Kirsten Nielsen Hartig (Oakland County).
A Michigan judge, reportedly with a history of mistreating staff and causing issues for prosecutors, has been prohibited from presiding over felony cases and is now limited to handling small claims and landlord-tenant disputes.
As per an order acquired by Law&Crime, 52nd District Court Chief Judge Travis M Reeds has removed Judge Kirsten Nielsen Hartig’s authorization to manage criminal cases.
The order states, “All General Civil, Landlord Tenant, and Small Claims actions filed in the [district] will be assigned to Judge Kirsten Nielsen Hartig.”
Meanwhile, all “criminal and civil infraction ordinance violations,” as well as “all felony cases” will be assigned to another judge, the order said. The order takes effect on May 27.
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The order does not give a reason for the action in the court that handles cases in the Detroit suburbs of Troy and Clawson but Hartig has a history of misconduct allegations, according to local reports.
“The order was issued to ensure fairness in the courtroom,” Oakland County spokesperson Bill Mullan told The Detroit News.
The Detroit Free Press reported Hartig’s rulings in 2022 sparked Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald to appeal to a higher court. McDonald claimed Hartig dismissed cases against a trio of alleged armed robbers as retribution for a scheduling conflict. The appeal alleged Hartig “has a long-standing practice of seeking to impose her own personal view of what the law should be via the criminal cases before her,” McDonald wrote, according to the Free Press.
McDonald also noted that Hartig’s decisions were repeatedly overturned on appeal.
Hartig in a statement to the Free Press at the time chalked up McDonald’s beef to election year politics and said she only dismissed the case because the prosecutor refused to show up to a court hearing in person, despite knowing that’s what the judge expected.
“They didn’t do their job and now they’d like to blame the judge for enforcing the law,” Hartig said in a statement at the time, according to the Free Press. “That’s no surprise, and neither is the attempt by political opponents to pile on.”
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Also in 2022, a former court administrator sued the county, alleging that Hartig created a hostile work environment and that the administrator was fired for complaining about it, the Detroit News reported. While Hartig was not personally named in the lawsuit, the administrator alleged after she returned from medical leave the judge made it clear that she had to report to her daily “unless you’re unconscious.”
Hartig also made the administrator stand up in front of a courtroom full of people where she accused her of mismanaging grant funding, the lawsuit said. The Free Press reported the court administrator settled for $100,000 in 2023.
According to Hartig’s biography, she was elected to the district court bench in 2010. It says she “currently presides” over the district’s Recovery Treatment Court.
“Together with a team of court and professional volunteers, Judge Hartig works diligently to provide therapeutic and fair interventions for those individuals whose underlying cause of involvement with the criminal justice system is due to a substance abuse disorder,” the bio reads.
She worked as an assistant prosecutor and defense attorney before being elected to the bench.
Hartig did not immediately return a request for comment.
