"Judicial Deceit: Tyranny and Unnecessary Secrecy at the Michigan Supreme Court"

Details of the infamous feud between Republican-nominated Michigan Supreme Court justices and flamboyant Democratic attorney Geoffrey Fieger is one of many allegations of judicial misconduct in a book by former Justice Elizabeth Weaver due out later this month.

 

In the wide-ranging, 750-page account of the high court's inner workings, Weaver accuses former Chief Justice Clifford Taylor of offering to change his ruling on a Fieger matter if she would withdraw a public dissent accusing Taylor and three other justices of being biased and prejudiced toward Fieger.

 

Fieger asked the court in August 2006 to halt its reprimand against him for disparaging three appeals court judges in a malpractice lawsuit against Beaumont Hospital.

 

According to Weaver's book, Taylor, in a memo to fellow justices, offered to change his vote against granting Fieger a stay if Weaver would withdraw a dissenting opinion that the so-called "Engler Four" — Taylor and justices Stephen Markman, Robert Young Jr. and Maura Corrigan — had a bias against Fieger, a political enemy who spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to defeat them at the ballot box.

 

"These were deals, and I wouldn't make the deals," Weaver writes in the forthcoming book. "The majority of four simply were not liking that I wouldn't be bullied. I was going to stand up, even alone."

 

Weaver and co-author David Schock claim in "Judicial Deceit: Tyranny and Unnecessary Secrecy at the Michigan Supreme Court," there were countless instances of unethical behavior among justices during her 16-year career on the high court.

 

"You can't be bargaining like the Legislature, horse-trading on a case," Weaver said in an interview with The Detroit News.

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Former Justice Alleges Supreme Court Misconduct in Forthcoming Book