Tracy Green didn't trust the legal system before she was elected to serve Wayne County as a judge in 2018 — and in less than three months on the job she gave the rest of us a reason not to trust it, either.
The Michigan Judicial Tenure Commission wants the state Supreme Court to throw Green off the bench for lying about nine separate matters related to her son's abuse of her grandchildren. If they want to make it an even 10, they could include lying to me about whether the rest of us could trust her to protect our children.
Green began her litany of lies as a witness in the very courthouse where she demanded that other witnesses give the truth, the whole truth and nothing but that truth.
That's what you and I call irony. And it leads to what legal eagles call obloquy, which is a fancy word I had to look up that essentially means "make people so mad that they will say very bad things about the justice system," because some malignant magistrate engaged in conduct "that is contrary to justice, ethics, honesty, or good morals."
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| M.L. Elrick asks Wayne County Judge Tracy Green in 2019 if people can trust her to protect their children. Fox2 Detroit |
But trying, and failing, to get her son off the hook for beating her grandchildren is just one of the reasons Green isn't fit to serve. Her poor judgment exposed other children to danger and even forced a parent whose daughter was beaten to death to relive the ordeal a decade after the killer was convicted of murder and torture.
Green's conduct during her brief career as a judge has been so poor that Wayne County has twice had to hire retired judges to take over her caseloads — at a cost to taxpayers of $160,000 per judge, per year.
Now Green sits at home waiting for the state Supreme Court to decide whether to put her out of her misery ... or prolong our own.
Two witnesses, one liar
Journalists will do almost anything to avoid taking the witness stand. But I was a candidate for Detroit City Council in 2021 when the Michigan Judicial Tenure Commission called me to testify in Green's disciplinary hearing, so I complied. At issue was an investigation I did in 2019 while working for Fox 2 News that included allegations Green helped conceal how her son Gary Davis-Headd beat her grandchildren.
Green had published articles asserting that the deck was stacked against parents before she was elected to the Wayne County Circuit Court in 2018. Her expertise in family law may be why she started her judicial career in juvenile court.
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| M.L. Elrick testifies on May 27, 2021 in the Michigan Judicial Tenure Commission prosecution of Wayne County Circuit Judge Tracy Green, who was accused of misconduct Michigan Judicial Tenure Commission |
In March 2019, after less than three months on the job, Green was a witness in her own courthouse in a case that would determine whether her son would lose custody of his children.
Green testified that she was unaware her son was beating his children and said she did not use makeup to cover up one of her grandson's bruises. Behind the scenes, Green helped her son's attorney craft his defense. But the judge in the case nevertheless ruled that Davis-Headd had abused his children and terminated his parental rights. Four months later, a criminal court judge found Davis-Headd guilty of child abuse and sentenced him to four to 10 years in prison.
In the meantime, I began investigating allegations that Green lied on the witness stand in her son's child custody case. We met in May 2019 for an interview in which I asked her: "If you, a family court judge, can’t protect your own grandkids, can the people of Wayne County count on you to protect our kids?"
Green, on camera, replied: "I am certainly capable of protecting children from my perch as a Third Circuit Court judge. There is nothing that I have done or would ever do to jeopardize the safety of any child, particularly a child that I love. And what I’m saying to you Mr. Elrick is that I’ve done nothing wrong, I’ve not failed to do something that I should have done, and that’s the bottom line." (Wayne County is also known as the Third Circuit Court.)
A family court judge didn't believe Green. And her grandsons knew she was lying. But her real problem was the Judicial Tenure Commission, which investigates judges. They filed a formal complaint against Green and my Fox 2 report became evidence in the case. During cross-examination, Green's lawyer, Michael Ashcraft, was determined to use me to create a crack Green could slip through.
Ashcraft zeroed in on a 6-second clip in which Green told me that she did not "put makeup on any bruises to conceal any abuse." He tried to get me to agree that "Tracy Green did not say that she did not put makeup on the boy's face."
After scrutinizing video of my testimony, and based on a review of the Judicial Tenure Commission's findings, I believe Ashcraft was trying to establish that Green did put makeup on her grandson's face, but not "to conceal any abuse."
If so, it was a fine point that wasn't fine enough to buffalo Betty Widgeon, the judge presiding over Green's disciplinary hearing. Widgeon, who heard from many witnesses, found that Green's "careful use of language show[ed] an attempt to avoid admitting any knowledge that would lead to liability." She also wrote that Green used vague and evasive language to avoid answering investigators' questions and used her legal training and a “sophisticated mastery of language to mislead or misinform CPS (Child Protective Services), the Juvenile Court, and the Commission about her knowledge of [her son’s] treatment of [her grandsons] while still attempting to preserve plausible deniability concerning false statements.”
Commissioners were more direct: They called Green a liar.
Other adjectives they used to describe Green included, "not credible," "not plausible," "deceit," and "untruthful."
On July 18, commissioners voted unanimously to recommend that the Michigan Supreme Court remove Green from the bench. They noted that if Green's only transgression had been covering up her son's abuse before she became a judge, they would not call for an end to her judicial career.
"But the maxim 'the cover up is worse than the crime' plays itself out in a variety of contexts and legal proceedings," commissioners wrote, noting that the crime itself was pretty bad when you consider that "the misconduct involved jeopardizing the welfare of minors by an attorney who purports to advocate for children."
Ultimately, commissioners wrote, Green's "cover up at very least unquestionably triggers the harshest discipline of removal" because the state Supreme Court has established a precedent of removing judges who lie under oath.
It's worth noting that commissioners also were not impressed that Green tried to save her skin by claiming that the grandson she purported to love — but failed to protect — was "a confirmed liar."
Fruit of the poisonous tree
Earlier in this column, I mentioned "irony." For those still unclear on the concept, try this: After I reported that Davis-Headd was convicted of felony child abuse, he sued Fox 2 and me for defamation of character for reporting that he had been … wait for it … accused of child abuse.
The lawsuit was almost certainly filed in the hope of leveraging a nuisance settlement. You could call it a slap suit, which would be appropriate, because Davis-Headd seems to think a slap is the best way to resolve problems. This time, however, he wasn't going up against little kids. And when it comes to the law, no one slaps around Herschel Fink.
Fink is a preeminent media and First Amendment attorney. His client list includes the Free Press and luminaries including Dr. Dre who, like me, drops phat beats and dope rhymes — or is it dope beats and phat rhymes? A panel of three lawyers who reviewed Fink and Davis-Headd's legal arguments unanimously ruled that the case had a value of $0 and labeled it "frivolous." Fink essentially scored a first-round knockout when Wayne County Judge David Groner promptly dismissed the case, ruling that Davis-Headd was, as high falutin' legal scholars say, full of baloney.
Groner wrote that I provided "an accurate report of public and official proceedings concerning (Davis-Headd's) crimes and convictions," adding that Davis-Headd's "felony convictions on child abuse and domestic violence charges … shock the conscience."
I haven't heard from Davis-Headd since the lawsuit was dismissed. Of course, that may just be because I don't accept collect calls.
Needless suffering
There are few things stronger than a mother's love, as Green demonstrated by risking her judicial career in a failed attempt to save her son. But Green showed little concern for another mother who lost her child in a brutal murder.
Peter Dabish was convicted in 2010 of first-degree murder and torture for beating his girlfriend to death. Prosecutors said the 6-foot-3 Dabish, whose father was a co-founder of the Powerhouse Gym franchise, hit 5-foot Diana DeMayo or slammed her into something hard nearly two dozen times. There was so much blood in Dabish's downtown apartment that even DeMayo's dog was covered.
Three medical examiners and the neurologist who examined DeMayo's body said she died from the brutal beating.
A jury convicted Dabish.
A Wayne County judge sentenced him to life in prison.
The Michigan Court of Appeals rejected Dabish's appeal.
The Michigan Supreme Court declined to review the case.
None of that was enough for Green, who, with less than two years experience as a criminal court judge, decided to put DeMayo's family through hell.
Again.
In 2020, Green granted Dabish's request for an evidentiary hearing after his lawyers hired an expert who said emergency medical technicians caused DeMayo's death. The expert said they improperly intubated her while trying to save her life. Dabish's lawyers had unsuccessfully floated a similar theory in 2010, raising questions about why Green would reopen old wounds by entertaining an already rejected legal theory. Green did not respond to my message seeking comment, and Ashcraft told me she would not discuss the case.
I also called Linda DeMayo, Diana's mother, who still can't understand why Green essentially reopened the case.
"The trial was a month long, and it was horrific," Linda DeMayo told me. "I spent 10 years getting through this and was in a good place with post-traumatic stress disorder. … This opened up the wounds majorly."
During the 2010 trial, Linda DeMayo was in the courtroom and did not look at the gruesome photos from the crime scene or autopsy.
The 2020 hearings were virtual, and she found she could not look away.
“I lost it. I lost it," she told me, pausing to compose herself. "I never realized what they had to do to do the autopsy. … That was hard.”
Linda DeMayo said she wrote Green a long letter “begging her to please end this, because I’d been through enough.” She said Green's staff acknowledged receiving the letter, but said the judge couldn’t respond.
In the end, Green reached the same conclusion as everyone who had looked at the case before her: Dabish did not deserve a new trial.
Linda DeMayo, who tutors students preparing for college entrance exams, acknowledged that Green was fairly new on the job when she decided to hear Dabish's arguments.
"I like giving people an opportunity to improve," Linda DeMayo said. "However, I think this is too important a position, a job, a career, to make that many mistakes on."
From her home in Florida, she follows Green's own troubles with the law.
"And, no, I don’t think she should ever be a judge."
Children at risk
After reporting on Green's testimony in her son's custody case, I began examining the abuse and neglect cases that Green presided over in family court. Because she had not been on the bench for very long, there were not a ton of cases to review. And, after Wayne County Circuit Court Chief Judge Timothy Kenny watched my Fox 2 report, he reviewed a transcript of the trial at which Green and her grandson testified and told Green she would not handle any abuse and neglect cases until her son's legal matters are resolved.
Still, the cases I reviewed indicated that Green was reluctant to take children out of dangerous homes, and inclined to send children back to homes that other judges had deemed unsafe.
One case I have kept tabs on started in March 2018. Child Protective Services asked a judge to remove toddlers from the home of a mother who was still just a kid herself. She was 15 years old, couldn't care for her three children and was living with her mother and grandfather. The grandfather had a criminal history, was suspected of sexually abusing his daughter, and years earlier had his parental rights terminated. A judge ordered the children removed and taken into protective custody.
Eight months later, a judge reviewing the case ruled that the three babies should not be returned to their young mother because doing so would expose them to "substantial risk of harm to the children's life, physical health or mental well-being."
After that judge retired at the end of 2018, the case was transferred to Green's docket.
The Department of Health and Human Services argued in 2019 that the children's mother should not regain custody because residents in the home where she was staying were under investigation for criminal sexual conduct. One of the children allegedly told Child Protective Services workers that an uncle touched her private parts.
Nevertheless, Green ordered the children returned to their mother, who was now 16. In an apparent acknowledgment that they faced some danger, Green ruled that their uncle and grandfather should stay away from them.
By July 2019, Green had been removed from family court and the case went to another judge. He ruled that the children should not be returned to their mother because it would put them at risk.
Justice in the balance
We conclude with a classic "good news, bad news" situation.
For the second time in three years, Wayne County's chief judge brought in a retired judge to take over Green's caseload. That means the public won't be at the mercy of a judge with bad judgment. It also means taxpayers are on the hook for Green's $160,000 salary and another 160 large for the retired judge called in to do her job.
Kenny told me he felt he had no choice after the Judicial Tenure Commission labeled Green a liar and recommended her removal.
"It was most appropriate for public confidence in the judiciary here in Wayne County that she not hear cases until her matter is resolved with the (state) Supreme Court," he said, adding that he did not have the authority to stop paying Green while she is essentially suspended.
Now it's up to the Michigan Supreme Court to decide Green's fate.
As the justices consider whether to accept the Judicial Tenure Commission's recommendation, they may find the Supreme Court's own guidance in such matters useful:
"When a judge lies under oath, he or she has failed to internalize one of the central standards of justice and becomes unfit to sit in judgment of others.”
Case closed.
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