Judge Richard I Cooper: A Personal Remembrance

[XLFD]

I was saddened to hear of the passing of former 51st Circuit Court Judge Richard I Cooper over this last weekend.  I have read the obituary and the glowing praise that recently deceased local dignitaries get from other living local dignitaries in the local paper.  These multiple recollections of the judge are noticeably bereft of any testimonials from the defendants and defense attorneys that appeared before Cooper in his 38 years of service.  An oversight?

I cannot speak for them; however, I think one should consider the whole portrait when they do their own judging of a person at the time of their death and when considering their true legacy.  Judge Cooper had his good, his bad and even his ugly side, just like all of us, and so a one dimensional view of his professional career may comfort his friends and family at their time of loss, but only presents a silhouette of the man he was. 

I offer this personal commemoration in all fairness to the judge, by presenting two positive, two sympathetic and two less-than-positive anecdotes of my own experiences with him.  Your experiences may vary, your conclusions may vary, your perceptions may also vary, but the overall facts remain constant.

 

My first lawsuit against public corruption

Ten years ago, I wrote a letter with a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to Prosecutor Paul Spaniola, he never replied.  I followed up about a week thereafter with the same request for time sensitive material, and again there was no reply at all in the statutory time period of a week.  I spent $150 and filed a lawsuit for disclosure of the records, urging the process to be expedited as the law allowed. 

Judge Cooper had a somewhat informal hearing on it in very short order, where I, the court reporter, and Spaniola sat in an otherwise empty courtroom.  The judge mildly admonished me for a procedural issue regarding motions, but then gave the prosecutor a bit of a tongue lashing about his responsibilities under FOIA and that the records requested were not only under his purview but also among court records and that there should have been no reason not to produce them for me.  It was actually rather unexpected (and entertaining) seeing the prosecutor roundly panned by the judge.  

His final verdict was that the records should be immediately conveyed to me, and that I was entitled to get my filing fee reimbursed in full by the court.  I will always remember Judge Cooper for providing me with my very first victory in circuit court in prosecuting my first ever FOIA lawsuit, and for seriously pwning Prosecutor Spaniola (who deserved it) on that day.  

My First Open Meetings Act (OMA) Lawsuit Victory

Judge Cooper also played a part in my quickest and most complete victory over the City of Ludington, even though the lawsuit never effectively made it to the courtroom.  In 2013, I had noticed that there was evidence in a FOIA response that the city council had made a decision to do a $93,000 sewer project through a series of E-mails to each other, a decision that was not made at an open meeting.  

I was able to 'sell' this OMA case to upcoming young attorney Philip Ellison of Hemlock as a decisive violation that seemed to be supported by the law and precedent.  Ellison played hardball and secured a judgment whereby the City of Ludington actually admitted their fault, thereby entitling me to court costs and my attorney to his legal fees.  

Judge Cooper could have denied this judgment in his role, but he signed it without an issue, ending the dispute and making Mr. Ellison a stronger name for himself.

 

Pathos Times Two

It's not a great time to die in Michigan or in most other states as the rules observed in the coronavirus stay-at-home directives make a normal viewing by the deceased one's family and friends impossible.  Furthermore, those who need to travel long distances are strongly encouraged not to do so, which means that Judge Cooper (and others unfortunate enough to die during this national quarantine) will have very modest last rites which will be frustrating to many.

In the months before my mother died last year, she was in convalescence at the local Medi-lodge; it just so happened that a retired Judge Cooper was also in recovering over something.  He had a private room without the typical name plate and the door was usually closed, but at times it was open, and one time he was out in the hall in a wheelchair.  I am not sure whether he recalled me.

Seeing a very powerful man, like Judge Cooper once was, reduced to a wheelchair and nursing home ministrations is sad, even if you may be at odds with them over their past acts.  And since it made me melancholy rather than gleeful to see this diminution of stature, I had realized that I had forgiven him for the two things I held against him for several years.

The Appearance of Impropriety 

Just after I filed the FOIA lawsuit with the prosecutor, I had filed another one with the City of Ludington.  Instead of having their risk management attorneys field the case, the City Attorney of that time, Gockerman, Wilson, Saylor and Hesslin PC of Manistee, appeared to defend the City.

Richard Wilson and George Saylor went on to conduct an incredibly vicious defense and counterattack over the next four months, replete with threats, subpoenas, counterclaims for thousands of dollars and many other machinations when all that I had filed was a lawsuit asking for disclosure of what amounted to 28 pages of records implicating improper contracting procedures by city leaders.  

Despite what I now can only consider as retributive legal harassment by those lawyers, I was kept in the dark as to why the judge was permitting this abuse without interjecting himself for those four months.  It turned out that his son, Craig Cooper, was a part of the law firm doing all this attacking with his implicit permission, this fact had been broadcast in the letterhead the firm used for their initial appearance.  Instead of immediately notifying my side of the impropriety, Cooper waited four months, at a point just before he was ready to make a decision on the case, and finally offered to recuse himself.  In another case where the same law firm came before the judge that year, the recusal was offered immediately.

After all of the legal shenanigans permitted before, this really iced the cake.  We disqualified Judge Cooper, but got instead a pathetic replacement judge of the local court's choosing and had to endure his incredibly poor judgment, which we were fortunate enough to get overturned on appeal.  Judge Cooper's and his son's inability to do the right thing in the first place (admitting their impropriety) and in the last place (choosing his own replacement judge) is something that taints his legacy of judicial conduct with indelible ink to me, and should to others who expect judges to behave properly.  

Inappropriate Campaigning  

It would be three years later when the judge would make another improper act, doing so this time in front of thousands in the Freedom Festival Parade on July 4th, 2014.  His aforementioned son, Craig Cooper, now the prosecuting attorney of Lake County, was running for his father's judicial seat on his retirement.  Craig was running against the aforementioned Paul Spaniola who was serving as Mason County's prosecutor, and two others including his eventual replacement, Susan Sniegowski and public defender, David Glancy.  

An acting judge should not "publicly endorse or oppose a candidate for any public office" (Canon/Rule 4.1(a)(3)), this is why sitting judges are not supposed to be politically motivated.  Yet Judge Cooper as part of his son's convoy was in the back of a truck advertising "Cooper for Judge" and ringing a bell like a dirge as he slowly went down the street.  

"A judge is also prohibited from displaying support for a relative’s candidacy by, for example, displaying campaign signs or driving a car with the candidate’s bumper sticker and from engaging in
behind-the-scenes activities in support of a relative’s campaign... A judge may not drive a car that displays a spouse’s campaign sticker even if the car is normally driven by the spouse and even if the
title for the car is in the spouse’s name."  -- ABA Political Activities by a Judge's Family.

Judge Richard Cooper should not have been part of his son's campaign, should not have been on that truck, and it called into question how he may have conducted his court that year when both Prosecutor Spaniola and Public Defender Glancy tried cases before him.  The conduct unbecoming of a judge may have led to his son's loss in the primaries that year despite the name recognition.

Conclusion

Will one remember Bill Cosby for being America's dad on The Cosby Show and a comedic legend for many decades or for the numerous sexual assaults he was convicted of later in his life?  We could scan the lessons of history and encounter many other less-than-perfect men and women and find that history is not always forgiving.  As Shakespeare eloquently put it many years ago: "The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones."  

Judge Richard Cooper, like the rest of us, should not be remembered for all the flaws in their lives, but neither should they be remembered as one who was a perfect idealization of what man could be, when they demonstrably were not.  Strengths and weaknesses are part of the human condition and both should be recognized in any true eulogy or remembrance.  Rest in peace, Richard I. Cooper, may you be fairly judged.

[stump]

    On the personal side .  I had a few conversations with Judge Cooper out of court. Never been in court with him. We were at Wesco , he was inside buying donuts and commented to me that they we for his wife. I said , it's your story, you can tell it any way you want. He replied , yup, that's my story and I'm sticking to it  .  LOL   Another time we met up at the Secretary of State office. We were renewing our license plates. Apparently he has a number of trailers , I mentioned to him that trailer plates were now permanent plates and he didn't have to buy a plate for each trailer in jest , just buy one plate and just move them from one trailer to another upon need. By the look he gave me I didn't think that was the correct thing to do. Hey, you can pull one trailer at a time .  What's wrong with that?   LOL

[XLFD]

I guess I wouldn't expect any other sort of response by an active judge at the SOS office-- or even at the Wesco.  Thanks for your recollections, stump.

[Willy]

Judge Cooper could have been wearing wings most of the time he was a judge but the time he was wearing his horns and holding his pitchfork are  what he will be remembered for in my mind. You can put money in a beggar's cup everyday and no one will pay attention but you will only be remembered for the time you kicked that beggar. Call it poor judgement, nepotism or just stupidity, the fact that he broke the rules trying to get his son promoted and snuggled up to his son's law firm to the advantage of his son and his firm cannot be forgiven or forgotten. 

Nice article X.

[AQUAMAN]

Real justice is supposed to be blind, unbiased, objective, true to case law, fair yet firm in judgements, this applies to any and all persons that are elected to this seat of law. If anyone believes this to be true of Judge Cooper throughout his career, fine. Some 38 years of service may just prove that person wrong though. The Baby Kate case on The Torch alone may suggest otherwise, and many  hundreds of other cases in the records of history in Mason County for sure.