Causing Her Problems

Judge Kathleen Galen knew Zsazsa Soward was pregnant. She said so on the record, then sentenced her to 93 days in jail anyway, over unpaid fines on a nonserious misdemeanor. The Michigan Court of Appeals reversed her, at the same Eastpointe courthouse already operating under a decade-old order that was supposed to prevent exactly this.

A Nonserious Misdemeanor

In February 2023, Zsazsa Soward pleaded guilty in the 38th District Court to driving without a valid license. She told the court she had never obtained a license but was in the process of doing so. It was not drunk driving, reckless driving, or fleeing police. Under Michigan law, a nonserious misdemeanor like this one carries a rebuttable presumption against incarceration altogether, meaning the default outcome is not jail.

Judge Kathleen Galen sentenced Soward to 93 days in the Macomb County Jail. The sentencing exchange is reproduced in the Michigan Court of Appeals’ published opinion, so the reasoning behind that sentence is not a matter of interpretation. It is on the record, in Galen’s own words.

What Galen Said on the Record

Galen’s remarks at sentencing centered on Soward’s driving history and her unpaid fines and costs. “And that’s the part I don’t get because this has happened so many times, you would think that you were tired of having this happen to you,” Galen said, according to the transcript. “And having all these fines and costs hang over your head, but it doesn’t seem to bother you because you don’t pay them. And you don’t do what you’re supposed to do, but you continue to drive to work.”

Galen then turned to Soward’s employment. “So, it’s not like you don’t have a job, you just choose not to pay for your fines and costs that were your fault,” she said, treating the fact of employment as proof that nonpayment was a choice rather than a hardship.

Before imposing the sentence, Galen acknowledged something else. “You know the problem that we have,” she said, “and I’m sorry that, you know her pregnancy is causing her problems at this point, but she has all of these files. And she keeps doing the same thing over and over again.” Having named the pregnancy as a source of hardship, Galen proceeded to the 93-day sentence anyway.

The Courthouse’s Own History

This is not new territory for the 38th District Court. In July 2015, the ACLU of Michigan filed an action for superintending control, In re Donna Elaine Anderson, in the Macomb Circuit Court against the 38th District Court and the City of Eastpointe, over what it described as the routine practice of then-presiding judge Carl F. Gerds III, Galen’s predecessor, of imposing “pay or stay” sentences without first determining whether a defendant could actually afford to pay. The case centered on Eastpointe resident Donna Anderson, who faced jail over her inability to pay a 455 dollar fine tied to a minor dog-ordinance violation.

The Macomb Circuit Court, in an order signed by Judge James M. Maceroni, entered its final order on March 8, 2016. The order stated plainly that the District Court “can’t sentence nor revoke probation for failure to comply with an order to pay money unless the defendant is able to pay,” and it required the court to use alternatives to payment, such as payment plans or partial waivers, wherever permitted by law, with pending sentences altered to comply. That requirement was later incorporated into Michigan Court Rule 6.425(D)(3)(a), which bars a term of incarceration for nonpayment unless the court considers the defendant’s employment, earning ability, and other resources and finds that payment can be made without manifest hardship.

Galen took the bench at the same courthouse in 2020, four years after that order was entered. The Soward sentencing happened under her, at the same institution, under the same standing requirement.

What the Court of Appeals Found

The Michigan Court of Appeals, in a per curiam opinion from a panel of Chief Judge Gadola and Judges Riordan and Letica, reversed. On the ability-to-pay finding, the panel wrote that “the district court’s conclusory determination that because defendant had a job, she was willingly choosing not to pay the fees and fines, does not appear to have been supported by the record.” Having a job, the panel’s reasoning makes clear, is not the same as having disposable income once rent, utilities, transportation, and other obligations are accounted for.

The panel then addressed the consequence of skipping that analysis. “To not do so and then sentence a defendant guilty of a nonserious misdemeanor to a jail term under these circumstances is an abuse of discretion,” the opinion states. That is the operative holding. It is not a finding that Soward could never lawfully receive a jail sentence. It is a finding that the sentence Galen actually imposed rested on a record that did not support it.

The panel did not stop there. Galen had also characterized Soward as a “bad driver,” pointing to her repeated citations as evidence. The Court of Appeals disagreed with that framing too, finding that the citations reflected a lack of required documentation, license, registration, and insurance, “which was why she was repeatedly getting pulled over,” and that this observation “may not entirely be supported by the record here.” Two separate parts of Galen’s justification for incarcerating Soward failed appellate scrutiny in the same opinion. The Court of Appeals vacated the 93-day sentence and remanded the case.

The Open Question

Soward’s case reached the Court of Appeals. That alone makes it unusual. An appeal requires time, an attorney, and the stamina to carry a misdemeanor conviction through years of litigation for a matter that, on its face, involved a 93-day sentence rather than a life sentence. Most people in Soward’s position do not have all three.

What the public record cannot answer is how many other defendants appeared in front of Galen with unpaid fines and were treated the same way, as capable of paying because they held a job, without an actual examination of what they earned against what it cost them to live. Eastpointe is not a city where that distinction is abstract. Census Bureau estimates put 17.5 percent of its residents below the federal poverty line. In a district court, traffic misdemeanors and unpaid fines are not rare, and a 93-day jail sentence over a licensing violation can cost someone their job, their housing, or custody of their children well beyond the time actually served. Soward’s opinion documents one outcome. It does not, and cannot, document how many times the same reasoning was applied to someone who never got the chance to appeal it.

A Suggested Contribution

On June 16, 2026, weeks before the Court of Appeals reversed the Soward sentence, the Committee to Re-Elect Judge Kathleen G. Galen hosted a campaign kickoff reception at Villa Restaurant in Eastpointe, publicized on the committee’s own Facebook page four days earlier. The invitation set a suggested contribution of 100 dollars per person, payable to the committee, and addressed attorneys directly: “this invitation is informational only and not a personal solicitation by the candidate,” language required under Michigan’s Code of Judicial Conduct that appears in some form on most judicial candidates’ fundraiser invitations. Below that line, the invitation listed an RSVP phone number and a “reelectjudgegalen@gmail.com” address for responses. Clutch Justice has not confirmed who answers either one.

Clutch Justice has separately documented that Galen’s committee has held a Michigan campaign finance reporting waiver since December 2020, available only to a committee that does not expect to raise or spend more than 1,000 dollars for an election. A hosted restaurant reception built around a 100 dollar suggested contribution, extended in part to the attorneys who appear before Galen in her own courtroom, sits inside that same certification.

The juxtaposition with Soward’s case is not subtle. In February 2023, Galen concluded that Soward’s having a job meant she was choosing not to pay her fines and costs, and jailed her for it. In June 2026, her own re-election committee was suggesting a 100 dollar contribution from the attorneys who practice in front of her, voluntary and unenforced, never weighed by the same unforgiving standard the bench applied to Soward’s unpaid balance.

Why This Matters Now

Kathleen Galen is on the November 3, 2026 ballot for re-election to the 38th District Court, opposed by Richard Goodman. Clutch Justice has separately documented Galen’s pre-bench role in a liquor-license dispute that independently matches an anonymized 2024 Judicial Tenure Commission admonition, and a campaign apparatus, from a printed mailer to a 100 dollar-per-person reception for the attorneys who appear in her own courtroom, that raises its own questions about a reporting waiver her committee has held since 2020. The Soward reversal is a different kind of record. It does not depend on matching an anonymized description to a set of facts. It is a named judge, a published opinion, and a sentencing transcript that speaks for itself.

The 38th District Court is where Eastpointe residents encounter the justice system over the matters that make up most of a docket: traffic violations, misdemeanors, unpaid fines. For people already living close to the financial edge, in a city where close to one in five residents lives below the poverty line, the space between “you have a job” and “you have money available to pay the court” is not a technicality. It is the entire question an ability-to-pay hearing exists to answer. The Court of Appeals had to answer it for Galen this time. The record does not say how many times no one was there to ask.