Michigan Judge Taken Off Docket Over Offensive Comments

PONTIAC, Mich. (AP) — A suburban Detroit judge is no longer handling cases after a court official turned over recordings of her making anti-gay insults and referring to Black people as lazy.

Oakland County Probate Judge Kathleen Ryan was removed from her docket on Aug. 27 for unspecified misconduct. Now the court’s administrator has stepped forward to say he blew the whistle on her, secretly recording their phone calls.

“I just want to make it right. … I want to keep my job and do it in peace,” Edward Hutton told WXYZ-TV. “And I want the people in Oakland County that come to court to get a fair shake, to have their day in court, to have an unbiased trier of fact.”

The judge didn’t talk to the TV station, but her attorneys, Gerald Gleeson and Thomas Cranmer, said: “We look forward to vindicating Judge Ryan in the appropriate forum.”

Probate judges in Michigan handle wills and estates, guardianships and cases that involve the state’s mental health laws.

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.

“I’m not systemically racist. I’m a new racist,” said Ryan, who was first elected in 2010.

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.

Hutton said he sent the recordings in August to Coulter; Elizabeth Clement, the chief justice of the Michigan Supreme Court; and other officials. Chief Probate Judge Linda Hallmark then suspended her, with pay, while she’s investigated by a judiciary watchdog, the Michigan Judicial Tenure Commission.

Her father, James Ryan, was a state and federal judge. A brother, Daniel Ryan, was also a judge.