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

The court's current selection method is nonpartisan election.

Michigan Supreme Court / Joined 1972 / Served to 1982

Mary S. Coleman

Justice, Michigan Supreme Court

Mary S. Coleman was a Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, who joined the court in 1972. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Lived: 1914–2001
Tenure: 1972–1982 · 10 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1972	Michigan Supreme Court	–	–

Education

George Washington University

Judicial Record

In our data, Coleman authored 109 published opinions for the court (1973–1982), plus 54 dissents and 55 concurrences. Most cited: Shavers v. Attorney General (539 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. 113 of these were attributed to Coleman 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
1978	Shavers v. Attorney General· Concurrence†	267 N.W.2d 72	539
1979	People v. Hampton	285 N.W.2d 284	474
1979	Placek v. City of Sterling Heights· Concurrence†	275 N.W.2d 511	391
1974	People v. Jackson· Dissent†	217 N.W.2d 22	357
1975	People v. Ora Jones· Dissent†	236 N.W.2d 461	308
1973	Rizzo v. Kretschmer· Dissent†	207 N.W.2d 316	280
1975	People v. Chamblis· Concurrence†	236 N.W.2d 473	270
1973	Advisory Opinion Re Constitutionality of 1972 PA 294	1972 PA 294	268
1981	Friedman v. Dozorc· Concurrence†	312 N.W.2d 585	243
1975	Manistee Bank & Trust Co. v. McGowan· Dissent†	232 N.W.2d 636	196
1974	Funk v. General Motors Corp.· Dissent†	220 N.W.2d 641	193
1979	O'Donnell v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance	273 N.W.2d 829	192
1976	People v. Johnson· Dissent†	240 N.W.2d 729	188
1979	Wayne County Prosecutor v. Recorder's Court Judge	280 N.W.2d 793	183
1973	People v. Turner· Dissent†	210 N.W.2d 336	183

Showing the 15 most-cited of 218 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 Mary S. Coleman on?: Mary S. Coleman 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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10 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).