Telegram - Serving Metropolitan Detroit Since 1944

Prophet Banks:

We have a great show for you today. We have Judge Kathleen McCarthy of Wayne County 3rd Circuit Court. Welcome to The Community Shall Be Restored. Tell us Judge what do you have going on? I know you have a lot of projects that you are working on and I understand you are not just putting people in jail?

Judge McCarthy:

That's right we do. I am in the Family Division at Wayne County Circuit Court. Our Court has Four Divisions. Criminal, Civil, Juvenile, and a Family division because we are so large in Wayne County.

Prophet Banks:

Wayne County is large. It reaches Romulus, Dearborn right, Livonia, Redford.

Judge McCarthy:

Yep. All the way out to the Grosse Pointes. Most people do not know this but Wayne Circuit Court is the 19th largest Court in the Country. In the Family Division alone we have about 20,000 cases a year coming to our Court. We have about 64 Judges throughout all 4 of our divisions. We have about 635 employees overall in our Court. Part of the delays in our Court System is simply due to the volume of cases that we have. In addition, we have the more higher volume of difficult cases, felony cases in our Criminal division, the biggest cases in the Tri-County Area.

In the Family Court we never have a day of rest. We have renovated our Friend of the Court. It is down in the Penobscot Building. We are in a whole new area that we opened up four years ago. We have a lot more resources there at our Friend of the Court office and I wanted to let your TV and Community audience know about that. We have Free Legal Aid Group help down at Wayne County and a new remodeled Customer Service Center.

Judge McCarthy:

We have the Michigan Legal Help Center down in our Penobscot Building as well on the 11th floor. People can come there every day Monday – Friday 8:00 am. – 3:30 in the afternoon. Get on the Computer and file their cases with the proper paperwork and there are attorneys there to help. Lakeshore Legal Aid has been given some federal dollars to help. They have opened offices where you can walk in and get legal help.

Prophet Banks:

Judge, I have to ask you this tough question. There was a case a few years ago came across your desk. There was a gentleman that owed $30,000 in child support. It wasn't his child, DNA stated. You made him pay the $30,000?

Judge McCarthy:

Correct. However, he didn't end up paying any money. I would not set aside the order affiliation for him. That is because as a Judge, I have to follow the Law. So that gentleman, he had been in prison and he was named by default as the father. The Process Server from our court went out however, we found out that was not the truth. The gentleman knew about the case because immediately after he got out of prison he said that he was not the father of the child. However, at that point it was beyond the 3 year period and my hands were tied. Legally my hands were tied. This child, when he did come down to court, the child was about 17 years old and he had no defense. There are a set of defenses that men can plead that is on our paperwork. This was a case of fraud and he was well aware of it but he did not take care of it in the time frame that was given. We wanted to establish the father who should be paying. By the time he came in it was too late and there was no legal defense So we asked the appropriate people to file that he had prison credit etc., so the Court set aside his child support obligation that he did not have to pay.

You can view The Community Shall Be Restored TV Program every Saturday at 8:00 pm on Comcast TV 90.You can view the interview in its entirety on CedricBanks4detroit youtube channel. As well as tune into Prophet Banks Radio Program The City of Hope every Saturday at 7:00 pm on WMKM 1440 AM. The radio program is broadcast LIVE through the Worldwide Conference Line as well as Facebook LIVE. You can join the radio program on the worldwide conference line by dialing 515-604-9311. The access code is 273973#. For more information email us at [email protected].