Michigan Supreme Court comes unglued, part 2

Justice Elizabeth Weaver released a scathing dissent accusing the Republican majority on the Supreme Court of Michigan of stifling dissent. Among her comments in harshly attacking the majority's creation of a "judicial deliberative privilege": [A]ny judicial privilege does not extend to repeated resorts to personal slurs, name-calling, and abuses of power, such as threats to exclude a Justice from conference discussions, to ban a Justice from the Hall of Justice, or to hold a dissenting Justice in contempt. Nor does any judicial privilege extend to conduct such as refusing to meet with justices on the work of the Court as the majority of four have now twice done on November 13 and November 29, 2006. The privilege certainly does not extend to illegal, unethical, and improper conduct. . . . . Regrettably, under the guise of promoting frank discussion, the majority of four has tried to erect an impermeable shield around their abusive conduct -- itself the cause of the breakdown of frank, respectful and collegial discussion on this Court. No law or rule exists to support this idea anywhere. Over the past year and longer, the majority of four, Chief Justice Taylor and Justices Corrigan, Young and Markman, have advanced a policy toward greater secrecy and less accountability. I strongly believe it is past time to end this trend and to let sunlight into the Michigan Supreme Court. I could not find the other dissent(s) mentioned, so it stands to reason that it/they were suppressed by the Court's majority. If I hear or discover otherwise, I will update. This, folks, is the group of people interpreting our laws, legislating from the bench while saying they aren't, and otherwise eroding the rights of Michigan citizens, just a little at a time. What a proud day for our courts, and for Michigan! UPDATE: Justice Kelly wrote a brief dissent in an Order concerning placing this up for public hearing. Editorial coverage here and here.