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.

Below is the full text of Chief Justice Weaver's message to a joint session of the Michigan State Legislature on the State of the Judiciary (September 28, 2000).

Lieutenant Governor Posthumus, Speaker Perricone, Majority Leader DeGrow, ladies and gentlemen of the Legislature, Governor Engler, my Justice colleagues, and Judges of the Court of Appeals, distinguished guests, and friends.

Many Chief Justices have come into this beautiful chamber before me to deliver a State of the Judiciary message. Each in his or her own distinctive style has spoken of the Judiciary's accomplishments and its heavy responsibilities, its pressing problems and its emerging needs. Each has spoken eloquently of the importance of independence, and of our interdependence as co-equal branches of government.

My purpose today is to highlight what interdependence -- that is, cooperation, working together for the public good -- has made possible and can make possible in the future. I will report to you on the status of the judiciary and its potential to continue to improve judicial services for Michigan's citizens. For our families, children, and seniors. For plaintiffs, defendants, jurors, crime victims, and taxpayers.

Let me begin by asking you to leave Michigan for a moment and come with me to another time many years ago, and another place, my native state of Louisiana. I grew up there as the only sister of two older, and to their minds much wiser, brothers. The propensity for government must run in my family, because one fall my older brother, Bob -- fresh from an American Legion Boys State session and a summer job as a runner for a law firm -- proclaimed within our household the "State of Tulane." He then proceeded to make my other brother and me its citizens.

Bob made the laws of the State of Tulane, he investigated offenses, he prosecuted the alleged offenders, and he presided over the trials. That was how one day I found myself on trial (I forget what the actual transgression was) struggling to give testimony on my own behalf. I, at most only 6 or 7 years old, quickly discovered that the rules of evidence in the State of Tulane did not allow for much of a defense. For every time I tried to answer, "Yes, I did it but I had a good reason," Bob said, "You can only answer 'yes' or 'no.'" After several "You can only answer 'yes' or 'no'" rulings, I was devastated, and so ran crying from the courtroom to what I intuitively knew to be the Supreme Court -- the highest authority -- my mother!

Mother, ever caring and fair, came to my rescue and immediately disbanded the state. In fact, she proclaimed that the State of Tulane was never to be even mentioned again, anytime, anywhere. And it wasn't!

(continued)

"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