Novi Judge Brian MacKenzie
Local judicial races usually generate little excitement.
But this year in Metro Detorit, there's three controversial judges -- two in Oakland County and one in Wayne -- who are facing rare challenges for re-election, writes L.L. Brasier of the Detroit Free Press.
“There has to be a smoldering fire for an attorney to work up the courage to run against a judge,” Bill Ballenger, editor of Inside Michigan Politics and a longtime observer of state politics tells the Freep.
The judges are:
Novi Judge Brian MacKenzie will face competition at the polls for the first time since1988.
Brasier writes that he was sanctioned by a higher court in December after Oakland County prosecutors complained he was running a rogue court, hiding files and improperly dismissing domestic violence cases. He also came under scrutiny for sending defendants to a drug testing company that employed his son and had financial ties to his wife. The FBI earlier this year was also investigating an instance in which he allegedly tried to pressure a defendant into giving up a civil suit against a police department in exchange for a more lenient sentence.
Bloomfield Hills District Judge Kimberly Small has generated controversy by routinely sentencing first-time drunken drivers to jail time even when they register at .08, the minimum for drunk driving in Michigan. The Freep reports that a 2011 nationwide survey of drunken driving sentences by the Free Press found no other judge in the country orders first offenders to jail for as many days as Small.
Southgate District Judge James Kandrevas was sued, the Freep writes:
In 2009 after his court administrator, Lori Shemka, notified state officials the judge was funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars in court money into private accounts. Kandrevas fired her and Shemka sued under federal whistle-blower statutes.
When asked about how he handled the money and ran the court during a deposition, Kandrevas invoked the Fifth Amendment — the constitutional right to avoid self incrimination — more than 200 times. The case was eventually settled for $300,000. Kandrevas was also the target of another lawsuit by an employee that settled for $50,000.
