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

The court's current selection method is nonpartisan election.

Michigan Court of Appeals / Joined 1999 / Active

Donald S. Owens

Judge, Michigan Court of Appeals

Donald S. Owens is a Judge of the Michigan Court of Appeals, serving since 1999. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Tenure: Since 1999 · 27 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1999	Michigan Court of Appeals	–	–

Judicial Record

In our data, Owens authored 31 published opinions for the court (2001–2016), plus 3 dissents. Most cited: In re Moss (1,083 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. 34 of these were attributed to Owens 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
2013	In re Moss†	301 Mich. App. 76	1,083
2006	People v. McGhee†	709 N.W.2d 595	567
2004	People v. Thomas†	678 N.W.2d 631	520
2016	People v. Schrauben†	314 Mich. App. 181	484
2009	In Re Jones†	777 N.W.2d 728	206
2013	In re Laster†	303 Mich. App. 485	112
2008	In Re SLH, AJH, & VAH†	747 N.W.2d 547	91
2009	Genna v. Jackson†	781 N.W.2d 124	76
2005	In Re Gazella†	692 N.W.2d 708	76
2004	Ensink v. Mecosta County General Hospital†	687 N.W.2d 143	67
2004	People v. Geno†	261 Mich. App. 624	67
2001	Tobin v. Providence Hospital†	624 N.W.2d 548	60
2004	Lme v. Ars†	680 N.W.2d 902	39
2014	Spranger v. City of Warren· Dissent†	308 Mich. App. 477	35
2008	Genesee Foods Services, Inc v. Meadowbrook, Inc†	760 N.W.2d 259	32

Showing the 15 most-cited of 34 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 Court of Appeals reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is nonpartisan election.
Which court is Donald S. Owens on?: Donald S. Owens is a Judge of the Michigan Court of Appeals.

Sources

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

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

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