Kahlilia Davis, who wasted a spot during her relatively brief and spectacularly horrid time as a judge, now wants to waste a spot on your primary election ballot.
Davis, who was elected in 2016 to serve as a judge at Detroit’s 36th District Court, started her judicial career by asking for time off to take a vacation in Germany even before reporting for work at her $139,000-a-year job. She never explained why she didn’t take that trip in the two months between her election in November and what was supposed to be her first day on the job in January, but her request was nevertheless denied.
The reason?
All new judges were required to attend a week-long training program to learn about everything from how to preside over landlord-tenant and traffic cases, small claims, misdemeanor and felony matters, to ethics and managing a courtroom.
Davis skipped that training, which is a shame, because she made it clear over the next six years that she had no idea what she was doing. Her incompetence wasn’t immediately apparent only because she also skipped the first two months of work.
Instead, she shopped at Sam’s Club, went to the bank and hit the gym, where she would have one of the many encounters that would later prompt Michigan Supreme Court justices to rule unanimously that she was unfit to serve as a judge.
The justices were so disgusted with Davis by June 23, 2023, that on that date, they suspended her from serving as a judge for six years.
Legal writing — even the bits that don’t involve Latin — can be difficult to translate into English. But the Supremes were about as plain-spoken as lawyers get when they decreed that even if Davis was “elected or appointed to judicial office” during her six-year suspension, “she will nevertheless be debarred from exercising the power and prerogatives of the office until at least the expiration of the suspension.”
Still, Davis tried to win back her old seat in 2024. A judge cited the Supreme Court ruling when he essentially kicked her off the ballot. Now that she’s trying to run for judge again, Davis is facing two challenges to her eligibility.
We’ll take a look at those cases in a minute. First, we’ll recap the reasons Davis is unfit to serve even if authorities rule she is eligible to remain on the ballot — even if she’s ineligible to do the job she’s running for.
Just thinking about it makes me wish I had the “heavy-duty” toilet Davis once demanded as one of her conditions for returning to work.
Justice delayed, denied and defiled
Michigan Supreme Court justices knew Davis pretty well by the time they delivered what I suspect they considered a death sentence to her judicial career back in 2023.
They suspended her with pay in June 2020 after Davis’ own lawyer conceded she made multiple mistakes and calculated that she worked only 15 months in her first few years on the job.
If you’re keeping score at home, that means Davis was at work only about half the time. Which is actually better than it sounds, because when she did go to work, she jailed a man for no reason, improperly fined a woman $3,500, threatened her supervisors with ominous Bible verses, and allegedly told a woman who parked next to her car outside a gym: “You can eat my p—-, you crazy bitch. You don’t know who you f—ing with. You must have me twisted.”
State court officials were called in to get Davis on track with a performance improvement plan. In addition to all the salary you and I paid Davis for not working, we got hit with the bill when the state hired a retired judge to mentor Davis.As you might guessed by now, that didn’t work out, either.
For example, even though Davis was supposed to spend a full day at work getting legal training, reading instructional books and meeting with mentors, instead of showing up at 8:30 in the morning, she clocked in at 9:50 a.m.
She was gone by 2 p.m.
She did better the second day, arriving at 8:46 a.m. But she cut out at 11:45 a.m.
On the third day, she went to the dentist in the middle of the day.
Court officials determined the only way to reach Davis was to call her mother and ask her to pass Davis a message. When the retired judge hired to mentor Davis was asked, “Have you had any difficulties with another judge in the way that you have had with Judge Davis?” he answered, “No.”
Nevertheless, Davis’ lawyer said court officials failed to give her adequate training and attributed many of Davis’ problems to multiple maladies. Among her beefs was that she found furniture piled up in her office after it was painted, that her bathroom was too far, and that she needed a “heavy-duty” toilet.
Davis has never returned my messages. If she had, I confess I probably would not have asked her why she needed the king-sized commode.
Third time’s a harm?
Following the rules has never been Davis’ strong suit.
When she filed to run for re-election in 2022, she declared under penalty of perjury that she did not owe any fines.
She did.
So she withdrew her campaign paperwork, paid the fine, and filed to run again.
The Secretary of State refused to let her on the ballot because of the original fib.
In 2024, Davis again tried to run for a seat at the 36th District Court, eager to return to the bench, despite her suspension … and the court’s inadequate plumbing.
Michigan Court of Claims Judge Christopher Yates declared Davis a “patently ineligible” candidate.
“Our Supreme Court made it clear that Kahlilia Davis cannot serve as a judge until 2029,” Yates wrote, “even if she wins a judicial election or is appointed to a judgeship by the Governor.”
Yates used the word “remarkably” more times in one paragraph than I’ve ever seen in an entire court order when he described Davis’ attempts to get on the ballot.
“Remarkably, in spite of the Supreme Court’s order, Kahlilia Davis gathered signatures and filed paperwork to run for a judgeship,” he wrote, adding, “Even more remarkably, the (Secretary of State) preliminarily approved her as a candidate … and then defended that decision … even though out Supreme Court left no doubt that she cannot serve as a judge until 2029.”
Now, two separate efforts are underway to keep Davis off the Aug. 4 primary ballot, where she is currently listed as one of four candidates competing for one open spot on the 36th District Court bench.
The Michigan Secretary of State is reviewing one challenge to Davis’ eligibility. And attorney Ryan Hill filed suit in the Court of Claims asking a judge to again order the Secretary of State to remove Davis from the ballot “because Ms. Davis remains legally ineligible under a prior Michigan Supreme Court disciplinary order and prior Court of Claims ruling barring her certification.”
When I asked Hill why he is challenging Davis, he told me: “She’s attempting to circumvent the Supreme Court order, but the Court of Claims order clearly says she’s in violation and she should wait.”
“It’s a complete waste of resources for everybody,” Hill continued. “You have three other candidates who are going to campaign, seek donations, contributions, for what? At the end of the day, everyone knows she can’t sit for the position once the race is over. It seems like a waste of everyone’s time and money.”
I’ll add it could be detrimental to democracy, too.
Forget for a moment that Davis has already proven she is unfit to serve. Consider how voters will feel if they find out they cast their ballot for someone who was ineligible to do the job they expected her to do when they gave her their precious vote?
And what about the other three candidates, who might have a better chance of winning if voters knew they are the only candidates eligible to serve the full six-year term?
“I’m extremely puzzled why she hasn’t just waited and done her time,” Hill said. “It’s completely puzzling.”
I think I may know why Davis is taking another shot.
When I called the number I found for Davis in the state Bar Journal, which lists contact information for lawyers licensed to practice in Michigan, her voicemail wasn’t set up. Her address is a box at a UPS Store.
Davis is like far too many politicians I know, who have determined the only way they can make a decent living is to try and persuade enough voters who don’t know their full story to give them a job — at taxpayer expense.
I don’t know how the Secretary of State will rule on Davis’ eligibility to remain on the ballot, or whether a judge will make the final call. I’ll let you know as soon as I know.
In the meantime, I can’t tell you whether Davis’ six-year suspension would start the minute she is elected, or on June 23, 2029, after she would have spent nearly half her term waiting to be eligible to serve.
In the latter case, voters looking for a candidate who didn’t want to do the job she was elected to do may have found just the candidate they’ve been looking for.
M.L. Elrick is a Pulitzer Prize- and Emmy Award-winning investigative reporter, director of student investigative reporting program Eye On Michigan, and host of the ML’s Soul of Detroit podcast. Contact him at mlelrick@freepress.com or follow him on X at @elrick, Facebook at ML Elrick and Instagram at ml_elrick.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Disgraced Detroit judge may not be eligible to serve, but still wants your vote
Reporting by M.L. Elrick, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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