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

The court's current selection method is nonpartisan election.

Michigan Supreme Court / Joined 1999 / Served to 2017

Robert P. Young Jr.

Justice, Michigan Supreme Court

Robert P. Young Jr. was a Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, who joined the court in 1999. He previously served on the Michigan Court of Appeals. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1951 · age 75
Tenure: 1999–2017 · 18 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1995	Michigan Court of Appeals	–	–
1999	Michigan Supreme Court	–	–

Education

Harvard University
Harvard University

Judicial Record

In our data, Young authored 226 published opinions for the court (1995–2016), plus 30 dissents and 45 concurrences. Most cited: People v. Trakhtenberg (1,458 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. 158 of these were attributed to Young 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	People v. Trakhtenberg· Dissent†	493 Mich. 38	1,458
2005	Rory v. Continental Insurance	703 N.W.2d 23	747
2012	People v. Vaughn†	491 Mich. 642	734
2008	Odom v. Wayne County	760 N.W.2d 217	529
2012	Hoffner v. Lanctoe†	492 Mich. 450	478
2012	People v. Reese†	491 Mich. 127	448
2004	Craig v. Oakwood Hospital	684 N.W.2d 296	372
1999	Smith v. Globe Life Insurance	597 N.W.2d 28	372
2009	In Re Rood· Concurrence†	763 N.W.2d 587	364
2006	People v. Robinson	715 N.W.2d 44	348
2001	Hazle v. Ford Motor Co.	628 N.W.2d 515	334
2010	People v. Feezel· Concurrence†	783 N.W.2d 67	329
2002	Roberts v. Mecosta County General Hospital	642 N.W.2d 663	325
2003	Quality Products and Concepts Co. v. Nagel Precision, Inc.	666 N.W.2d 251	322
2004	Gilbert v. DaimlerChrysler Corp.	685 N.W.2d 391	307

Showing the 15 most-cited of 301 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 Robert P. Young Jr. on?: Robert P. Young Jr. 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

See something wrong? Report an error. Fixes are logged in the corrections log.

18 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).