High Court orders judge’s removal, cites mental illness

The Michigan Supreme Court has ordered that 36th District Judge Brenda Sanders be removed from office, agreeing with a judicial oversight panel that she has a mental illness preventing her from performing her job.

“We accept the determination that the respondent suffers from a mental disability that prevents the performance of her judicial duties,” read the court order dated Wednesday. “As a result, we order that the respondent be removed from office.”

In March, the Judicial Tenure Commission asked the court to remove Sanders, who was re-elected in November 2014 to a six-year term, “on the basis of her mental disability and judicial misconduct.”

Cyril Hall, an attorney representing Sanders, said Wednesday night there would not be an appeal but the order doesn’t mean she is barred from seeking office again.

“It’s a sad situation,” he said. “She was recently elected by popular vote. The citizens determined that she should be there and, assuming that she was ill, you would think if a person is suffering an illness, that person should have an opportunity to cure the situation and return back to work. We do that in all walks of society today.”

Sanders, however, said in an email sent late Wednesday after her attorney reached The Detroit News: “The ruling is fraudulent and unfounded. I plan to pursue legal remedies with the Department of Justice and the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The electoral mandate of the people of the city of Detroit has been nullified by the racist regime of the Michigan Supreme Court.”

In September, the judicial commission filed a complaint against Sanders, citing several issues, including alleging “lack of mental fitness,” a fraudulent medical leave of absence, failure to cooperate with the group in its investigation and alleged misrepresentations in the case.

The state Supreme Court suspended Sanders, who was elected to the bench in 2008, without pay from her $138,000-a-year position.

According to the commission’s complaint, Sanders sent a letter to U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade in December 2013 requesting a federal investigation, saying the jurist was the target of corruption and a conspiracy in an attempt to eliminate her from the 36th District Court bench in Detroit before she was sworn in as a judge in December 2008. Sanders also wrote two judges had “suddenly died under suspicious circumstances” in recent years and that “judges have been murdered because they spoke out against some of the wrongs that were being committed ‘in this court.’ ” Sanders also wrote “all of my email accounts, bank accounts, cell phones, etc. have been hacked and are currently being tracked.”

In March 2014, the commission requested Sanders submit to an independent psychiatrist for evaluations into her mental capacity, and with an orthopedic surgeon for medical examinations regarding complaints that she was having knee problems for which she sought a medical leave.

“Although the medical leave was granted, the surgeries were never performed,” the Michigan Supreme Court order said Wednesday. Sanders also “failed to cooperate in the scheduling of an independent psychiatric examination, including disobeying an order of this court that she undergo such an examination,” according to the order.

In January, the fact finder in the judicial disciplinary proceedings released his report saying the jurist was “psychotic.”

But Sanders said in an email to The News late last year she does not suffer from “paranoid delusions” as a psychiatrist testified during the disciplinary hearing.

Another lawyer for her also said Sanders missed some of the commission-ordered appointments because she was going out of state to deal with her sick, elderly mom.