Michigan Supreme Court Justice Apologizes After News Of His Backseat Judging Didn’t Go Over Too Well

As I was growing up, I was taught an old adage about giving unsolicited advice: Don’t. As simple as the metric for giving unsolicited advice is — and for those who may have already forgotten, the standard is don’t — it has prevented a lion’s share of stern finger-waggings, work relationship conflicts, and Twitter beefs that I would have otherwise avoided. I’ve even seen how bad the fallout can be when this time-tested advice is not heeded. Take Michigan Supreme Court Justice Richard Bernstein, for example:

This sucks and Richard Bernstein should be embarrassed. Very cool that a judge who regularly decides criminal cases thinks criminal defendants are forevermore unfit for public service. https://t.co/Fq9btQ68v5

— Jay Willis (@jaywillis) January 5, 2023

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From the Detroit Free Press:

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Michigan Supreme Court Justice Richard Bernstein apologized to fellow Justice Kyra Harris Bolden on Monday for interfering in how she staffed her court chambers.

Bernstein, in a story first reported by The Detroit News, had strongly criticized Bolden, who was sworn in on Jan. 1 as Michigan’s first Black woman on the state Supreme Court…He also said he was not speaking to Bolden because they did not share the same values.

Martel resigned, but Bernstein, who is legally blind, also received considerable criticism, both for his public comments and for prompting Martel’s resignation.

I know the concrete events that happened are newsworthy, but let’s take a moment to step back and appreciate the timing of these events. Justice Bolden was sworn in on January 1st. Pete Martel announced that he was stepping down on the 5th of January. That means that Justice Bernstein decided not only to meddle with her hiring practices, but he also decided that the gap in their “views” was so grand that he refused to speak with her all within the span of a week. Now I know he’s a judge and all, but that is some powerful discernment. The thing that gets me is that given all of this information, Justice Bernstein still attempted to position himself as the one who took the moral high road out. From The Detroit News:

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Bernstein, 48, who in November was elected to a second eight-year term on the high court, argued in a Wednesday interview that clerking on the state’s highest court is one of the jobs ex-cons should never be hired for if they have shot a police officer. He argued that many of the cases that come before the court involved police officers.

Bernstein, who campaigned last fall with the 34-year-old Bolden, also said he hoped to bridge the gap between himself and Bolden.

“Now that this matter is behind us, I look forward to rebuilding my relationship with our new justice,” he said.

Given the context, it is pretty hard to read this as anything other than the politically correct and public-facing version of “Since I got my way here, maybe Justice Bolden will capitulate to my other views such that she earns the right to indulge in conversations with me.” I don’t think that this reading is that harsh either, considering that his recent non-apology isn’t really faring that much better.

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Nothing in Justice Bernstein’s statement accepts accountability for costing someone his job or affirms the critical life experience and value that returning citizens bring to the criminal justice conversation. This is not an apology. https://t.co/VN1bjf5u3G

— Laurie Pohutsky (@lpohutsky19) January 10, 2023

Thankfully, there appear to be five other justices besides Bernstein whom Justice Bolden can work with longer than a week before they decide that “they will not speak to Bolden because they do not share the same values.” If she’s lucky, a couple of her colleagues might even place some stock in the redemptive theories of criminal justice that Bolden, so early in her career, has already displayed a commitment to. At the very least, maybe they’ll let her do her damned job.

Michigan Supreme Court Justice Bernstein Apologizes To Justice Bolden Over Hiring Flap [Detroit Free Press]

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Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at [email protected] and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

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Courts, Justice Kyra Harris Bolden, Justice Richard Bernstein, Michigan, Pete Martel, Redemption, State Judges