Peter Out

[XLFD]

Late on Wednesday (December 16) morning, the Mason County Press did a very respectful article on 79th District Court Judge Peter J. Wadel's career and signaled his pending retirement at the end of the year.  MCP's editor and Scottville City Commissioner Rob Alway likely interviewed Judge Wadel earlier that morning. 

The judge may have even viewed his favorable write-up before trying his first case in the afternoon, a zoom hearing on a motion for summary disposition made by the City of Ludington and three of its city councilors defending against my complaint on their violations of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and the Open Meetings Act (OMA).  Filed in early March 2020, this lawsuit was extremely hard to prosecute when the defendants answer to the complaint and all court proceedings thereafter all occurred during the Covid-19 era, when court hearings have been limited to Zoom meetings for the most part (albeit, one of this summer's hearings I attended featured a masked and socially-distanced courtroom). 

I must admit I have went through the year trying to stall proceedings so that I could find justice in a 'normal' courtroom where I don't have to be muzzled by a mask and try to figure what other muzzled people are saying.  I had a valid excuse; public libraries were closed to the public except for very limited purposes, other law libraries I could access were unavailable, so my research was confined to internet sources.  In many respects the internet is a powerful resource, but it has its limitations. 

Anyhow, Judge Wadel was about 20 minutes late to the zoom conference, forgivable, and he comported himself judiciously throughout the 45 minute hearing on the merits of the defendant's brief in support of his motion to dismiss, my response and added motion to consider an in-camera review of the December minutes, and the defendant's reply to those.   The judge admitted he had only received the reply about a half hour before the hearing started.  

In my past experiences with Judge Wadel, I have found him to be fair and competent whether I have faired well or poorly in his courtroom.  On this Wednesday afternoon, I found his analysis and lack of rigor in that analysis distressing.  My motion for him to review the unreleased minutes was effectively ignored.  Two closed sessions which had no statutory-recognized purposes were considered to be lawful, including one that was called to discuss settlement strategy of a lawsuit that had already been settled.  The other session procedurally violating the OMA and never cured by a reenactment of the decision to go into the closed session two weeks too late.  

Since these OMA violations were declared legal without any credible precedent or law , the Judge declared the minutes as unavailable to the public-- the minutes he refused to look at to figure out whether the justifications for those closed sessions were in any way legitimate.  In a moment of honesty at one of this summer's short hearings, Judge Wadel urged us to hasten the process as he wanted to have his docket clean by the time he retired.  He accomplished that this Wednesday.

Had he not dismissed this lawsuit, it could have easily gone on for another year or more, since discovery that has been denied the plaintiff for 9 months would finally be allowed.  Now it's almost guaranteed to last beyond that since I will have to go to the Michigan Court of Appeals for justice, since his honor appears to have chosen expedience over equity.  

For a judge who has shown so much proficiency and fairness throughout his career, Peter J. Wadel is capping his career with two episodes of poor judgment:  this ruling and his endorsement of a judicial candidate to replace him.  Perhaps he ruled as he did this Wednesday, because he read my critical article and liked what it said considerably less than City Commissioner Alway's puff piece. 

The candidate he endorsed this November lost, we will have to wait a while to see whether this odd judgment will do the same at the appellate court level.

[Freedom Seeker]

It is a sad darkness and seems that Judge Wadel rushed the case out of his court due to closing down at the end of December.  Hoping the higher court will still function to bring transparency to the people.  This city should be taught a lesson that they cannot abuse the closed-meeting reasons written in law.  Wadel's got his insulated waders on, ready to go fishing.  

[Du Wright]

Two days before Sunday and eight days before Christmas 2020, I am reminded many scriptures in the Bible of God's judgment upon unjust judges, and especially of The Parable of the Unjust Judge in Luke 18, and the lesson to be learned from the persistent widow.

It seems our nation's judges have gone crazy and turned a blind eye with refusal to judge with righteousness or even judge. For those who are given to bribes or seeking favor in a community, or just lazy to judge righteously, God has many lessons for them.

[XLFD]

A belief that I have developed over the years in going before a variety of judges in Mason and Manistee County, is that the letter and intent of the law is often overlooked because of the vaster effect of local politics influencing court opinions.  Once you get three judge panels in the appeals court, where each judge is far removed from your community and their rulings are given a lot more legal consideration by attorneys and other judges across the state, you can better expect justice from a strong legal argument.

[Willy]

It's to bad the judge or any judge cannot be held liable for wasting taxpayers money. By side stepping his duty on this case the taxpayers will be forking out attorney fees to continue to defend another in a long list of FOIA abuses they are guilty of committing. Then again maybe the City representatives should also be made to pay back all the wasted taxpayers money they paid for unnecessary attorney fees. The waste of tax dollars by the City is absolutely abusive and needs to end.

[XLFD]

It's too bad the COL can't admit their mistakes and hand over minutes from unlawfully closed sessions.  Rather than do this, they will subject themselves (with your tax money) to $50,000 + more in legal expenses they never had to spend.  I just wish more citizens would be perceptive enough to realize that the money they waste is solely based on their errant decisions, not my quest to expose their corruption and those decisions in the only way I can-- through the courts.

[AQUAMAN]

Judge Pete brought this District Court a lot of improvements and sound judgement for most of the years here in service. I hope he enjoys his retirement and good fishing. Just a shame he now goes out on a sour note like this, again, for the sake of the good ole boy traditions, and the continued fixed agendas of the history around here.