Judge Roberts has a long history of public service in the Motor City. She graduated from the University of Michigan in 1973, then attended Northeastern University School of Law in Boston. Like this blogger, she served as a research attorney for the Michigan Court of Appeals. She also taught legal writing and research at the old Detroit College of Law.
In 1993, Judge Roberts worked on former Michigan Supreme Court Justice Dennis Archer's transition team when he served as Detroit's mayor. After a short stint as an Assistant United States Attorney in Detroit in the late 1980s, Roberts was in a private law practice for a decade.
We here at the Motor City Law Blog have fond memories of Judge Roberts service as a federal judge. In 2004, we had a series of habeas corpus cases filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. Our client was convicted in a series of murders from Washtenaw County Circuit Court. His appeals were exhausted.
Because his confession came following a request for legal counsel, he had a valid constitutional issue involving his 5th Amendment right to be free from self-incrimination. When a convicted defendant exhausts his appeals, a petition for habeas corpus can be filed in federal court.
Our client had a series of six assault and murder convictions, all of which became the subject of a series of habeas petitions in Judge Roberts' court. Her staff could not have been more professional and helpful in getting the petitions properly lodged and ready for disposition.
Toward the end of her tenure, Judge Roberts is well known for her role in the "travel ban" case of Arab American Civil Rights League vs President Trump. She ordered Trump lawyer Rudy Guliani to turn over a legal memorandum designed to make the Arab travel ban appear not to be aimed at Muslims.
One of former President Trump's crowning achievements, from a conservative perspective, was appointing hundreds of conservative jurists to the federal bench and three conservative justices to the United States Supreme Court. The debate between textualist conservative and activist liberal jurists has raged for over 100 years in our country.
When Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died last year, many liberals and Democrats decried her decision to remain on the bench until her death, thereby depriving a Democrat administration from replacing her on the bench. Instead, her death provided former President Trump with a third SCOTUS appointment.
Well, Judge Roberts can now shift to the senior service of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan knowing that President Biden will select an appropriate replacement for an unforgettable Motor City Original.
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