Another fine job by the Detroit News

by: Bootsy

Thu Oct 28, 2010 at 20:09:28 PM EDT

Political Insider did a double-take the other day when we spied state Supreme Court Justice Alton Davis pulling up to our storied building downtown. There he was, running for statewide office, being ferried around in a Chevrolet Malibu — with OHIO plates. Davis' campaign said the car is a rental; the previous one with Michigan plates was totaled in an accident in Oakland County.

The News seemed to endorse Young and Kelly because they represent the status quo.... on a Supreme Court that is widely considered to be the worst in the nation. From their endorsement:

Michigan in the past few months has become a very good place in which to be a plaintiff's attorney. That's not good for the law or the state's economy. Incumbent Justice Bob Young and Wayne Circuit Judge Mary Beth Kelly are the best choices to restore the balance in Michigan law.

A study by the University of Chicago on state high courts found that Michigan's Supreme Court ranked dead last among all of the nation's courts, and 40th for productivity, 42nd for quality of opinions, and 52nd in judicial independence (Oklahoma and Texas have separate high courts for civil and criminal cases). Clearly, this is an institution worthy of the Detroit News high praise.

The reasons for why Robert Young is not fit to serve on the Michigan Supreme Court have been made a million times. From his recent admission of using the N-word in a private conference with other justices (which Justice Weaver recorded and has transcripts proving) to voting to overrule 92 percent of the cases where the opportunity to overrule has presented itself, Robert Young has proven his unfitness for the Michigan Supreme Court. The examples on this site alone are endless.

From "abuse of power" to "bad management," the criticisms about Kelly have grown this year, as private conversations criticizing her leadership have spread to public calls for her ouster.

As chief judge, Kelly controls the vast Wayne County Circuit Court system, by far the largest in the state, involved in the lives of thousands of area residents through its oversight of civil, criminal and family legal matters.

Critics of Kelly - who came to the bench as an appointee of Republican Gov. John Engler in 1999 - sometimes characterize her policies as part of an effort by outstate conservatives to control leaders in the more liberal Detroit. They say some of her actions reflect the region's longtime inability to come to terms with racial issues. She's not making the correct, albeit difficult, decisions about how to effectively manage governmental operations with limited dollars, they say. And she should be stopped.

The Detroit News decision to endorse Young and Kelly over two actual judges makes no sense.

Anyway, in other news: from Crain's Detroit Business this week:

Detroit's two daily newspapers continued to hemorrhage print circulation over the past six months, and at a steeper rate than that national average, according to numbers released today by the Schaumburg, Ill.-based Audit Bureau of Circulations.

The Detroit News' daily average circulation dropped 12.4 percent to 146,962 from 167,849. That includes its home-delivered Thursday and Friday print editions and its newsstand editions Monday-Wednesday and Saturday.