Beyond Barry: Tracing Snyder’s Judicial Appointments and Gadola’s Appeals Across Six Counties

Clutch Justice’s “47 Days” investigation documented that Michael Gadola, while running Governor Rick Snyder’s legal counsel office, contributed to Snyder’s campaign nine days after a Court of Appeals vacancy became public, and was appointed to that vacancy weeks later. Barry County followed: a Snyder judicial appointee, later reviewed on appeal by the same Gadola, with no disclosure on either end. This piece extends that documentary method to six more counties. Every appointment date, docket number, and panel roster below is drawn from an official government press release or a published Court of Appeals or Michigan Supreme Court opinion.

Ionia County: A Commission, a Bench, and an Audio Clip

Brian Calley, Snyder’s lieutenant governor for his full two terms, spent years as an Ionia County commissioner and vice chair of the county board before statewide office; his wife Julie Calley later served on the same board as chair. The records below establish specific official connections between Schafer and both Calleys, beyond their shared county background.

Schafer Worked Within Both Calleys’ Government Roles

Brian Calley chaired a state council on which Schafer served. On February 20, 2013, Snyder announced Schafer’s appointment to the Mental Health Diversion Council as its prosecutor representative, for a term ending January 30, 2017. A March 2013 Department of Community Health presentation to the Legislature lists Brian Calley as council chair and Ronald Schafer as the prosecutor representative on the same roster. This establishes a shared state justice-policy role before Snyder appointed Schafer to the circuit bench in 2016. Snyder appointment announcement · State presentation, slide 17.

Julie Calley chaired county proceedings in which Schafer conducted official business. The October 15, 2013 Ionia County Committee-of-the-Whole minutes identify Julie Calley as chair and record Schafer reporting on an assistant-prosecutor vacancy he had filled and discussing specialty-court funding. These are documented interactions over county justice administration. County minutes, page 2.

The county connection also included a legal-counsel role. On January 10, 2012, the board, with Calley present, appointed prosecutor Schafer interim county legal counsel while it sought bids for the position. The motion was made by Tiejema and supported by Banks; the minutes record a voice vote, not Calley’s individual vote. County appointment minutes, page 4.

Kent County: The Man Gadola Handed the Job To

The through-line here is not a single trial judge’s rulings under appellate review. It is that the man Gadola personally handed his old job to now sits beside him on the same court, after having held the Kent Circuit Court seat that fed the pipeline in between.

Calhoun County: Three Appointments, One Chief Judge on the Panel

Snyder made three Calhoun County appointments in close succession. Brian Kirkham, a Battle Creek attorney and former mayor, was appointed to the 37th Circuit Court on July 3, 2013, the same day Snyder announced Jennifer Faunce’s appointment in Macomb County. John Hallacy, then chief judge of the 10th District Court and a former Calhoun County prosecutor, was elevated to the 37th Circuit effective December 29, 2015. Paul Beardslee, Marshall’s city attorney, was appointed to Hallacy’s vacated 10th District seat on March 9, 2016.

Kalamazoo County: A Murder Conviction, Reduced and Reinstated

Snyder appointed Gerald “Scott” Pierangeli to the Kalamazoo County Probate Court on November 26, 2013, the same announcement that named Jeffrey Dufon to Van Buren County’s circuit bench. On January 15, 2015, Snyder moved 8th District Chief Judge Paul Bridenstine up to the 9th Circuit Court, filling the seat vacated by Judge J. Richardson Johnson, and appointed Christopher Haenicke to replace Bridenstine on the District Court.

Macomb County: The Seat Gadola’s Own Court Helped Empty

Snyder elevated Macomb County Circuit Chief Judge David Viviano to the Michigan Supreme Court on February 27, 2013, filling the vacancy left by Justice Diane Hathaway’s resignation amid a real estate fraud scandal. On July 3, 2013, the same day as Kirkham’s Calhoun appointment, Snyder named Jennifer Faunce, then a 37th District judge, to the Macomb Circuit seat Viviano had vacated.

Van Buren County: The Weaker Chain

Snyder made three Van Buren County appointments: Kathleen Brickley to the 36th Circuit Court on April 13, 2012, succeeding Judge William Buhl; Jeffrey Dufon to the same circuit on November 26, 2013; and David DiStefano to the county’s Probate Court in 2015. Gadola has heard Van Buren County appeals, including Ashen v Assink, but this reporting could not independently trace that specific appeal to a docket assigned to one of the three Snyder appointees above. Van Buren is documented here as an open thread, not a closed one.

A Separate Barry–Calhoun Connection: Tonia Miller

People v Tonia Joyce Miller, No. 346321, retained its Calhoun Circuit Court caption and LC No. 2002-003157-FC. That caption does not identify every judge who later handled the case. The National Registry of Exonerations identifies Barry County Judge Vicky Alspaugh as the judge who held the remand hearings in fall 2020 and granted a new trial on January 25, 2021. The appellate docket excerpt supplied for this reporting separately records a September 25 hearing scheduled in Barry Circuit Court. The supplied Barry MiCOURT record also names Alspaugh in later proceedings.

On April 8, 2021, a panel of Gadola, Gleicher, and Stephens affirmed the new-trial ruling. The after-remand opinion states that the Court of Appeals had ordered an evidentiary hearing before a different judge. Those records support Alspaugh’s involvement; they do not establish who selected her or that the assignment was engineered to secure a particular outcome.

Alspaugh belongs in a separate institutional connection, outside the Snyder appointment count: Whitmer appointed her on December 17, 2019, with her term beginning January 1, 2020.

Foley: The Connection Runs Through Swartzle

The August 14, 2026 order in In re Foley, COA 381330, names Ackerman, Swartzle, and Letica. Swartzle’s participation connects the case to a separate strand of this reporting: 47 Days reports that Gadola personally contributed to Swartzle’s 2020 Michigan Supreme Court campaign.

There is also an identifiable Calley connection at the organizational level. SBAM’s Small Biz PAC endorsed Swartzle in 2020, while Brian Calley was SBAM president, a position confirmed in the organization’s 2020 scorecard. That places Gadola’s reported financial support and the PAC’s endorsement in the same election. It does not establish that Calley personally directed the endorsement, donated to Swartzle, or coordinated fundraising with Gadola.

These connections belong in the account of the professional and political relationships surrounding Barry County appellate review. The contribution supports a specific campaign-finance connection; a broader claim about fundraising coordination requires additional records. Neither the contribution nor the endorsement establishes that Foley’s ruling was influenced by those relationships. Foley remains outside the count of decisions on which Gadola himself sat.

Disclosure Is Only the First Question. Disqualification Is the Next.

When an appellate judge reviews a ruling by someone whose appointment he helped advance, the public has reason to ask how that history was evaluated. An appeal asks a court to scrutinize another judge’s work. A substantial role in selecting that judge, an ongoing personal relationship, or prior involvement in the dispute can raise questions about the independence of that scrutiny. Those questions deserve an answer before the parties receive a decision.

Michigan’s standard reaches beyond proof that a judge deliberately favored someone. MCR 2.003(C)(1)(b) recognizes an objective, reasonable perception of a serious risk of actual bias affecting due process, and separately recognizes failure to satisfy Canon 2’s appearance-of-impropriety standard. The inquiry therefore includes how the circumstances would reasonably appear, not simply the judge’s private confidence in his own impartiality.

Canon 3(C) assigns responsibility to the judge: when the judge has cause to believe grounds for disqualification may exist, the judge should raise the issue. The parties should not have to reconstruct an appellate judge’s executive-branch career before a potentially disqualifying connection receives attention.

Applied here, the question is specific: did Gadola personally screen, recommend, or otherwise assist the appointment of the trial judge whose ruling reached his panel? What was the extent of that work, and what relationship continued afterward? Did he have any involvement in the underlying dispute? Leading Snyder’s legal counsel office establishes an institutional connection, but does not answer each of those questions for every appointee. Some appointments in this article occurred after Gadola left that office. The table identifies where those evidentiary gaps remain.

My concern is that the records described in this reporting do not supply a public explanation of how the potentially relevant connections were evaluated. No disclosure has been identified in the reviewed materials for the listed appeals. That is a finding about the materials reviewed, rather than proof that no disclosure exists anywhere. It is enough to warrant seeking the disclosure records, assignment records, and any disqualification decisions. It is not enough to declare every listed panel legally disqualified.

Flint Shows Why the Explanation Matters

Gadola’s personal connection to Flint is documented in his own words. In an October 2014 email, while serving as Snyder’s legal counsel, he said his mother remained a Flint resident and expressed alarm about the city’s drinking water. Michigan Public’s reporting on the released emails establishes that acknowledgment. It does not establish that he later recused from a particular appeal because of his mother.

Clutch Justice’s earlier review found Gadola absent from ten direct Snyder and Flint appellate matters. As 47 Days explains, absence from a panel is not itself a recusal record. No statement or order establishing the asserted reason for a Flint recusal has been located for this update.

The comparison nevertheless identifies a question the court can answer with records: what standards governed Gadola’s participation in matters connected to his former executive service, and how were those standards applied when a trial judge’s appointment or another substantial relationship was involved? If a Flint recusal record establishes that a personal connection required him to step aside, its reasoning would provide a concrete basis for comparison. Until then, the article should not supply a reason for his absence that the record does not establish.

The Outcome Does Not Resolve the Conflict Question

A reversal does not prove that every conflict concern was examined, just as an affirmance does not prove favoritism. The issue is whether the judge’s participation satisfied the applicable standards in the circumstances of that case. The reversals described here belong in the record, but they cannot answer what the parties were told about potentially material relationships or whether grounds for disqualification existed. Those questions concern the fairness of the decision-making process itself.

Barry County: The Additional Gadola Panels

The four appeals discussed across the six additional counties are not a total of Gadola’s Barry County work. This supplemental table identifies six Barry-captioned merits decisions covering seven COA docket numbers. Riddle consolidates two appeals into one opinion. Miller, captioned in Calhoun and addressed separately above, is outside this Barry-captioned count. These are identified decisions, not a complete inventory of every opinion, leave order, or reconsideration order.

The earlier 47 Days audit grouped McKelvey, Rosa, and Grinage as McDowell-era leads, and Riddle and Arizola as Schipper-related leads. A county caption and panel roster establish Gadola’s appellate participation. Personal attribution of each trial ruling requires the trial-court record; the last column states where that work remains.

Attribution sources: Contemporaneous Riddle verdict coverage identifies Schipper as the bench-trial judge. Clutch Justice’s Arizola reporting identifies Schipper in that matter. These sources supplement the panel-identifying opinions; the trial records remain the strongest source for attributing a particular order.

Still outside the count: Rumpf’s January 30, 2018 merits panel in COA 333544 was Murphy, Sawyer, and Beckering. The separate February 11, 2016 interlocutory denial in COA 331000 remains an unresolved panel lead. Foley’s August 14, 2026 order names Ackerman, Swartzle, and Letica. The Foley connection discussed here runs through Swartzle’s campaign support from Gadola, not through Gadola’s participation on that panel. Foley is excluded from the Gadola merits-decision count.

Barry Has the Most Identified Appearances in This Case List

Among the cases retained in this article, Barry has the largest number of identified Gadola merits-panel appearances: six decisions covering seven appellate docket numbers. Each of Ionia, Kent, Calhoun, and Kalamazoo has one decision in the six-county comparison. Miller adds a second Calhoun-captioned decision discussed separately, with a documented Barry remand connection. Macomb has no qualifying case retained here, and Van Buren’s lead remains unresolved.

That concentration makes Barry the clearest focus for further examination in this reporting. It does not establish that Barry had more Gadola appearances than every other Michigan county, or that Barry received a disproportionate share of his work. This is a selected case list assembled through Barry-focused reporting, not a statewide assignment census. Comparing rates would require both the full set of Gadola’s decisions and the total appeals from each county over the same period.

Where Gadola Appears: Cases by County

The table separates the draft’s identified trial-judge connections from county-level matches and open threads. Snyder made the appointments; Gadola previously led Snyder’s legal counsel office. That institutional role does not, by itself, establish his personal participation in vetting each named appointee.

Disclosure and recusal: This table identifies panel participation and appointment history. It does not independently establish whether a disclosure occurred elsewhere in a case record, whether a recusal motion was filed, or whether disqualification was legally required. Those questions require the underlying records and circumstances of each case.

Scoring the Chain, County by County