Detroit voters have elected a judge who is not allowed to sit on the bench. Khalilia Yvette Davis won one of three open seats on the city's 36th District Court in the November 3 election, collecting nearly 84,000 votes — even though a six-year suspension imposed by the Michigan Supreme Court bars her from hearing cases until 2029.
Source: The Detroit News via The Midwesterner
Davis will formally become a judge when the new term begins in January, Chief Judge William McConico of the 36th District Court told the Detroit News, but she will not hear a single case until her suspension expires in 2029. The six-year term she has just won runs through 2032, which means roughly half of it will be served by someone else.
Source: ABA Journal
A court already short of judges
McConico called the result a “significant administrative and financial challenge” for a court that is already short-staffed. Because Davis cannot preside, the 36th District Court will have to bring in a visiting judge to cover her docket for about three years, and McConico said the court plans to seek direction from Michigan's State Court Administrative Office on how to proceed. It remains unclear whether Davis will be paid during the years she is barred from working; the Supreme Court's suspension was imposed without pay.
Source: The Detroit News via The Midwesterner
Why she was suspended
Davis, 50, was first elected to the 36th District Court in 2016 and served from January 2017 to June 2020. In an order issued on June 23, 2023, the Michigan Supreme Court imposed a six-year conditional suspension without pay, finding that her misconduct had “besmirched the judiciary's reputation and prejudiced the administration of justice” and required “the highest condemnation and harshest sanction.”
Source: Michigan Supreme Court order, via ABA Journal
The court's seven findings of misconduct included abusing her contempt power in at least two cases — among them unlawfully jailing a process server — dismissing or adjourning cases involving a process server she disliked, intentionally disconnecting her courtroom's video-recording equipment and making unauthorized recordings on her personal cellphone, using an unauthorized handicap placard claiming official business at a gym and invoking her judicial status to avoid a citation, and sending Bible verses to her superior and court officials that the Supreme Court described as “insulting, discourteous, disrespectful, and threatening.”
Source: The Detroit News via The Midwesterner
The legal fight that put her back on the ballot
Davis first tried to return in 2024, but she was removed from that ballot after a complaint brought by Robert Davis, who is no relation, based on the 2023 suspension order. Relying on that 2024 order, Michigan's secretary of state again disqualified her for the 2026 election. She sued, and in June 2026 Michigan Court of Claims Judge James Robert Redford ruled that the Supreme Court's suspension order barred her from serving as a judge — not from running for the office. The order itself said that if she were elected or appointed during the suspension, she would “nevertheless be debarred from exercising the power and prerogatives of the office until at least the expiration of the suspension.” Redford also noted the secretary of state had confirmed she filed all the necessary documents and fees.
Source: ABA Journal
Many voters say they did not know
Some Detroit voters told WDIV's ClickOnDetroit that Friday was the first time they learned the candidate they had voted for was suspended and could not serve. “They didn't advertise that,” voter Jeffrey Williams said. Part of the information gap was structural: bar associations did not include Davis in their 2026 judicial ratings because, at the time the groups evaluated candidates, she was not yet on the ballot, Detroit Bar Association executive director Tracey Cooley told the ABA Journal. In its 2024 ratings, the Detroit Bar Association had rated Davis “not qualified.” Also elected to the court on November 3 were William Burton Jr. and Delphia Burton.
Source: ClickOnDetroit (WDIV), via ABA Journal
“The Court respects the decision of the people of Detroit to elect Judge Davis, just as we respect and recognize the authority and decision of the Michigan Supreme Court to suspend her.” — Chief Judge William McConico, 36th District Court, in a statement reported by the Detroit News.
What happens next
Davis remains an active member of the State Bar of Michigan in good standing and has done criminal defence work; her lawyer, Dan Wholihan, did not respond to the ABA Journal's request for comment. In January she takes office on paper while a visiting judge handles her courtroom, the State Court Administrative Office is expected to guide the court on pay and coverage, and her suspension runs until 2029 — at which point, if the Supreme Court's conditions are met, the judge Detroit elected in 2026 can finally take the bench for the last three years of her term.
Source: ABA Journal