Dearborn Heights— Suspended 22nd District Court Judge Sylvia James testified Friday that she was justified in spending thousands of dollars from an alternative sentencing program to pay for landscaping, catering, cheerleader uniforms, photography services and contributions to local social organizations and charities.
James said at her state Judicial Tenure Commission hearing, where she faces charges of ethics violations, that her interpretation of the court's community service program to ease jail overcrowding was greater than simply using fees paid by convicts to fund their menial labor such as mowing grass and shoveling sidewalks.
James said the program was designed to support residents and organizations in her community.
She took control of the account that generated upward of $50,000 per year in 2005 after a dispute with the city over paying the court's bills. But checks presented to James through more than a dozen often tedious hours in the witness stand since Wednesday weren't for program expenses like lawn mower gasoline or ice-melting salt.
The purchases included leather-bound journals given as gifts to members of Inkster's Tax Increment Finance Authority after the group decided to include space for new court facilities in construction of a new municipal public service facility.
James said spending thousands from the fund every year to support her court's annual Law Day for Inkster High School students — including a $100 essay-writing prize — was merely her continuation of spending routinely approved by the city dating to the 1990s.
"One of the purposes of the community service program was to fund Law Day," James said.
James objected to the examiner's use of the words "contribution" or "donation" to describe thousands of dollars she gave to local organizations like the Goodfellows, scholarships and activities like her sister's 40th Inkster High School class reunion.
James said they were payments for advertising the court and its community services.
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