About Justice Weaver

Throughout Justice Elizabeth "Betty" Weaver's over 32 years of experience as a trial and appellate judge (Probate/Juvenile, Court of Appeals, Supreme Court), including 2 years as Chief Justice, she has maintained a proven record based on these major practices:
Exercising Judicial Restraint
Applying Common Sense

A fundamental tenet of her stand for jusitice is to hold wrong-doers accountable and responsible for their actions, while providing opportunities for them to discover and develop their own self-worth and to become law-abiding, productive citizens.

In exercising judicial restraint (interpreting, not making, the law -- judicial self-discipline), Justice Weaver has followed the law as constitutionally passed by the legislature and consistent with the rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court. She has used the responsibility of interpretation, not as a sword to superimpose her own personal views (or those of special interest groups) on the law, but as a shield to protect the constitutional rights of the people and the constitutional acts of the legislative and executive branches.

Click here to read Michigan Court of Appeals Judge, Donald S. Owens’s Remarks as Presenter at the Induction of Justice Weaver into the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame on October 25, 2005.

Click here to read Justice Weaver’s Remarks upon her Induction into the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame.

Press Release - 6/10/2005

Press Release - 1/13/2005

In November 2002, Justice Weaver won re-election for a second 8-year term on the Michigan Supreme Court.
This site provides information about her experience, credentials, principles, and major initiatives for the State of Michigan.

Check this site often for up-to-date press releases and other information about important work going on in the Supreme Court of Michigan.

A verdict for plain sense:
Supreme Court ruling in Kent case should help keep juries to the facts
The Grand Rapids Press 7/22/02

The Michigan Supreme Court has used a Kent County case to straighten out a kink in state law and to put juries on a truer track to justice. Juries will benefit and, with the law made more coherent, so will the public.

The case involved a September 1997 robbery of a Kentwood gas station on S. Division Avenue near 48th Street. Two witnesses who were in the station at the time testified that the robber had a knife. A third reported seeing the robber drop the knife outside the station. Police arrested the accused, Clinton W. Reese, at a nearby home soon after the robbery. He was charged with armed robbery and given a jury trial before Kent County Circuit Judge Dennis Kolenda.

The defense lawyer never disputed that the robber was armed, contending instead that the police had the wrong person. But before jury deliberations began, he asked the judge to instruct the jury on the option of convicting Reese on an unarmed robbery charge -- in law, known as a "necessarily lesser included offense" of armed robbery.

Judge Kolenda refused, saying that it was unreasonable to consider an unarmed robbery charge when no one disputed that the robber was armed. The jury convicted Reese and Judge Kolenda sentenced him to life in prison as a habitual offender, based on his record of nine prior felony convictions.

The Michigan Court of Appeals, in an opinion written by Judge Richard Bandstra of Grand Rapids, said that prior Michigan Supreme Court rulings supported the defense's claim that the jury should have been given the choice of unarmed robbery. The court called it a harmless error and affirmed the conviction, but it urged the Supreme Court to review the case and get rid of the requirement for "necessarily lesser included offense" jury instructions when the evidence provided no rational basis for it.

In a 5-2 ruling, the Supreme Court now has done so. In an opinion written by Justice Elizabeth Weaver, the court pointed out that the state's armed robbery statute defines armed robber to mean a robber "being armed with a dangerous weapon." The law's description of unarmed robbery, in contrast, says "such robber not being armed with a dangerous weapon..."

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"What we in the judiciary most need is patience, meekness, compassion, and courage to 'Do Right and Fear Not.'"
Chief Justice Weaver
State of the Judiciary

"She is bringing a fresh, dedicated, incisive mind to the Michigan Supreme Court."
Judge Myron Wahls
Court of Appeals

"I know Betty Weaver. She threw me in jail....But I would vote for her, because she...straightened me out, and the sentence was just."
Former convicted juvenile offender

"Your judicial experience...was outstanding. Your leadership abilities...have been impressive. There is sound reasoning for my full confidence in you as a justice."
Mary S. Coleman
Chief Justice 1978-82

Judge Weaver has been recognized in many ways for her public service, including selection as one of five outstanding young women in Michigan by the Michigan Jaycees. It is a pleasure for myself to recognize Judge Weaver as a capable and devoted public servant.
G. Mennen Williams
Chief Justice 1982-86