GOP justice hopes conservative style wins votes

By Ed White Associated Press Writer DETROIT (AP) -- Robert Young Jr., a bow tie-wearing, bold conservative on the Michigan Supreme Court, has no tolerance for judges who belong to what he calls the "empathy school" of deciding cases. He likens it to justice systems in other countries, where government strongmen decide whom to favor. Those places, of course, are a world away from Michigan, but Young, stuck in the minority on the state's highest court, believes the comparison fits. After nine years in a bloc that set sweeping, controversial legal precedents, Young has spent the last two watching some of that work being erased by the court's liberal majority. He's hoping voters embrace his philosophy and give him another term. There are two seats on the Nov. 2 ballot, and the results will determine if the court swings back to Republican control or stays in the hands of Democrats. The candidates won't appear with a party affiliation. "When the Legislature passes a statute, you express what is intended in writing," Young, 59, says. "I have no constitutional right to second-guess the policy choice. My obligation as a judge is to figure out what they said and then apply it in the case. "My colleagues think they have a much broader look," he says of liberal justices. "They get to decide if they like the policy choice. That is the source of conflicts on the court. ... We don't have people in robes deciding who's a winner or loser based on who they prefer." The Democratic Party has a bull's-eye on Young. Two years ago, his friend and fellow conservative, Chief Justice Cliff Taylor, was defeated, thanks to a TV ad that portrayed him as asleep on the bench. Diane Hathaway won, and Democrats formed a 4-3 majority on many cases with Justice Elizabeth Weaver, a maverick Republican. The court overturned work by Young and the conservatives, most notably a 2004 decision that had greatly restricted lawsuits by people hurt in auto wrecks. Joyful lawyers bought TV ads to drum up business. "What do you expect?" Young laments. For a justice who finds it "intensely satisfying" to dissect a legal "hairball," it's surprising that Young wasn't lovestruck with law. The Detroit native calls his time at Harvard law school the "worst three years of my life." His outlook changed with a job at a Detroit law firm, Dickinson Wright, where he spent 15 years. Young eventually specialized in business litigation, participating in dozens of trials. He says he was sometimes shocked by what he saw. Young recalls a Wayne County judge in the 1970s proposing that lawyers settle a dispute by putting golf balls in his chambers. "I thought he was joking. He wasn't," Young says. "That sort of cavalier attitude, the law is secondary -- that was deeply offensive to me. It was searing. Even now I get upset remembering how little those judges seemed to regard the law." In 1992, Young became general counsel at insurance company AAA Michigan. He also was active in Republican politics. Gov. John Engler called in 1995 and offered him a seat on the appeals court. Four years later, another appointment: the Michigan Supreme Court. Engler, who left office in 2003, says he liked Young's philosophy. "I thought Justice Young was somebody who was quite firm in his view that the legislative branch was the place where you made the law. ... If judges want to be legislators, run for the Legislature. Don't run for the court," says Engler, now the head of the National Association of Manufacturers in Washington. Young is the highest-ranking elected black Republican in Michigan. The Democratic Party, he says, "did not reflect my values." "I was a conservative before I was a Republican," he says. "When you grow up with a father who grew up in an intensely segregated, tiny South Carolina town where no African-American went beyond eighth grade, and somehow he figures out how to become a physician -- that's a very powerful role model." He recalls his parents taking him to summer camp in Oscoda in 1963 and not being able to find a motel room because they were black. "Growing up with the sense of, 'This isn't right,' does infuse my insistence that the law be applied to everybody alike," Young says. Influential business groups, such as Realtors, insurance companies and hospitals, have supported his campaign with donations. It fuels criticism that he's always in their corner. "One of my colleagues ran saying she was for the little guy," Young says of Justice Hathaway in 2008. "I'm not for the little guy but I'm not for the big guy, either. ... Our job on the Supreme Court is managing the fabric of law to make sure the pattern develops evenly in a comprehensible way so you're not surprised when the next piece of fabric comes up." Published: Wed, Oct 13, 2010

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