Federal lawsuit aims to make recordings of Oakland County court proceedings public

Yahoo

27-05-2025

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A federal lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan aims to make the audio and video recordings of Oakland County court proceedings available to the public and the parties or attorneys in a given case, a move that could maximize public engagement with the courts.
The lawsuit, Hallman v. Reeds, was filed in April in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. Aside from increased public engagement, a win for the plaintiffs could also serve as a way to hold judges accountable when they are accused of courtroom errors or misconduct. That last aspect could be beneficial to voters when it comes time to select local and statewide judicial candidates in election years.
Several Michigan courts made live streams of proceedings available to the public during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Michigan Supreme Court routinely streams its proceedings and for a time encouraged local courts statewide to continue live streams even after the pandemic, but each court had discretion on the matter. Some courts have since completely retreated from the virtual sphere and no longer live stream their proceedings. Other courts have continued on, but with the caveat of producing a live stream without archiving the proceeding.
Philip Mayor, an attorney with the ACLU of Michigan and the plaintiff's counsel in the Hallman case, told Michigan Advance that streaming proceedings is now technologically feasible, so the courts should be making their recordings available.
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The named defendants in the case are Oakland District Court judges Travis Reeds and Lisa Asadoorian, as well as Oakland Chief Circuit Judge Jeffery Matis. A message seeking comment from Oakland County was not immediately returned.
Aside from courts that do make their proceedings public, the court sued in Hallman only provides a transcript when asked.
Mayor said a transcript is inadequate compared to an audio or video recording in capturing the tone, tenor and demeanor of a given judge, especially when an attorney or a party is seeking to highlight a judicial error upon appeal.
'Judges know this, because our appellate courts defer to trial judges when they make credibility findings, or when they talk about a witness's demeanor, because they say that judge was there to see that and experience that in person,' Mayor said. 'We recognize that that's meaningful. The Michigan Judicial Tenure Commission recognizes this when it evaluates judges accused of misconduct because it looks at the videos and it discusses not just the words that were said, but the demeanor with which it was said, and the way people are treated by judicial officials.'
Mayor said that from a democracy standpoint, the public had a right to be informed about what goes on in Michigan's courthouses.
'It's just not realistic that [members of] the public are going to read a 40-page transcript, but it is realistic that the public, in informing themselves before an election, may watch a five minute clip of something that happens in the courthouses,' he added.
The lawsuit's complaint also details that paradigm as a taxpayer return-on-investment issue.
'Taxpayer dollars are used throughout Michigan to create recordings of courtroom proceedings, but those same taxpayers are routinely denied access to the very recordings their hard-earned funds pay to create,' the complaint said. 'This lack of transparency violates the First Amendment by denying the public the right to access and disseminate records of critical judicial proceedings, many of which constitute the bedrock upon which a functioning democracy is built.'
The Hallman lawsuit centers around one such instance where a recording of the court's proceedings was suppressed, implicating access and First Amendment issues.
The lead plaintiff, Dr. Samantha Hallman, said her brother was subjected to alleged abusive conduct from an Oakland District Court judge. A lawsuit in the Oakland Circuit Court followed to ferret out issues of the district judge's demeanor and the fact that her brother was denied an audio recording of the proceeding.
A local administrative order ultimately denied dissemination of that recording.
Hallman then attempted to get a copy to inform voters about the judge's courtroom conduct and demeanor, but she was denied under the same policy. She was later allowed to view a recording of the proceeding but was denied permission to disseminate the copy to the public, legislators and other policy makers.
Her lawsuit in the federal district court notes that a transparent and open court was one of the hallmarks of American democracy, and that civic engagement and government accountability depended upon open access.
'It was once a civic expectation that the public would attend trials and directly engage with democratic governance by doing so,' the complaint said. 'That is not possible in the modern world, but providing the public with access to existing recordings of what happens in our courts is the closest modern analog to this historical practice.'
The case is awaiting an answer from the defendants and possibly a motion to dismiss, Mayor said.
He noted that the issue wasn't specific to Oakland County. Mayor said there was a similar recent instance in Hamtramck where a judge had allegedly berated a cancer patient who had been sued on a civil offense for not keeping his lawn mowed. Someone had recorded the hearing, potentially in violation of the same policies Mayor and the ACLU of Michigan were suing to overturn in Oakland County. The video went public and drew voter attention, leading the judge to apologize.
'That just shows that a transcript of that hearing wasn't going to capture the public's attention, but the video did,' Mayor said.