Michigan Supreme Court Ego Answers to No One

      Maura Corrigan did not get the nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. Alas, it appears that we are stuck with the current incarnation of our Michigan Supreme Court. We could not pawn Justice Corrigan off on the rest of the nation.

      These last several months have caused me to think a lot about the difference between our conservative Michigan Supreme Court Justices and the conservative Justices who sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. Clearly, the difference is respect for precedent. The thing that makes the Michigan Supreme Court so unique, unlike probably any other court in the history of state or federal courts, is this courts belief that all other prior Supreme Courts offer nothing to Michigan jurist prudence. The ego of this court is such that it has no respect for prior Justices and their analysis of issues. The ego of this court is that this court gets to decide what is right without any regard for what prior courts thought.

      Of course, our U.S. Supreme Court Justices, many of whom are viewed as more conservative than our Michigan Supreme Court Justices, reject the premise upon which our Michigan Supreme Court is built. The U.S. Supreme Court Justices have tremendous respect for precedent and do not view themselves as the first and final say on all legal issues. They decline to hear cases on issues which are already governed by existing U.S. Supreme Court precedent, even when it is clear that they would disagree with that precedent. While they will overrule prior court holdings, they do so as the rare and extreme exception rather than the rule.

      The ego of our Michigan Supreme Court is that they don't have to answer to anyone, not prior courts, not the legislature, and not the people of the state of Michigan.

Comments

[trusty getto]

The respect for precedent we see with SCOTUS is actually, in my view, a respect for the law. The law respects precedent, as do all who respect the law.

The MI Supreme Court majority has no respect for the law, for those that practice the law, nor for those that depend upon well-settled law when making daily decisions and running their businesses.