What does it take to fire a Michigan judge? Oakland County Probate Judge Kathleen Ryan was removed from her docket in August for undisclosed reasons, and it turns out a whistleblower recorded her making racist and homophobic remarks.
In the phone recordings, Ryan uses a anti-gay slur against David Coulter, the county's highest elected official, who is gay. She also referred to Blacks in the U.S. as lazy. It is legal to record phone calls in Michigan if one party consents. In this matter, it was Hutton, who said Ryan had called him at work and after-hours for years.
The AP is acquiring a taste for editorialized understatement in such matters (cf. sanewashing)—she actually said "the typical Black American a f cking lazy piece of sh t." It's not her first rodeo, either. In fact, she is the rodeo.
The vulgar recordings aren't Ryan's first example of using coarse language against those she considers her inferiors. In November 2021, she was charged with domestic violence. The case was dismissed in March 2022. According to a police report of the incident obtained from the Wixom Police Department, Ryan had been drinking and repeatedly struck a male companion during an argument, injuring the victim's face. Although she was uninjured, Ryan was evaluated at Ascension Providence Hospital, and while there she shouted obscenities at police officers and hospital staff, tried to walk away from custody and told everyone that she was a judge and would be "coming after" them, the report states.
I've written many times about bad judges, but this is the first where I have to give serious consideration to the possibility she will appear outside my house at 2 a.m., screaming and shitfaced, throwing half-consumed cans of Stroh Light at the door.
Previously:
• Judge who accepted private-prison bribes to send black kids to jail sentenced to 28 years
• Computer says no: British judge refuses to cancel divorce resulting from computer mistake
• Illinois judge fired for misconduct after circumventing law to reverse rape conviction
