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Judge Mary Beth Kelly outlines Wayne County Circuit Court outreach, jury and emergency-order programs
Summary
Judge Mary Beth Kelly told Trenton council members the Wayne County Circuit Court is emphasizing access to justice, jury outreach and specialized treatment courts, and described new emergency risk protection orders created by 2024 state law.
Judge Mary Beth Kelly of the Wayne County Circuit Court presented a community-outreach overview to the Trenton City Council on June 15, describing the court’s efforts to make services clearer to jurors, litigants and the public.
Kelly said the court is prioritizing "access to justice," explaining that the circuit court aims to serve litigants whether or not they have lawyers. She highlighted outreach events such as Adoption Day and Reunification Day, programs for new-lawyer swearing-ins and Law Day, and regular jury engagement efforts.
The judge described the court’s structure and caseload. "We have 60 judges with 59 judges actually right now," she said, noting the court operates across multiple buildings and includes criminal, civil and family divisions plus juvenile, probate and specialty dockets. She described the family division as handling roughly 28,000 cases, including about 14,000 personal-protection-order petitions, about half of which are dismissed for failing to meet statutory requirements.
Kelly told the council the circuit court runs multiple treatment courts — drug, mental-health and juvenile treatment dockets — intended to address underlying substance-use and mental-health problems differently than traditional criminal processing. She also explained appeal pathways to the Court of Appeals and the Michigan Supreme Court, and said the high court accepts relatively few cases for review.
On recent legislation, Kelly described Michigan’s new emergency risk protection order process (often called a "Red Flag" law) enacted in 2024. She said police officers, mental-health providers or family members can petition the court for an order to temporarily remove firearms from someone the petitioner alleges is a danger to themselves or others; the court may issue such an order after review.
The presentation ended with an invitation for questions; Kelly said she would not remain for the whole council meeting because of an early docket but thanked the council for hosting the outreach presentation. Mayor Rezappa and council members thanked Kelly for the overview.
