Michigan Supreme Court Takes Up Attorney Fees for Indigent Defendants. Clutch Justice Is Filing on the Record.

Michigan’s Supreme Court is deciding whether people the state already called too poor to hire a lawyer can be billed for the one it appointed. Whatever the Court decides, someone has to be able to check how the bill was set.

What the Court Is Asking

On May 27, 2026, the Michigan Supreme Court ordered oral argument on the application in People v Taylor and asked for supplemental briefs. The case comes from the 49th Circuit Court in Osceola County. The Court of Appeals denied leave in a one-line order on May 28, 2025. No opinion explains it, so the questions reach the Supreme Court without a reasoned decision from the intermediate court in this case.

The Court’s questions concern attorney fees charged to defendants who were appointed counsel because of indigency. They run through the Michigan Indigent Defense Commission Act, the statute that lets a court impose “the expenses of providing legal assistance to the defendant,” the court rule on contribution toward appointed counsel, and the Court’s decisions in Jackson and Lewis. Among other things, they ask whether the trial court made the findings those authorities require and whether a hearing is required.

Other filers are already in. The docket shows the Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan, the ACLU of Michigan, and the Criminal Defense Attorneys of Michigan together with the Michigan Indigent Defense Commission. They will carry the statutory and constitutional arguments. Clutch Justice has no reason to repeat them.

Where Clutch Justice Fits

I came to this case late. I found it on October 30, 2026, and the motion goes in the same day. The late start shapes the brief. I have not read the trial record and the brief says so. What I can read is the law the Court already wrote and the decisions that applied it afterward. They point to a gap that the statutory questions do not close.

My October 1 investigation, Pay to Play: The Actual Cost of Using a Michigan Court, looked at what it costs to use a Michigan court, including repayment of appointed counsel. The brief takes one piece of that and asks what a reader of a court file can actually see.

Two Decisions, Two Different Jobs

The two cases at the center of the Court’s questions do different things, and they are easy to blur.

People v Lewis, decided in 2018, is about the amount. When a court imposes attorney fees under MCL 769.1k(1)(b)(iv), it must determine the cost of the legal assistance this defendant received and make findings of fact to support the number. The cost shortcuts available for other costs in the statute do not apply to attorney fees.

People v Jackson, decided in 2009, is about the ability to pay. A court does not have to analyze it when it imposes an attorney fee. The analysis is required when the fee is enforced and the defendant contests it. At that point the court looks at whether the defendant is still indigent and whether repayment would cause manifest hardship, and the defendant is entitled to notice and a chance to contest before enforcement.

Put them together and the system has two checkpoints. One is the sentencing, where the court sets a number and writes down how. The other is enforcement, where the court asks whether the person can pay. Both depend on a paper record.

The One-Line Order Is Still Around

On July 30, 2026, the Court of Appeals approved for publication People v Bell, Docket No. 374765. The trial court in that case had imposed a $750 attorney fee on a one-sentence finding that the fee was appropriate. Later it entered a remittance order directing the Department of Corrections to collect from the defendant’s prisoner account. The defendant contested his ability to pay. The order that followed contained no analysis and no determination.

The Court of Appeals vacated both and sent the case back. It required a factual basis for the fee and a decision on whether the defendant’s circumstances rebutted the presumption of non-indigency that attaches to the remittance order.

Here is what I notice about Bell. Lewis was decided in 2018. The requirement it states is that a court make findings. In Bell, in a case that reached publication in 2026, the findings were one sentence. Nobody had to find a hidden rule. The rule was in the reporter. The record just did not show anyone following it.

What the Brief Asks the Court to Hold

The brief takes no position on whether MCL 769.1k(1)(b)(iv) permits attorney fees against a defendant who was appointed counsel because of indigency. If the Court holds that it does, the brief asks the Court to say what the record must contain. Read the full brief (PDF).

The amount and its basis. The cost of legal assistance to this defendant and how the court arrived at it. A county schedule maximum is not a finding.

The defendant’s status at appointment. The judgment or findings should state that the defendant was found indigent for appointed counsel and whether the court has any information that circumstances have changed.

Notice on the judgment. The judgment should tell the defendant that the fee may be contested on grounds of indigency when enforcement begins, and how.

A written determination at enforcement. When a defendant contests, the order should state whether the defendant remains indigent and whether repayment would cause manifest hardship.

The first and fourth restate Lewis and Jackson. The second and third add a sentence to a document the court already writes. The brief also asks the Court to say that when the record is silent, the remedy is a remand for findings. A silent record should not be read as a finding.

Why a Reporter Cares About a Form

A judgment of sentence is a public document. If it says a defendant owes $750 for a lawyer, anyone should be able to learn from the file how the court got to $750 and whether anyone asked if the person could pay it. In the file the Court of Appeals reviewed in Bell, the answer was a single sentence.

Michigan has 83 counties and many trial courts. A practice that lives only in a courtroom does not travel. The record does. An appellate court reads it. A county reads it when it decides how to collect. The next defense lawyer reads it. A reporter reads it to find out whether a judge or a schedule set the number.

The defendant, meanwhile, may no longer have a lawyer when enforcement begins. The written record is the one thing that does not depend on having one that day.

What Happens Next

The Court decides first whether to grant leave to file the brief. If it does, the brief goes before the justices. Whatever happens, the Court’s decision in Taylor will turn mostly on the statutory and constitutional questions the other filers are briefing. The record question sits underneath all of them.

I will update this page when the Court rules on the motion. If you were charged attorney fees in a Michigan criminal case and want to know what was ordered, the judgment of sentence and the register of actions in your case file show what the court recorded. This article is reporting, not legal advice.