Clutch Connects — Issue 01 Divide the docket. Find the pattern. 16 terms. Four hidden groups. One disputed district.
Difficulty: Moderate Guesses allowed: 4 Week of: April 10, 2025
How to play: Click the terms you think belong together — selected tiles turn pink. When you think you have a group of four, reveal it using the buttons below the grid. Watch out for the disputed district: one term looks like it belongs somewhere else. Reveal the disputed district note when you're ready.
The terms
Things a judge can be stripped of TENURE • DOCKET • SALARY • IMMUNITY Judicial powers or status removable as discipline.
What the JTC can issue, but rarely does ADMONISHMENT • CENSURE • SUSPENSION • REMOVAL JTC formal disciplinary actions in ascending severity.
Things public defenders never have enough of TIME • FUNDING • INVESTIGATORS • CONTINUANCES Public defender resource constraints.
Ways a case can quietly disappear NOLLE PROSEQUI • DISMISSAL • DIVERSION • EXPUNGEMENT Methods of case disposal without full adjudication.
DOCKET looks like a JTC disciplinary output, but it's something a judge can have reassigned as discipline — it belongs with things stripped from a judge.

CONTINUANCES looks like a resource gap for defenders, but defenders use them strategically. TIME is what they actually lack.
From the editor The patterns in these puzzles are fictional. The ones in Michigan's courts aren't. Rita maps those for a living.