Why Lawyers Stand with Judge Who Sent Kids to Detention for Missing Lunch with Dad

About 130 family law attorneys crowded into an Oakland County courtroom Wednesday to support embattled Circuit Court Judge Lisa Gorcyca, who was found guilty last week of misconduct in her handling of the acrimonious Tsimhoni child custody dispute.

Detroit Free Press columnist Brian Dickerson has an account of what he called the lawyers’ use of a routine hearing in Gorcyca’s courtroom to stage a “defiant show of support” for the judge, who could be suspended by the Michigan Judicial Tenure Commission.

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The reason, Dickerson wrote, goes beyond maintaining congenial relationships with a jurist who hears their cases.

“I suppose cynics might be tempted to dismiss Wednesday morning's extraordinary outpouring of support as an obligatory gesture by family court lawyers who make their living appearing before Gorcyca and her colleagues on the Oakland family court bench, most of whom have expressed anger at the disciplinary charges against her.

“But in more than a dozen on- and off-the-record conversations, some of metro Detroit's most respected divorce lawyers defended Gorcyca as a good judge who has been unfairly pilloried for a single — and, they insist incongruous — lapse of decorum.”

The lapse Dickerson referred surrounded Gorcyca’s decision last summer to send the three Tsimhoni children to to juvenile detention for refusing to have lunch with their estranged father and ordered them led from the courtroom in handcuffs.

Gorcyca has apologized for remarks she made during the proceedings, including the allegations that she “laughed at the children and was sarcastic,” said they’d been brainwashed by the mother and referenced notorious killer Charlie Manson when she described the children as engaging in cult-like behavior.

The Judicial Tenure Commission said Gorcyca “failed to establish, maintain, enforce, and personally observe high standards of conduct to that the integrity and independence of the judiciary may be preserved.”
Gorcyca also failed to accept “personal responsibility for her own behavior,” the panel said.

The ruling from retired Wayne County Circuit Judge Daniel Ryan, a special master appointed by the Michigan Supreme Court, must be endorsed or modified by the full tenure commission before disciplinary action can be taken.

Gorcyca’s lawyers have said they will contest the findings, which could delay the punishment phase of the proceedings for months.

Dickerson wrote that two independent sources had confirmed that Gorcyca rejected a brief suspension outlined in a pre-hearing settlement offer. A condition of the offer was that she admit to the charges against her.

• READ MORE: Please go to the Detroit Free Press to read more of Brian Dickerson’s insights about the case.

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