person defaults for PPO and show cause hearings are common and defensible, particularly where credibility and safety are at issue. Restricting removable media addresses real security concerns. Denial of remote participation is discretionary under MCR 2.407. Termination of a PPO on an uncontested record is routine, and striking filings is a recognized power. Each decision described here is, standing alone, unremarkable.
The argument of this article is about the sum, not the parts. It is that a set of individually defensible rules, applied to a self-represented litigant who is poor, sick, and 170 miles away, produced an outcome in which her evidence left the file, her order left LEIN, and her absence was then offered to a federal court as proof she never had a case. Whether that outcome reflects anything actionable is a question for the Judicial Tenure Commission, the Attorney Grievance Commission, the State Court Administrator, or an appellate court. It is not for me to decide, and I do not claim to have decided it.
This article does not resolve the underlying harassment allegations in either direction and does not adjudicate the Saginaw claims pending against me. The August 3 and 5, 2026 testimony is reported as my firsthand account only, pending the certified transcript.
How do you request an ADA accommodation in Macomb County Circuit Court?
Complete SCAO form MC 70 and return it to the Case Management Office on the fifth floor of the Macomb County Courthouse. The court publishes ADA coordinator telephone numbers. If a request is denied, review is available under the court’s Local Administrative Order 2019-14J, and under the SCAO model procedure a denial may be reviewed by the chief judge on form MC 70a and then by the State Court Administrator.
What is the difference between striking a filing and denying a motion?
A denied motion remains in the court file and is available to any reviewing court. A stricken filing is removed from the file and treated as though it was never properly submitted. Striking changes what the record contains, not merely how the court ruled.
Does terminating a PPO mean the allegations were false?
No. Michigan form CC 385 asks whether circumstances exist requiring continuation of the term of the order. It contains no finding on the truth of the underlying allegations.
Has anyone been found to have committed misconduct?
No. Every proceeding described is active or recently active. All claims by all parties are allegations and nothing here has been adjudicated.
