Summary
- Michigan Supreme Court issued six-year suspension to Kahlilia Davis
- Davis abused contempt power and misapplied law during prior term
- Court of Claims allowed Davis to remain on ballot despite suspension
Detroiters elected a new judge who, as things stand, will not be able to work until at least 2029.
Voters elected Kahlilia Davis on Nov. 3 as a 36th District Court judge, despite a lingering six-year suspension doled out by the Michigan Supreme Court for her behavior in that role once before.
The punishment was handed out in 2023, more than a year after she had finished her term, and there is some question as to whether the suspension will cover the full length of her new six-year term or end in 2029.
Dan Wholihan, the lawyer who represented Davis amid a fight to stay on the ballot this year, said he hopes the court rescinds its suspension all together.
“The people have spoken and the people need to be heard,” he said.
Davis could not immediately be reached for comment.
Asked how the 36th District Court will manage its workload without a judge in Davis’s seat for at least two-and-a-half years, District Court Chief Judge William McConico said in an email that his court plans to seek direction from the State Court Administrative Office and follow up thereafter. He congratulated the two magistrates elected alongside Davis as district court judges.
Pulling rank, abuse of contempt power
The Michigan Supreme Court determined that in her prior time at the 36th District Court, Davis abused her contempt power − including unlawfully putting a process server in jail – and misapplied the law to get conclusions she wanted. It determined, too, that she put a placard on her car at a gym claiming she could park in a handicap loading zone on the authority of Detroit police and then-Mayor Mike Duggan. In that case, she flashed her judge’s badge at a responding officer to avoid a citation.
She also intentionally ignored orders from her chief judge and threatened her supervisors with ominous Bible verses, among other misdeeds, the court found.
On June 23, 2023, the court ordered that her conditional suspension be “effective on the date of this decision” and said if she was elected or appointed during the suspension, she “will nevertheless be debarred from exercising the power and prerogatives of the office until at least the expiration of the suspension.”
Davis has attempted to get back on the ballot a few times before without success.
Then in June, the Court of Claims ruled that the order from the state Supreme Court did not prevent Davis from being on the ballot.
In Davis’s race, voters were asked to pick three candidates to be judges. Davis was one of four options listed. She received the second-highest number of votes, beating the third-place finisher by more than 3,000 votes, and the fourth candidate was more than 30,000 votes behind all three winners.
‘Vindicated by the people’
Wholihan noted that Davis’s return to the ballot was well-publicized.
Asked why she wanted to be elected, knowing that she was barred from working, Wholihan said he did not wish to speak for her but believes “she felt like she was wronged by some individuals … and wanted to be vindicated by the people.”
It is also his interpretation that the suspension – ordered to be without pay – would end in 2029.
He declined to comment on whether Davis might take legal action to begin working sooner than that and said he had not yet spoken with her.
Reached for comment on the matter and the timing of the suspension, John Nevin, communications director for the Michigan Supreme Court, said he could not yet comment.
The Michigan Supreme Court has issued such a six-year suspension several times. When previously asked if these suspensions are meant to begin on the date someone retakes office, Nevin pointed to an opinion in the case of ex-Livingston County Judge Theresa Brennan.
In that case, the court stated her conditional suspension, on top of an ouster, would become “effective only if (she) regains judicial office during that period.”
Reporting by Darcie Moran, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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