Donald J Trump v. Board of State Canvassers

STATE OF MICHIGAN SUPREME COURT

ATTORNEY GENERAL, Plaintiff-Appellee, SC: 154862, 154886 v COA: 335947 BOARD OF STATE CANVASSERS and DIRECTOR OF ELECTIONS, Defendants-Appellees, and JILL STEIN, Intervening Defendant-Appellant. _________________________________________ DONALD J. TRUMP, Plaintiff-Appellee, SC: 154868, 154887 v COA: 335958 BOARD OF STATE CANVASSERS and DIRECTOR OF ELECTIONS, Defendants-Appellees, and JILL STEIN, Intervening Defendant-Appellant. _________________________________________/ Statement of Chief Justice Young Granting Intervening Defendant-Appellant’s Motion to Disqualify December 8, 2016 YOUNG, C.J. As I have previously stated, anybody can make a list.1 In this regard, after serving as a jurist for 21 years, 18 on this Court, I fully acknowledge that, at the age of 65, the probability of my being selected and appointed from the president-elect’s infamous list of United States Supreme Court potential appointees is extraordinarily remote.2 Indeed, the oldest justices ever appointed in the history of the United States Supreme Court were approximately my age at the time of their appointment.3 The conflict supposed by intervening defendant is both speculatively hypothetical and, in my case, improbable.

In the normal course of events, I believe that justices have a duty to sit on cases that come before the Court and should disqualify themselves only when the conflict is real and so patent that recusal is necessary.4 This duty to sit is required because justices who recuse themselves cannot be replaced, and every disqualification alters the composition of the Court the citizens have chosen. As significant, disqualifications disrupt the decision-making and process in a particular case that only a full complement of justices can provide. As I have previously written, recusal is mandated whenever a judge is actually biased and cannot impartially hear a case.5 I have no actual bias, and the intervening defendant makes no claims to the contrary.

After the disintegration of the political question doctrine and such cases as Bush v Gore,6 courts are increasingly called upon to settle frank political questions. Now, more than ever, a bit of judicial restraint is required to resist the calls of political sirens who urge the courts to engage in politics by another name.7

With reluctance, and for being a name on a list,8 I grant intervening defendant’s motions for disqualification because of the unique circumstances of this case—a challenge of the state’s delegation to the College of Electors assigned to the president-elect—that has brought national attention to this matter. I do so in order that the decision made by my colleagues in this case will not be legitimately challenged by base speculation and groundless innuendo by the partisans in this controversy and beyond.