The Endorsers Who Had Already Died: Judge Galen’s Website Listed Three Deceased Attorneys

Judge Kathleen Galen’s campaign website listed three deceased attorneys as endorsers, one of them a relative of her opponent, Richard Goodman. The endorsement page came down within hours of a Detroit Free Press inquiry, and the campaign says it belonged to an older site. The domain Clutch Justice was reading six days earlier was the same one that went offline.

Clutch Justice has previously reported on Judge Kathleen Galen’s pre-bench liquor license dispute, the Court of Appeals reversal of her sentencing of Zsazsa Soward, the record-keeping gaps attorneys describe in her courtroom, and the residency lawsuit her brother brought against her opponent. This piece is about a different kind of record: the public face of her re-election campaign, and what it listed under the word endorsements.

What the Free Press Reported

On September 30, 2026, the Detroit Free Press reported that the endorsement page on Galen’s campaign website named three local attorneys who had died. Reporter Tresa Baldas identified them as Michael Janadia, who died in 2021 at 57, Timothy Doty, who died in 2024 at 58, and Azhar Sheikh, who died in April 2025. Sheikh, according to family, was the cousin of Richard Goodman’s mother.

Goodman, a Macomb County Friend of the Court attorney and Galen’s opponent in the November 3 election for the 38th District Court, issued a news release the same day. He said families should not have to see the name of someone they have lost on a campaign website, noted that one of the three was a member of his own family, and wrote that Galen “should take those names down today.” He added that Galen asks Eastpointe residents to trust her with the details of their lives and should begin with the details on her own website.

Goodman’s father, Mt. Clemens attorney Richard J. Goodman, confirmed the family connection to the paper. He told the Free Press he was surprised Sheikh had been listed as giving an endorsement, because Sheikh was well known in the legal community and most people there would have known he had died. He described the listing as a failure to check the details before publishing.

Who the Three Were

The State Bar of Michigan’s In Memoriam notice in the Michigan Bar Journal lists Timothy Thomas Doty II, P75614, of Center Line, who died May 19, 2024, and was admitted to the Bar in 2011. That matches the Free Press’s account of a 2024 death. The dates for Janadia and Sheikh come from the Free Press’s reporting.

The Free Press describes all three as local attorneys. An endorsement from a local lawyer tells voters that someone from the legal community around the court vouches for the candidate. A listing of the deceased in that role delivers the same message on behalf of people who can no longer give it.

The Campaign’s Account

Galen’s campaign told the Free Press the page containing the three names was from a previous campaign website that had been improperly listed. The campaign said it understood why seeing those names would raise concerns, particularly for their families, and that it was working to locate and remove the older content and replace it. It added that its current campaign website has not been published and that the older page was mistakenly listed as its web page.

The sequence on the day is part of the record. As of 11:40 a.m., following the Free Press’s inquiry, the endorsement page on the campaign’s site had been taken down. Moments later the entire website was removed and listed as under construction.

The Same Domain, Six Days Earlier

On September 24, 2026, Clutch Justice captured the text of galenforjudge.com/testimonials/, a page on the campaign’s domain carrying testimonials for Galen, including one dated 2020. The same domain also carried an endorsements page that listed attorneys and magistrates by name. The site that was listed as under construction on September 30 is the site Clutch Justice was reading six days earlier.

The campaign’s statement describes two websites: a previous one that held the endorsement page, and a current one that has not been published. The published record shows one domain, live on September 24, and taken offline on September 30 after a press inquiry. The campaign’s statement does not say who maintained the older content, when its endorsement list was last reviewed, or how a page it describes as not its own came to be the page its domain was serving.

Why the Dates Matter

Janadia died in 2021, so any endorsement he gave predates this re-election campaign by at least five years. Galen’s campaign committee filed its Statement of Organization on April 24, 2020, and the testimonials on her site include entries dated that year. An endorsement collected during that campaign and left in place would sit unchanged on a page for as long as the page stayed up. Doty died in 2024 and Sheikh in 2025, and either could have endorsed at any point before then.

Nothing published so far dates any of the three endorsements. That gap separates two different situations. A list that recorded living endorsers in 2020 and was never updated is a stale page. A list that names someone as backing a 2026 campaign after that person has died is a different statement to voters. The reporting establishes that the names were on the page. It does not yet establish which of those two things the page was.

What Michigan’s Judicial Campaign Rules Say

Canon 7 of the Michigan Code of Judicial Conduct governs how judicial candidates conduct their campaigns, including what they say in public communications. The provision barring false or misleading campaign communications was narrowed by the Michigan Supreme Court in In re Chmura, decided in 2000, to reach knowing or reckless falsity rather than any inaccuracy. Applying that standard to this page turns on who maintained it and when it was last reviewed, facts the campaign’s statement does not address. A complaint under the Code would go to the Judicial Tenure Commission, where filings are confidential while they are pending.

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 documented a campaign committee that has held a reporting waiver since December 2020, a printed mailer and a reception invitation that share an address with the committee, and a committee treasurer who is also the magistrate of her court. The endorsement page is another piece of what the campaign published to voters about itself.

Voters learn about a judicial campaign from the materials the campaign controls, and a committee operating under a reporting waiver files little that anyone could check them against. A web page that disappears within hours of a press inquiry leaves behind only what someone captured and what reporters wrote down. Whether the page was a forgotten leftover or an active statement about who supports Galen in 2026 is now a question answered mostly by the campaign’s own account, and the public record of what the site said sits in captures and news coverage.