S T A T E O F M I C H I G A N

SUPREME COURT

July 19, 2010

PATRICK McCARTHY,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v SC: 140328

COA: 284129

Oakland CC: 2006-079432-NO

ALISON SCOFIELD, DEPARTMENT OF

HUMAN SERVICES, ANDREA DEAN,

OAKLAND COUNTY PROSECUTOR, CAROLE

BOYD, OAKLAND COUNTY FRIEND OF THE

COURT, THOMAS CALLAHAN, and MILFORD

POLICE DEPARTMENT,

Defendants-Appellees,

and

AMY ALLEN and CHILD ABUSE & NEGLECT

HOUSE/OAKLAND COUNTY CARE HOUSE,

Defendants.

_________________________________________/

STATEMENTS DENYING MOTION FOR DISQUALIFICATION

WEAVER, J. Plaintiff Patrick McCarthy alleges that I have improper and unethical 

political or social relationships with the defendants Michigan Department of Human 

Services and Oakland County Care House and thus that I am biased in favor of these 

defendants. His allegations are untrue and wholly without basis. 

Further, I know of no other justification for my disqualification. For these reasons, 

I deny his motion to disqualify me from participation.
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CORRIGAN, J., denies plaintiff’s motion to disqualify her from hearing this case 

and states as follows: 

I have no pecuniary or business interests in the defendant organizations named in 

this case. I also have no personal or political relationships with any of the individual 

named defendants; indeed, I do not know any of them. It is a matter of public record that 

I act in an administrative capacity as the Michigan Supreme Court’s liaison on child 

welfare matters. But my administrative duties are distinct from my judicial duty to fairly 

consider individual applications to this Court on a case by case basis. Plaintiff’s 

unsupported allegation that I am biased in favor of the Department of Human Services is 

untrue. I have voted against the Department’s position when I have concluded that its 

position is unsupported by the facts or law in a particular case. 

YOUNG, J. Mr. McCarthy has moved to disqualify me from this case. Among 

other things, Mr. McCarthy alleges that I have political or social relationships with the 

parties defendant. All of his allegations concerning me are untrue and wholly without 

basis in fact. Moreover, independent of Mr. McCarthy's baseless allegations, I know of 

no other justification for my disqualification. For these reasons, I deny his motion to 

disqualify.

MARKMAN, J. Plaintiff has moved for my disqualification, alleging that I have an 

assortment of business and social relationships with defendants Department of Human 

Services and Oakland County Care House. I have no such relationships with either of 

these agencies, or with persons at these agencies, and there is no other basis under MCR 

2.003 that would require that I be disqualified from participation in this case. Plaintiff’s 

motion is crude and frivolous, marked by racial invective, and establishes utterly no basis 

for my disqualification. Notwithstanding, for the reasons set forth in my separate 

statement to the Court’s order of June 3, 2010, I remain deeply concerned by the 

operation of MCL 28.243 as it pertains to plaintiff and urge that this statute be revisited 

by the Legislature.

Plaintiff’s motion should serve to remind those assessing the impact of the Court’s 

new disqualification rules why such rules are likely both to incentivize motions to 

disqualify justices, and to politicize the disqualification process. However frivolous 

plaintiff’s motion, and however much a similar motion directed toward another party 

might have been subject to sanction, plaintiff’s motion has now required that four justices 

of this Court drop everything else during this, the busiest time of our term, when every 

effort is being made to complete our docket before the end of July, in order to respond in 

writing whether each will continue to participate in this case. Plaintiff will now have 28 

days in which to ponder the responses of the four challenged justices, and to determine 
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whether to compel the participation of the entire Court in reviewing the disqualification 

decisions of each of the four challenged justices. If plaintiff chooses to compel the 

participation of the entire Court, each of its seven justices will then be required to review 

each of the challenged justices’ statements and set forth in writing whether each of the 

challenged justices should be disqualified from participation, and the challenged justice 

will then be entitled to respond. Thus, there will be the interruption and delay of this 

Court’s work, involving in this case as many as 36 separate statements and responses by 

justices addressing plaintiff’s motion; there will be the platform offered to a party 

(including almost certainly in the future a growing number of prisoners moving for relief 

from judgment many years after their convictions) to engage in tirades and denunciations 

of disfavored justices; and there will be the ability of a party, no matter how frivolous his 

motions for judicial disqualification, to command the full resources and attention of this 

Court, while diverting these resources and attentions from the Court’s primary 

responsibilities. It is worth noting that there has not been a single moment since the 

implementation of our new disqualification rules last November in which there has not 

been at least one disqualification decision pending before this Court.

It is equally noteworthy that plaintiff’s disqualification motion is directed toward 

only the four justices of this Court whose votes did not favor plaintiff in his underlying 

case, even though, almost certainly, there is not a whit of difference between the 

“relationships” of the four challenged justices, and the “relationships” of the three 

unchallenged justices, with defendants. Quite obviously, the only distinction is that 

plaintiff believes the unchallenged justices will continue to favor his position and the 

challenged justices will continue not to do so. This has nothing to do with ethics, but 

much to do with skewing a fair process. 

Thus, a disqualification procedure that worked on this Court for 175 years to 

ensure honest and accountable decision-making, and that reflects the practices of the 

United States Supreme Court, and those of virtually every other state supreme court in 

the nation from the beginning of the republic, has been replaced by a procedure whose 

legacy will almost certainly prove to be the incentivization of frivolous disqualification 

motions, politicization of the disqualification process, and the diversion of the attentions 

of this Court from its primary responsibilities on behalf of the people of this state.