How do judges of the Michigan Supreme Court reach the bench?

The court's current selection method is nonpartisan election.

Michigan Supreme Court / Joined 2009 / Served to 2013

Diane Hathaway

Justice, Michigan Supreme Court

Diane Hathaway was a Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, who joined the court in 2009. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1954 · age 72
Tenure: 2009–2013 · 4 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
2009	Michigan Supreme Court	–	–

Education

Wayne State University

Judicial Record

In our data, Hathaway authored 139 published opinions for the court (2009–2012), plus 18 dissents and 9 concurrences. Most cited: Hoffner v. Lanctoe (478 citations).

Published, precedential opinions from the CourtListener corpus. Counts and rankings are objective and recomputable: how we count. We describe the record, not the judge. 38 of these were attributed to Hathaway by a unique court-, date-, and surname-match against our roster (marked ), because CourtListener recorded no author for them. Each links to the official text to verify. How we match.

Selected opinions

Year	Case	Citation	Cited
2012	Hoffner v. Lanctoe· Dissent†	492 Mich. 450	478
2010	McCORMICK v. CARRIER· Concurrence†	487 Mich. 180	340
2012	Titan Insurance Company v. Hyten· Dissent†	491 Mich. 547	322
2012	Johnson v. Recca· Dissent†	492 Mich. 169	306
2010	Lansing Schools Education Ass'n v. Lansing Board of Education· Concurrence†	487 Mich. 349	279
2009	Bush v. Shabahang	772 N.W.2d 272	211
2010	Edry v. Adelman· Dissent†	786 N.W.2d 567	198
2012	People v. Buie· Concurrence†	491 Mich. 294	174
2011	People v. Bonilla-Machado†	489 Mich. 412	154
2012	People v. Moreno†	491 Mich. 38	150
2011	Kevin Krohn v. Home-Owners Ins Co· Dissent†	490 Mich. 145	146
2010	People v. Wilder	780 N.W.2d 265	141
2011	People v. Huston· Concurrence†	489 Mich. 451	138
2012	Spectrum Health Hospitals v. Farm Bureau Mutual Ins Co of Michigan· Dissent†	492 Mich. 503	137
2011	Driver v. Naini· Dissent†	490 Mich. 239	126

Showing the 15 most-cited of 166 authored opinions in our data. “Cited” is inbound citations across the CourtListener corpus. Case links open the ruling’s full text (CourtListener) or its page here; read the methodology and verify against the primary source.

Questions & answers

How do judges of the Michigan Supreme Court reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is nonpartisan election.
Which court was Diane Hathaway on?: Diane Hathaway was a Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court.

Sources

Each fact on this page traces to a primary public record.

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

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4 years on the Michigan Supreme Court. Data as of 2026-03-31. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).