In a contentious divorce case, you may feel every decision by the Michigan family law court is personal and if you have more than one setback in your case, you may start to feel as if the court is biased and basing its decisions on that bias, and not on a fair consideration of the facts.
Of course, your ex-spouse may have very similar thoughts. Family law judges recognize that many of their decisions will be unpopular with one or sometimes both of the parties. This is because there are many competing interests in these cases and the decisions are inherently difficult.
However, you should be very careful in claiming a judge is biased against your claims and should be even more cautious of instructing your attorney to file a motion to disqualify the judge sitting on your case.
Judicial impartiality is one of the most important qualities of a judge and they tend to look less than favorably on assertions of their lacking that quality. If you make such a claim, you will need to have evidence of indisputable quality demonstrating that they are biased.
A recent claim involving an Oakland judge has been resolved in her favor, with the chief judge refusing to remove her after he found no evidence of bias in the case. This is the corrosive case involving a bitter custody dispute, where the mother has been alleged to have brainwashed her children to the point that they would not eat lunch with their father.
The court ordered the children to a county juvenile detention facility and then an intensive five-day camp to treat their parental alienation.
Wild assertions of judicial bias will likely do little to further her cause in the courtroom.
Source: detroitnews.com, “Oakland judge will keep custody case,” Mike Martindale, The Detroit News, November 19, 2015
