The Backcast Podcast - Episode 78 - Fishing, the Courtroom, and More with George Mertz

In this episode of the Backcast Podcast we delve into the complexity of the legal system, the world of fishing and more with our special guest, George Mertz, a circuit court judge and passionate outdoor enthusiast. George takes us on an enlightening journey through his unique experiences both from the bench and riverside, offering insights into technology’s impact on court transparency, the joys and challenges of fly fishing, child engagement in outdoor activities, and in-depth tales of trout conservation.

 

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Hi again, everybody. John Porteus of the Lovell's Township Historical Society,
and you're listening to the Backcast Podcast. Hey, welcome back, everybody.
It's trout season 2024, and so far, so good.
Had a little rain over the weekend, but I think this is going to shape up to
be one of the better openers.

(00:21):
So, certainly had a great time at the museum over the weekend.
If you couldn't join us, mark it on your calendar for next year.
It's a good time. so this week Richard and I are going to sit down with George Mertz George,
aside from being a friend of the River and Woods is also a circuit court judge

(00:42):
here in Michigan and has some interesting things to say so while we're not we're
certainly going to talk trout,
we'll learn a couple interesting things about the judiciary as well so without
further ado let's hear what George has to say All right.
Hey, George, welcome. Thank you. We're very happy to have you today.
Richard and I have been kind of looking forward to this. I have too. Good, good.

(01:07):
For our listeners edification, maybe you'd like to tell them a little bit about yourself.
You have a rather unique occupation when you're not playing around outside.
So if you'd just like to welcome and tell us a little bit about yourself.
Sure. Thank you. My name is George Mertz, Judge George Mertz.
I'm a circuit court judge for the 46th Circuit, which comprises Otsego,

(01:32):
Crawford, and Kalkaska counties.
So it's a little unique. Most circuit courts in Michigan are one county,
but we still get to ride the circuit, as we call it, and travel around to each
of the three counties. So you would do trials in any one of the three counties?
Correct. So you actually have chambers in all three counties? Right.

(01:52):
My main office is in Otsego County in Gaylord, but I do hold court in Crawford and Kalkaska County.
So there's chambers in each of those courthouses.
And I travel to each county throughout the month, having different types of
hearings and trials in each county.
And it's a little bit unique, as I said, nowadays, most counties have enough population to.

(02:18):
They sustain an entire circuit just within the county. Do you see that population
increasing in your territory?
Otsego County is definitely increasing.
Crawford and Kalkaska are staying pretty steady. Pretty static.
I don't think at any point in the near future it's going to get to the point
where we're going to change the jurisdiction, although it has changed over time.

(02:38):
The 46th Circuit used to be comprised of five counties.
Okay. It used to include Ogemaw County and Montmorency County.
And then as the populations grew, they redrew the lines, which has happened from time to time.
But I don't think in the near future there'll be any changes.
With respect to those that might not know, myself included, what,

(03:00):
I guess, quantifies a district judge?
How does all that triage and work out?
Sure. I mean, the circuit courts are created by the Michigan Constitution.
Article 6, Section 13 creates the circuit court as a court of general jurisdiction.
Okay. And what the circuit court has jurisdiction over in the criminal context

(03:24):
are felonies. So any crime that's punishable by more than up to two years in
jail or prison is considered a felony.
So circuit court has jurisdiction over those crimes.
In the civil context, it's any case where there's more than $25,000 in controversy.
Oh, so it could include family law then? And then there's other areas of jurisdiction,

(03:47):
which would be family law.
So I also hear divorce cases, custody, child support.
So you're everywhere. Right. And so that was the idea.
When circuit courts were created by the original legislature in Michigan,
it was a very broad grant of jurisdiction to gear just about every type of case. And then later on.

(04:11):
The district courts were created, and the misdemeanors and smaller civil cases
were carved off to create a jurisdiction for the district court because there
just became too much. Just a balanced workload?
Sure. Okay. Most of what I know about the law and the court system,
I got from Anatomy of a Murderer, 12 Angry Madness.

(04:31):
Great movie, by the way. And Heracle Wind, Jerome Lawrence, probably. Have you seen that?
Is that pretty much all it was?
No, it does not. TV is way different than what happens.
When things don't resolve in a half hour? No, they don't resolve in half an
hour, and they are way more boring.

(04:52):
And one of the interesting things, we were talking about COVID before we came
on, one of the interesting things is when COVID happened, we couldn't allow
the public into the courtroom anymore, and we're required by law to have every
court proceeding open to the public.
So the way that we provided for that was to broadcast to YouTube.
And I can't tell you how many people that I've talked to who have said, man, that's boring.

(05:17):
You do the same thing over and over and over again.
And I said, yeah. So one of the great things about COVID is in the having to
use something like YouTube to broadcast court proceedings is it's given a broad
segment of the population the ability to see what really happens.
And prior to that, the only time you would really know is if you had a reason
to be in court. People didn't just come to court just to watch.

(05:40):
Now people will tune into YouTube just to see what's going on because they can
do it from there. Seespan at a local level. Right.
So it's really, I think, opened people's eyes a lot to how the court system
really works, how it is different than 12 Angry Men and Anatomy of a Murderer.
It's nowhere near as exciting.
Most of the time, that's not to say that there aren't moments or cases that

(06:03):
are interesting. There certainly are.
But by and large, it's not super exciting.
Kind of like flying 12 hours of boredom. 15 minutes of excitement. Right.
Okay. Little stakeout type stuff.
Yeah. But there are people that enjoy watching it.
And that's been a real benefit, too, is to have that kind of public access so

(06:24):
that I think it's always good the more open you are and the more the public
can see what really happens in government in general and certainly in the court system.
I think it's a great thing. And even though I'm not required to do it,
I still broadcast a lot of my proceedings on YouTube because I think it's a
good thing for the public to be able to see what happens. I think it's great.

(06:45):
Transparency. Right, exactly. I love it.
So it's one of those side benefits that's, you know, none of us wanted COVID to happen.
It wasn't what we wanted, but in some ways it's what we needed from the court's
perspective to utilize technology a little bit more, open things up a little
bit more and make it more accessible.
That's neat. Yeah. It's especially neat that you're still doing it,

(07:06):
that it's something to carry forward.
There's momentum there and certainly interest. So that's neat. Yeah. Very cool.
Well, so when you're not hanging out in the courtroom, you like hanging out
in the woods and the river? Love to be in the river.
That's one of the reasons why we moved up here in the first place.
My wife and I moved up to Grayling in 2001, right after I graduated from law school.

(07:29):
And she had a job that allowed her to be kind of mobile, where we were going
to live. And so I took a job clerking with the 46th Circuit Court in 2001 with Judge Davis.
Alton Davis was the prior circuit judge, and Dennis Murphy was the prior circuit
judge, clerking for them.
And part of the reason why we wanted to come up north is we wanted to be able

(07:51):
to take advantage of rivers, lakes, being out in the woods.
My wife Amy and I are both outdoors-type people.
We love the outside, doing whatever it is we're doing.
And it was a great opportunity to experience
that on a regular basis instead of just for a week
during vacation in the summertime exactly and we

(08:11):
found the the job clerking was only about a two year position so we thought
if we don't like it we can always move back downstate if you do like it we'll
stay and we fell in love with it and we decided pretty early on that this is
where we We wanted to be for the rest of our lives. Did you both come up fly fishing?
No. We actually got introduced to it through a work program that Amy had on the St.

(08:36):
Joe River down in South Bend, Indiana.
Okay. And so I knew nothing except the one experience I had.
So this is kind of funny. I came up here with an eight-weight fly rod.
Okay. No idea what to tie on the end of it, really.
And just started going out in the river and flailing around with a pair of hip

(08:58):
boots. I didn't even have waders at the time. It's okay.
I was calling it a pole instead of a rod. Funny story, I met the former district
judge who's now retired in Grayling,
John Hunter, whose son is now my counterpart on the circuit bench.
Oh, cool. I was a circuit judge, but John was the district court judge at the time.
And when I interviewed for my clerking position, he asked me, do you fly fish?

(09:22):
And I said, I do. And actually, I brought my pole up with me.
And he said, George, it is not a pole.
It is a rod. I never want to hear you use that term.
I'm like, okay.
I'm not going to forget that one. Yeah, well, you know, there's a little syntax that comes with it.

(09:43):
It's all good so i learned it's called a fly rod and in
addition to that i learned you know i started to pick up
talking with people in grayling and
people who knew what they were doing and like you need to get
a five-weight rod here's how you should set it up come out
with me you know a lot of people being new
in town we found grayling was super friendly and people were really open and

(10:04):
anytime i expressed an interest in fly fishing to somebody who knew what they
were doing their immediate response was we're going out i'm going to take you
out And I learned a ton that first year that I was here and absolutely fell
in love with it. Oh, that's awesome.
Never really wanted to do any other type of fishing after that.

(10:25):
And Amy will go out with me. She enjoys fly fishing.
Not maybe as ardent as I am, but she likes getting out.
And a lot of times what we'll do is she'll come out with me and she likes to bird watch.
So she'll sit and bird watch and I'll get in the river.
So that's how we both kind of got started in the sport of fly fishing.

(10:47):
And for our listeners, Amy's in the room with us. so we're not talking behind her back.
And good on you for birding. We'll get you hooked up with the schoolhouse birding contest this year.
Well, so you're in grayling.
You've got a different rod in your hand, probably now knowing what to tie on.

(11:12):
How does it progress from there? Sure. Well, I started learning the different
hatches and how to time your hatches, when to fish for certain species.
And the first time I went out for brown drakes and hex, I caught up to that
point, I had caught, you know, eight, 10 inch browns, little fish, and I caught a big one.

(11:35):
And feeling that bend in the rod with a big fish after dark was a really neat experience.
Pretty exciting. Are you a hex guy?
I don't fish the hex a lot now. I fish it a few days, usually on the upper Manistee.
I like to avoid the crowds and kind of stay away. In the north branch, I do the brown drakes.

(11:57):
There's kind of a hex coming up there. Yeah. I stay in a hole a lot.
I don't hate to fish that much.
Yeah, the brown drake's a little more civil than the hex. Yeah.
So sometimes I manage to catch it. I have started taking my kids out. They're teenagers.
And I've had them out fly fishing since they were little, but now they're actually

(12:18):
big enough to fit into some waders and withstand the current and actually really
get in the river and fish.
And I took them both out last year and they both caught big browns.
Oh, there we go. Okay. And talk about a great experience. And it was funny to
see how each of them experienced differently.
My daughter is 16 and she had a great time she loved catching it i got so excited

(12:39):
when she caught this big fish and we're walking back i'm like what'd you think
about that fish and she said honestly dad i liked your reaction to it more than i liked it.
That's okay. And my son was 14 at the time, and we went out a couple nights
later, and he caught a really big one.
And we're walking back, and I said, my son's name is Georgie.

(13:02):
And I said, Georgie, what do you think about that?
Yeah, that gives me a whole new look into fly fishing. Yeah. The same again.
Because up to that point, he had always just caught smaller fish,
and that was a 24-inch brown. It was a hog.
That's a big fishy. daughters and so i
i knew from that point he's only going to be thinking about that big bent in
the right i love that i love well yeah he'll come back for more yeah that's

(13:26):
great yeah so so that kind of thing really got me more into it and then we moved
eventually we moved up to gaylord because after i was done clerking i took a
job practicing with the law firm in gaylord,
and we moved up there and i saw ad
in the paper the headwaters chapter was looking for people
to volunteer for the board of directors so i

(13:47):
went to a meeting just interested in
getting more involved in trout fishing and conservation and
it was one of those things where i went to the meeting i really didn't
know anything about tu certainly didn't know anything about the headwaters chap
or the board there and i left that meeting as the secretary of i was gonna say
officer nice welcome to town and my good friend john walters who i don't i know

(14:13):
richard Richard knows John. You know John.
That was the first time we met was at that meeting. He was doing the same thing.
He was interested in getting involved, and he just showed up blue.
And he left that meeting as vice president.
And so that was the beginning of a great friendship. He and I are really close now.
And we laugh and look back. We both saw that ad in the paper.

(14:34):
Both showed up to this meeting. We both left as office friends. That's awesome.
That's great. We are 20 years later still really good friends. That's wonderful.
Yeah. Well, and with your geography in the Gaylord area...
I'm assuming you're hitting the Pigeon River country a little more?
That's really, I was telling Richard, I live in the Spar area,

(14:54):
so kind of northeast of Gaylord.
So I have really good access to the black and the Pigeon. And that's primarily
where I fish because if I have a night and I can run out, I can be out to the Pigeon in 12 minutes.
Out and on? That's the way I like it. Yeah. So they're very convenient.
Convenient there's a lot of stretches of both those rivers that don't

(15:16):
get a lot of pressure because they're hard to get to and
you just aren't going to catch those 24 inch hogs
typically that you do on the manistee and asado system so a lot of the people
looking for big fish won't fish those rivers and so i i love it because there's
a i i think of the line from john volker's robert travers is the testament of

(15:39):
a fisherman, solitude without loneliness. There you go.
And I get a lot of solitude without loneliness in the pigeon and the black.
Well, and you find some willing fish too. Oh, yeah. There is some great fishing.
Yes. I'm not trying to drive people to a body of water, but I will say maybe underappreciated.

(15:59):
They're fine fisheries. Absolutely. And the black being managed exclusively
for brook, aren't they? Yes. Yeah.
That's pretty cool. You won't catch anything else. And it's really technical. It's difficult wading.
It's difficult. You have to do a lot of roll casting.
The tag alders can really catch you. It's a tight. For the UP river. Yes.

(16:23):
The first time I went out there, I was like, I don't even know if I can fish
this. But you can. And you kind of have to fish hole to hole.
When you catch a good day out there, and there's two or three brook trout in
every hole, and they'll slam those dry flies.
A 10-inch brook trout, a three- or four-weight rod. It's a lot of fun.

(16:44):
A 6X tippet is a great time. Yeah.
Well, and it's still hardy enough equipment that you're not going to harm the
fish, but you're still able to enjoy that fish on an intimate level.
Yes. A little lemon and butter. Yeah. Well, then there's that.
Well, I mean, to be fair, we're fully endorsed catch and release and conservation

(17:11):
measures, but there are waters and there are opportunities to have a fish streamside.
And that's not a bad thing. Nope.
It's not a bad thing at all. Yeah. Much better than you would find in a restaurant.
No question. Yeah. Yeah.
Well, so with headwaters, a lot of fun conservation work there.

(17:36):
And all through the PRC, we traditionally have focused a little more on the
river systems around us, the Manistee and the El Sable.
But maybe you could enlighten people.
I'm not even sure folks know that you've got like three rivers almost running in parallel.

(17:56):
Yeah, well, okay, we'll guard that. But to be fair, it's not like,
oh, you've only got a 20-foot access and you're in and out and that's it.
You've got a lot of water to pursue up there. Yes. Yeah.
And it does take a little bit of commitment to get up there,
to get to the spots that are productive. Right.

(18:20):
But in terms of conservation efforts? Yeah, wherever you want to go.
So, I mean, a big thing that really changed the pigeon, of course,
was taking out the song in the morning ranch dam that really altered that landscape
and changed a lot about what we see upstream now.
I was going to say, because that's just downstream from Pete's place.

(18:43):
It is literally. Yeah, literally.
It's a piece of property down. Quite literally. and and
so they're they're we see a lot more
rainbows up higher now than we
ever did before and really to the
point where it's almost almost all rainbows that
you're catching no kidding you're there there are still browns that
you'll catch very few brook trout on that part

(19:06):
of the pigeon but a lot of rainbows now
are they growing they're getting starting to get
bigger and i also know that some of the
larger rainbows are coming up and
i don't know i don't know enough john walters would
actually be a great guy to talk to about this
too but i i think some of the bigger ones are coming up

(19:28):
from the lakes and making it further upstream now than they ever could before
because i know people that own private property even upstream of pete's on the
pigeon that have I've caught really nice rainbows that I just obviously would never see.
And as our listeners know, that can put a big smile on your face.

(19:52):
Get a fish dancing at the end of your line. That's always a good time. Yes.
But other than that, that's the single biggest event recently that's changed
in things about the Pigeon. I know that TU still does a lot of restoration work
on landings on the Sturgeon and the Pigeon and the Black.
I know there's a lot of habitat and, you know,

(20:15):
woody debris and those types of projects on a lot of the creeks that feed into
those rivers to provide places for trout to go farther upstream and provide habitat.
One of the unfortunate things about becoming a judge is I had to resign from
the board of Trout Unlimited because occasionally, as we know,

(20:36):
there's litigation. There is litigation.
And so I couldn't have that position, so I'm not as familiar anymore with a
lot of what's going on with the others chapter other than.
Well, you guys did pretty good for a number of years there when John was in
your chapter of the year, a couple of years. We were.
And we had, our chapter was extremely active.

(20:57):
John did a great job as president, kind of marshalling the resources.
We had a great group of directors that were really involved.
And one of the great things about that board too was, you know,
we all became friends and we would have.
You know, kind of unofficial TU fishing trips and stuff that we would all go on.

(21:20):
And we would talk about, well, what's next? You know, we would end up talking
about conservation during the
course of our social events that kind of bled into our work as a board.
And it really provided a situation where a lot of ideas were coming.
We were interested in a lot of things. And we did a lot of things that some

(21:40):
of the passports had not done because of the geography.
You know, we had some people on our board from Alpena County and Montmorency County.
That was part of the chapter, but things had always seemed to focus on the Pigeon
Black and the Sturgeon and not so much on the Thunder Bay.
And so we kind of branched out a little bit and did some work in those areas,

(22:00):
which generated interest from
people who really didn't think of Headwaters chapter as their chapter.
Because it was really being done. That's an interesting discussion to have because
some chapters are very diverse in terms of the geographies they're serving.
Mason Griffith's a little tighter. But there's not a right or wrong.

(22:23):
It's just great that you're able to reach out a little further and keep those
people that are engaged, engaged.
Right. Well, Mason Griffith has a membership that's all over the place as founders.
I mean, there's a lot of folks from other places that have identified with Karen
and her. Yeah. Hi, Karen.
Hiya, Karen. In the MIA, you know, the Mason-Griffith guy, because I'm in the Founders' chapter.

(22:50):
When I came up here, they assigned me to, I think they put me in Headwaters,
and then I reassigned myself to Mason-Griffith.
Just that reason. Right. Well, it is cool, though, because there's a lot of crossover.
I don't think there's any chapter snobbery that way. No.

(23:11):
No, and I know we did. We got involved when I was on the board of headwaters
with a lot of stuff that Mason Griffith was doing and a lot of things that were
kind of outside of our territory.
I mean, I know we did the cedars for the sable plantings. We always had a group down for the cleanup.
We did plantings over on the Manistee, things that were technically outside of our geography.

(23:35):
You guys were pretty close for a few years. I think when Mark was there,
I remember talking with him, and he said you guys worked pretty closely. Yeah.
Well, and it's neat, too, because I think we're seeing that those borders crossed
a lot more freely now between chapters and even organizations.
I think people are realizing the power of the economy of scale and collaboration

(23:58):
and achieving the end goal rather than attaching one's name to, this is all ours.
It's like, no, this is for everybody. And it's kind of cool.
I'll do this as a plug because you're going to be our kickoff podcast for the season.
And so this dovetails nicely into what we're trying to spotlight at the museum

(24:24):
this year with the various conservation groups in the area.
And you were talking about cedars. I was just down at the museum prior to coming to meet you guys.
And Howard's installing his display this year. Our theme will be conservation.
And it's exciting. It's exciting. It's almost like it's getting a second breath.

(24:48):
There's always been a hardcore group of people that have always been involved.
But we seem to be, for a change, picking up people instead of attriting people.
And it's really exciting that way.
Are you seeing similar things?
Again, it's hard to say with the Headwaters chapter. I meant more just impression-wise

(25:11):
and what you see and read and what folks are doing.
But, yes, respecting that, yeah, you do have that day job thing.
Are you a bird hunter? Are you in the field for that as well?
I do. All right. I don't have a dog, unfortunately.
So, I mean, I have a dog. I don't have a bird dog.

(25:32):
The one time I took Lucy, my dog, she got into a porcupine within 10 minutes
of getting her out of the car.
Takes the edge off the fun. Yeah, I had the kids with me and crying.
Just chaos, panic, and fear.
And I'm not kidding. Within 15 minutes of getting in the car,

(25:53):
it went from this serene fall afternoon to absolute chaos. Yeah.
I do a little bit. I will go out, and it's nice to have a walk in the woods.
Sometimes you can flush something and get a shot in. And we had Loyola,
the dedicated grouse hunter.
Oh, Mr. Sabo's organization. Yeah, Sabo.

(26:17):
Yeah, we had Craig on from the, what is it, Loyola Distinguished Order of Grouse
Hunters? Yeah, Sabo. Yeah.
Fun group. We've been doing that for 47 years. Wow. Just cranking out that newsletter.
It's awesome. I mean, you know, we'll plug it. I don't care.

(26:38):
We've had him on the show.
He needs to get to number 48. Yeah, right?
100%. But one of the cool things that he does is relies on a subscribership
to echo back numbers and populations from all these different geographies.
And it's been very, very interesting. Yeah.

(26:59):
To see the, I don't know what you want to label it. I'll call it climate change for the moment.
But it's definitely impacting, you know, what we're seeing. Who are we talking about?
We're talking with, it's like we're seeing turkey population come up and grouse population reduce.
Ben Jones. Ben Jones, yeah. Okay. Blackwood too.

(27:21):
And Glenn Blackwood. But just the impact of the lack of fluffy snow for extended
periods of time and what that, the impact that has on the birds and while making
it less desirable for the grouse,
apparently it's quite a bit more desirable for the turkeys.
I mean, just anecdotally, we have a ton of turkeys on our property and we live

(27:46):
kind of out in the country.
We have a lot of houses around and we're getting 40 to 50 turkeys.
We have a little pond, so they come out of the woods in the rain or pond.
It's a little off the wall here, but I remember when we moved up here, we didn't see a turkey.
Because in the fall, you could look out and see a dozen grouse in the air.
But then over time, you know, the grouse are getting more scarce than the turkeys are not.

(28:08):
It's interesting that you say that because just friends that I know that hunt
much more intensely than I do for grouse and woodcock have said that their grouse
numbers are down generally over the past couple of years.
And I know that there's a cycle, I think, isn't there, for grouse where populations
ebb and flow a little bit over like 10 or 11-year cycle.

(28:32):
But who's to say whether it's part of that? You just never know if you're… I
can't believe that a winter like we had, this winter, would just hardly end in snow at all.
There's no way that that can't have… We're close enough in geography.
I mean, we're five feet below average on snowfall this winter.
It's just, fortunately, we've had a moist few weeks and water levels are decent,

(28:56):
but we'll see what the summer brings.
Well, you may be able to shoot gnats and mosquitoes.
Yeah, right. Not the size of Cessna's.
That's awesome well i went out i i fished streamers
on the mainstream down by
wakely bridge sure that's weak and i could not believe
how weightable the river was for april

(29:20):
but it was i mean there's times where i've
gone there and looked at it and i'm like no i'm gonna do
it i talked to a couple of guys today that were in
the south branch earlier in the week and this time
of year never hear of that you know usually
those guys are fishing up here because their back's under water right yeah
and normally like early season for streamers I will fish the north branch because

(29:44):
it's wadeable but a sabal just isn't or not for me I don't want to not as much
fun right yeah but yeah this year I'm sure it's not like that well as we age
a little bit we find that comfort's important,
tent two questions i asked myself i used to just say how do i get out there

(30:05):
now i just ask the second one how the hell do i get back.
Well on a plus note this morning i had two grouse come across the trail as i
was driving up and last week i had a couple of woodcocks out on the road doing
their little funky dance so So they're not all gone. That is good to see.

(30:27):
And woodcock, well, they'll just kind of hunker down if you run into them, won't they?
In the spring, they don't rush off as much.
I mean, it's not like they're going to come over and give you a high five,
but they don't seem to be as skittish as late season.
They're just getting here.

(30:51):
As they realize there's the clock ticks and the sun gets a little lower,
maybe there's some danger for them. Got it.
Yeah. Well, cool. Well, if I may, could you – we touched on,
I guess, some of the high-arching setup for your professional career.

(31:14):
I don't know. You want to talk a little more without giving away any personalities?
We certainly want to be respectful to your obligations.
I can't help but imagine that there have been some interesting cases come before your bench.
No question. Very interesting. I've always thought that at some point I need

(31:36):
to start keeping a diary so someday I can write a book about some of the characters
and experiences that come into court.
Or it is, it gets, you know, there are cases that are interesting,
sometimes even humorous.
There are cases that are obviously difficult to deal with because of the subject matter. For sure.

(31:57):
And I don't want to make light of anything. Please understand that.
It's fascinating because you get to see a wide slice of our society and see
humans in various shapes and intents.
And it's not like there's always two sides of the coin, I guess.

(32:19):
It's got to be challenging that way for you to have the issue in front of you
and kind of go forward from there. It's challenging.
And one of the things that I really had to learn as I got started and really
got into the work was you always have to look at what is the law here and how

(32:39):
are the facts going to apply to the law.
And you really have to separate what you personally might want to see happen
in a particular case with what should happen based on the law.
And one of the things that I really enjoyed about being a judge as opposed to
an attorney practicing was as
an attorney, I was being paid by a client to advocate for their position,

(33:01):
whether I agreed with it, whether I thought it was right under the law or not.
My job was to advocate for them and to find a legal argument that was,
you know, a legitimate argument. They're hiring you to solve a problem. Right.
Yeah. But, you know.
It felt really restrictive in a lot of ways in what I could do.
As a judge, I had the freedom to look at both sides, hear both arguments from

(33:26):
each side, look at the law, and then decide which one is the correct argument
based on the law, not based on which side has hired me to advocate for them.
And I love the freedom in that. I love being able to make the decision that
I think is right based on the law, not based on my client's position.
And not even based on what

(33:48):
i think or what i want to see happen it's this
is what the law says this is what the
ruling needs to be and i really enjoy that part and i enjoy the research aspect
you know it's almost like being a detective you're presented with two different
sides to a story and you really have to plumb those facts and get to the bottom

(34:11):
of what are the real facts here What's really going on?
And then you have to find, okay, now that I think I know what's going on,
what's the correct law that applies to this?
How does this – That's got to be the magic part.
It is. Is how do you – and again, I have no experience to draw from.
It just – the whole concept fascinates me though that as you say, you're looking down.

(34:33):
Okay, now they've stated the problem, but what is the intent or – And I guess
from my perspective, what you were talking about is how does that interact with the law?
And it's, you know, is it legal but questionable? Is it questionable but illegal?
Legal or it's always questionable there are
very few cases that are black and white you know

(34:54):
if it's black and white generally it's not going to get to me in
the first place it's because there's ambiguity it's because there's gray
it's because both sides have a decent argument otherwise
they tend to settle or it gets resolved some
other way or it never even makes it prior to making it to you that
clear cut so there's always some
nuance there and so you you really have

(35:16):
to look at again what are the
real facts here what's really going on and then really get
into the law and you have to read cases so closely
to see okay how does this case apply to this particular problem and is this
the one that's controlling or is it that one and that's why i say it's kind
of like being a detective where you're you have all these clues you're trying

(35:37):
to get to what is the correct answer here and that's the part that i really
read all about do you think that that is a,
an angle or a perspective that the general public understands?
I don't think so.
I'm not trying to be controversial. I'm just curious. Yeah, no,
and I don't think it's a matter of understanding.

(35:58):
I just don't think people necessarily look at it that way.
I think they tend to see a judge as somebody with the gavel and you listen and
you go, bang, this is it, and everybody goes home. But there's a lot more...
You know, for every hour that I spend in court, I'm spending three or four hours
reading and researching and doing all the background work to understand the

(36:21):
law that is going to apply to the case.
So there's just so much more that goes into it that nobody sees.
Do you have the benefit of a staff that helps you research or brainstorm when
you're – or do you go to other judges?
Or how does – when you get into – I guess I shouldn't say that because I don't

(36:42):
want people to suggest that you get stuck.
But when you're faced with a conundrum, do you consult with a staff?
Do you go to your peers? How does that work?
We don't have a staff. I don't have a clerk right now, unfortunately.
And that's what I did right out of law school as a clerk where I would research
for the judges and then give them kind of an advisory opinion.

(37:03):
Like, okay, look at the briefs. I've read the law.
Judge, this is what I think the ruling should be. And then the judge takes that,
does their own research.
But you've done kind of a lot of the legwork of running down the cases that are going to apply.
So unfortunately, we don't have a law clerk right now to do that.
So I do all my own work and research in terms of just getting stuck.

(37:26):
And that's okay to suggest that because you do get stuck. Well,
I don't want anybody to think that I'm impugning you because you have a tough deal.
No, you certainly do get stuck. And I never ask for another judge's opinion
about how I should rule in a case because that's my job.
Oh, for sure. That's not something that I would want to put on somebody else.

(37:49):
But certainly, have you read this case?
What do you think about this case? You know...
How would you interpret this statute? I might do that just to see if,
and if depending on what the other judge might say, I'm like,
okay, I feel like I'm on the right track here, or wow, I need to think about
this some more, or I need to look at a different aspect of this.
So I do do that when I get stuck to kind of either confirm the way I'm going

(38:15):
with it or to think, okay, maybe I need to look at this from a different perspective
and do more work to get to the right answer.
So the answer is kind of yes and no. I don't go to other judges for advice,
but we certainly do talk to each other about issues and application of statutes
and cases that we have particular questions.

(38:36):
Okay. Yeah, I didn't know if it'd be like, hey, George, did you consider this
one, you know, Smith versus Jones or whatever like that.
But so I think it begets the next question is, you know, we've talked a little
bit before coming on about the adoption of technology and your use of YouTube during COVID.

(38:56):
But maybe on a bigger scale or a different scale, where do you see AI coming into the law?
That's a really great question. And there is a lot of discussion right now about
attorneys writing briefs that aren't really written by them,

(39:17):
submitting briefs that are generated by AI,
where they plug in, write me a brief about X legal problem.
Chat GPT spits out a brief. That's kind of where I was going. Yeah.
So. Gort. Right. And then, of course, the other side of that is judges writing opinions.
You know, shit, GPT, tell me how I should rule on this particular issue. Holy moly.

(39:40):
There's potential for that kind of thing.
So right now, I mean, there hasn't been any, you know, kind of rules put forward
by… Professional guidelines or best practices?
I think that's going to be coming. And what's happening right now is kind of
a discussion of to what degree has it already started happening?

(40:01):
To what degree do we think it might happen in the future?
Is there a way to be able to kind of sniff that out and know,
okay, this is generated by AI? Bingo.
I mean, how do you know where it was sourced or how it was sourced? Right.
So, it's kind of in the discussion phase right now of, okay,
we know this is going to be a problem coming, and how are we going to address it?

(40:25):
And I guess I don't want to jump too far ahead, but I'm going to.
So how do you see the chronology of that rolling?
Is it a development of best practices, shared,
behaviors, or is it going to require something written in black and white that says, hey,
the reason I'm asking it, there's some folks on the business side that I know

(40:49):
are feeding documents and text into ChatGP and say, okay, summarize.
And well, okay, that's all well and good. It's inefficient. I get it.
But what happens if the AI is wrong or misses maybe a really key point?
It's like, oh, yeah, well, it's got this case and this case,

(41:09):
but the glaring elephant in the room case is missing.
Is there any indication that that's, I guess, a danger now or how you guys will
proceed with the chronology?
I think probably the way it'll start is something like best practices where
the state bar of Michigan will come out with guidelines for attorneys.

(41:31):
The Michigan Supreme Court is kind of our governing body of all through the
state court administrator's office.
It's kind of our governing body. They'll probably come out with some type of
informal guidelines because, you know, nothing moves super fast in the world of the law and courts.
So it'll start out that way, I would guess.

(41:54):
And then as it becomes more of a problem or more of an issue,
then there may be more formal rules generated that expressly prohibit with penalties for using AI.
And there may be areas where a certain amount of AI is allowed,
where it's not seen as detrimental or undermining the process.

(42:15):
It just seems like legal texts would be low-hanging fruit for large language
models in terms of learning.
When I worked with our HR folks, one time I developed a resume scanning process
where they would go through the job description and pick out keywords.

(42:35):
And then when the applications come in, they'd run them through an OCR or some
kind of a program, and it would go in and select the keywords.
Words and that's how you got candidates and we really
got shitty candidates for a while i mean well
probably not because you know the program was all that quality but because guys

(42:56):
would just go in and you know they'd copy chapter and verse out of ibm catalog
and this thing would scan it find to find the words that needed and say okay
this guy's really qualified yeah and i mean And really the only thing he did was a cut and paste.
So, you know, there's so, you know, and moving that over into the venue of justice
is pretty scary stuff. Right. Yeah.

(43:18):
Yeah. So it's definitely on everybody's radar in the legal field now.
And it's going to continue to be until, you know, it's one of those things.
You hate to say wait and see, but we do kind of have to see.
You kind of have to. Yeah. Yeah.
Do you have any other technology parallels since you've been practicing that you could relate to?

(43:42):
Or is this all just so new and different that it is going to take that time?
I think for AI, certainly it is.
There's been a lot of technological developments in how we do legal work,
even since I graduated from law school 20 years ago.
There aren't law libraries anymore. And when I was in law school,

(44:05):
our first semester, we had to learn how to use an actual law library and research
cases to make sure they were still good law using print books.
Okay. And that was just so that we would theoretically know how to do it if we ever had to.
Now, they don't even do that anymore. I mean, everything is online.
So that's really... Are the databases organized so that, like,

(44:27):
this case isn't relevant anymore?
Yes. Take it off your reference list? Instead, look at this decision?
Yes. Okay, that's pretty cool. That's got to be a hell of a time saver.
1864 law on some controversial issue. Right.
Yeah, if you look that up, there'll be a big red flag saying this has been superseded.
Yeah, this was law. But the time saving is incredible.

(44:52):
It's got to be logarithmic. To do that by book in the library,
we used to call it shepherdizing because there was a service called shepherds
that would follow cases.
And when they got overruled, they would publish books.
So you would look up a case, then you would have to go to the shepherds and
see, okay, has this case been overruled? Yeah, is it still holding water?

(45:12):
It would have been, you know, hours just researching cases in the library.
Now you click on it, and it gives you the entire history of the case,
every case that's ever cited that case.
And what about, I mean, you can really do a deep dive. That's insane.
With just clicks of the mouse. And is that limited to – is this a national federal

(45:35):
database thing or is this just dependent upon the jurisdiction?
They're private companies and there's two main private companies that maintain
the databases. And so every law firm or court has a subscription.
So kind of like LexisNexis for finances?
Okay. LexisNexis and Westlaw is the other. Okay. They're all referenced for each state, right?

(45:57):
Yes. I mean, for one reason or another, I went in and looked up what's the law
and how does the law pertain to this.
You know, come back, you can give me Michigan and Tennessee and Ohio and give
you a different, you know, there's a different flan. You know,
sometimes it's really different. Sometimes it's really close. Yes.
But each law, you know, each state has different.

(46:18):
That's so cool. Covenant code. Yeah. Yeah.
You really have to be specific when you're doing that search of where you're
looking because it will absolutely be different.
Amazing. So, yeah, technology as it continues to evolve.
And like I said, there may be appropriate uses of AI that will have similar

(46:38):
time savings effects that online legal research has that are perfectly fine
to use and might improve the profession.
Profession so it's one of those things you can't just say all ai is bad and we don't want any of it.
Because there may be benefits there it doesn't depend on how
you want your law to work you know that used to seem to thrust it into a pretty

(47:00):
black and white situation and already meet the code no you go to jail it's not
quite that easy it's usually not and the funny thing.
Is you know we have jury trials especially in criminal
cases and every crime is made up
of parts called elements and part of what

(47:21):
the prosecutor has to do is prove every element of the
crime beyond a reasonable doubt that's the obligation of the
prosecutor and so we give the jury the
elements of the charge and they listen to the
evidence and then they have to go back and deliberate and decide whether
the prosecutors met all of those elements it sounds
really black and might right but those elements

(47:42):
could be under contest really not and like for
example i had and killing of
an animal case somebody shot a dog yeah and
so the statute says that it's illegal
to kill a dog unless you have
a reasonable provocation or a
reasonable you know if you're defending yourself and

(48:05):
but the word that the statute uses is reasonable so
the jury gets those elements and it
says the prosecutor has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a the dog was
shot and b that the person who shot the dog did not have a reasonable provocation
for doing that and so the first element is pretty clear first element's clear

(48:28):
we know that the dog nobody's contesting Yeah,
but who gets to the reasonable part is who determines what's reasonable and
what isn't? The jury does.
So that's, you know, a jury in San Francisco and a jury in Crawford County could
think a lot of different, reasonable could mean a lot of different things.
Exactly. And that's why it's a jury of your peers.
That's why if you're charged in Crawford County, you get people from Crawford

(48:49):
County to make that decision, not people from San Francisco.
But that's where, you know, it sounds real cut and dried. Okay, two elements.
Has the prosecutor proven both those elements? Well, what's reasonable?
Was it reasonable under these circumstances?
Would I do that if I was under those, you know, so it. Do lawyers ever say that to jurors?
You know, I asked myself if I would do that or something in that vein. Sure.

(49:14):
Putting yourself in the other person's shoes type of thing. Absolutely. Yeah.
And that's an effective way. I'm woefully naive this way. I apologize, George.
But the whole thing is just fascinating. Yeah, jurors typically,
most people when they get that summons, they don't necessarily want to do it.
But I do a feedback questionnaire to all my juries and allow them.

(49:38):
It's totally anonymous and totally voluntary.
But if they choose to provide feedback, I get to send them a form that they
can send back to us. And almost without exception, people will say,
I didn't want to do this, but now that I've been through it,
I found it was really interesting.
Pretty much great that I did. I'm really glad about how things work. Yeah.
And so it is. If you have never served on a jury or you've never been involved

(50:02):
in a court case in some other way, there just isn't a reason for people to know how it really works.
I've had the opportunity to sit on a couple of juries, and one was,
we can talk about it later, but it was very interesting.
In a most weird way that I'm not sure you could ever draw, you know,
any similar experience from some – well, you probably could,

(50:24):
but just on size and scope.
But it wasn't representative of, I think, what most people would visualize or experience as a juror.
And so to that end, it's like, oh, you've got a little glimpse,
but you don't have a good solid picture. Right, yeah.
Well, you know, changing subject for a minute, we're in the history business

(50:48):
here, that's why we're here.
You're kind of collaterally in the history business of Otsego County, right?
Right. I've helped out the Historical Society in Otsego County,
did a book a couple years ago about the ghost towns of Otsego County.
And the director, Phil Alexander, knew that I'm kind of a history buff.

(51:08):
And so, and they were looking for people to write one or two chapters.
And so he found, I think, seven or eight people, and he divided up all the ghost
towns and assigned us, you know, each a couple to research.
And I was a history major for my undergrad. Oh, okay. So I had a little bit
of a background in how to do historical research.
And like I was saying, same thing with the law. I loved history because of kind

(51:32):
of the detective work that you have to do to find out what happened.
And so I got to research two towns in northern Otsego County,
kind of near where I live, and write a chapter for each of those in the book.
And that was a lot of fun. Now, did you visit them personally and look for any
foundational remains or anything like that?

(51:54):
I did, and I tried to. I couldn't find anything for either of them, unfortunately.
That's all right. But Reno, down there, is that not 18?
Was Roscommon or is that place in Reno? It's Aquino.
Huh. Yeah. What the hell is that? Yeah. Just a sign, you know? Mm-hmm. Huh.
Well, what was your favorite part of that? What were your towns?

(52:17):
Well, what I found was there's, again, kind of going back to technology,
there are a ton of newspapers that have been put online now so that you can research.
So, for example, the Gaylord Herald Times, you can go back to 1912 and read
every edition of the Gaylord Herald Times. I think there's a few holes in there,

(52:37):
but by Amard. That's pretty cool.
Yeah. And kind of how I got into this in the first place.
It's very nerdy. It's going to laugh at me.
But at lunchtime, I would go online and just pick that day 40 years ago or 80
years ago and read the Gaylord. Oh, and read the paper that day.
That happened on that day.
And the funny thing is, like, the more recent ones, like if I'm reading from

(53:00):
the 60s, 70s or 80s, like I'll see blurbs about people I know.
Huh? and so then i'll take a screenshot and i'll
send it to him i'll be like hey i just saw you in the in the
world did you see that well this is what
i do at lunch they're like okay so i had a lot of fun just going through because

(53:23):
you never know what what's going to be in a particular newspaper so you kind
of have to go through every one so i tried to find the the The eras, like, for example,
Cornwall was one of the towns that I researched, and that existed up until the 20s.
So I knew that there was a possibility that there would be mentions of it in the Herald Times. Okay.

(53:43):
Just when I had 15 or 20 minutes or in the evening before bed,
I would read three or four editions of the Gale of the Herald Times to see if
I could find any mentions of Cornwall.
And sometimes I did and sometimes I didn't. But along the way,
I found all kinds of really cool, fun little facts about the town of Gaylord
or mentions of something that used to be there that isn't there anymore.

(54:06):
And it just gave me like this really kind of richer understanding of the community
and how things have gone there, along with learning about Cornwall.
And that was my favorite part of the process.
I had so much fun. That's awesome. You can see a local pub quiz wizard.
I'm not saying I remember it all.

(54:29):
Well, yeah, that's what I enjoy.
Tell us about Cornwall. What was it about? It was a little lumbery town like
most of the ghost towns up here were.
It was a good place on Cornwall Creek to cut logs and float them down to the
Pigeon and then later, you know, further downstream from there.

(54:50):
And there eventually, as the railroads continued to come north,
they had a spur from Gaylord that went to Cornwall and then over to Vanderbilt
and then further north. And so they developed a little settlement because of the railroad there.
And there were a few buildings that had a post office for a while.
And Charles Cornwall was the postmaster and he named the town after himself.

(55:13):
No egos involved. right and and
it was a little lumbering town until the mid-20s
and the wood ran out and was no
longer profitable to keep running trains up there and once the train stopped
running there was really no reason for the people to stay in the town and probably
a little harder to be supplied in the town right and so people moved to either

(55:36):
wolverine or vanderbilt okay ups yeah Yeah.
So that's, it was a very brief, relatively uninteresting history.
But there's a lot happening with Cornwall today.
Right. So everybody knows about Cornwall because of the flooding,

(55:57):
which is levee across Cornwall Creek that created a really nice little fishing
spot that holds panfish and bass.
And a lot of people enjoy fishing. fishing
and the levee is
falling into disrepair needs a significant i
think capital investment to maintain its integrity and

(56:20):
so the dnr was going to remove it and a lot of people who really enjoy fishing
it and just enjoy it's a pretty spot it's really kind of in the middle of nowhere
so the people that know about it like to fish it but it doesn't get a whole
lot of pressure nobody's just going to run across it and say oh it's not like
it's right by a bridge and
you're just going to lob at one. It's a destination spot.

(56:42):
But there was a lot of blowback from people who really enjoy it to the point
where people made signs that were, save Cornwall flooding signs all over northern Otsego County.
And it sounds like the DNR has kind of backed off that a little bit and is now
looking for funding sources to be able to do the repairs that need to be done in order to maintain it.

(57:04):
Are there conservation groups involved in this, George? Not that I've heard.
I don't know that any, because it's not really a conservation issue necessarily.
Okay. I was just thinking more of the dam and then, you know,
typically when the dam's removed, the silt that's built up plims downstream and can cause issues.

(57:25):
And that's kind of why I was going that direction. I don't think there was a
lot of objection to removing it from conservation groups.
I think it was more recreation. Just the user groups? Yeah.
And that's fair. Yeah, absolutely. And it is a pretty spot. I've taken my son out there.
I've seen pictures. It looks...

(57:45):
Bucolic yeah you know
yeah well with with
that is this is this with cornwall
is that going to be something that just somebody's going
to look for grants and i think that's what they're gonna do fingers
crossed knock wood type thing yes okay yeah i get
that yeah i get that well tell us

(58:08):
more about your area of the world because there
we we don't we don't get a chance to talk
a lot about pigeon river country and it's it is rich
in history and aside from ghost
towns there's some other significant maybe you could
talk about that a little bit sure i mean one of my favorite spots we already
kind of alluded to is pete munch's spot the the vanderbilt club the history

(58:31):
of that as you both i'm sure read his book is is fascinating to me i had access
to that property before pete bought it so i've been okay seeing it and fishing
it john walkers yeah for for years.
And always loved it we both have
this panoramic picture that was taken in 1926 the

(58:52):
vanderbilt club and you know
it depicts in that picture exactly where it was now that's all
overgrown there's huge pines there but you can still see
the foundations of the old club so we would go out there
and it was fun to imagine you know where everything was oh yeah
and it's a beautiful stretch of river it's a
really productive stretch of river it's fun to fish to catch fish there but

(59:15):
the history of it was really really neat and so when when pete acquired that
property and we first met him and had a chance to hear about his personal connection
to it it made it even cooler to go out there,
knowing some of the real stories of that place and his experiences there,

(59:35):
hearing about his mom growing up on that property and his grandparents.
And it's a really special spot, really rich in history, and just a gorgeous
place. So that spot is really neat.
We belong to a little club called the Beaver Dam Club on the Black River,
and that's been there since the 20s.

(59:57):
Oh, how cool. It's composed of an old lodge and then three cabins that used
to be logging camp buildings that were dragged there on skids.
And it became a club in the 20s. and
they started keeping a log in 1927 and it's
been kept all the way up to the present day by members of the
club and i've spent afternoons just reading through

(01:00:19):
that log no doubt and it is so like some
significant events in history like there's an entry from the day the war ended
in the pacific theater world war ii vj day and there's an entry in there talking
about it and And so you're reading a firsthand account of somebody who's experiencing
that event at that moment in that spot.

(01:00:41):
That's incredible. All these years later. So that kind of thing is,
it's really neat. And that is also just a beautiful spot on the Black River.
There's just very few of those kind of clubs left. There's not a whole lot of
private property in general left on the upper reaches of either of those rivers.
It's pretty much all state, isn't it? Yeah. And it's getting more so every year.

(01:01:04):
So, I really enjoy, again, as you can tell, I'm a fan of history.
No, I love it. I feel like that it just gives you such a deeper experience when
you're out there and you know a little bit about what's going on in that area
in addition to the joy and peace of fly fishing.
Well, I was going to say just reading somebody else's experience,

(01:01:28):
and especially if there was a significant, you know, historic milestone event
or something, that had to be kind of electric and send a little hair up on your arm or something.
But I would think it would be equally cool to just read about a...
Spring afternoon. Just what was the fishing like?
You know, what was hatching? Was, you know, was that even a consideration?

(01:01:51):
What do we have for dinner? You know. There you go.
And guys ribbing each other over losing fish or, you know, catching small fish or, you know.
A little trash talk around camp? There's trash talk in there.
There's all of that stuff. You know, there's recipes for shots, you know. Okay.

(01:02:12):
Okay. Or mixed drinks in there. Game recipes?
No, there's no cooking recipes because I think they had a caretaker that did all that. Ah, okay.
But yeah, so there's all of that. You're right. There's all those.
That's cool. Day-to-day. Yeah. Just what some might feel mundane,
but I mean, you don't have to speculate.

(01:02:35):
You've got it right in front of you. Yeah.
That's cool. Roger had a big brookie on and he lost it.
That's neat. George, this has been highly entertaining. I think our listeners
are really going to enjoy this.
And for you and Amy to take time out of your day to come down and do this,
I really appreciate it. I think everybody's really going to enjoy this.

(01:02:59):
I hope so. And thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.
It's been fun. Thank you for coming out. I appreciate it. Yeah.
I think we're going to probably have to figure out a way to fish at some point.
Just let me know I think we can work on that alright everybody until next time mind your back cast.
Music.

(01:03:25):
Fun conversation and a fun gentleman just as a expectation set Richard and I do have some,
more podcasts lined up for you will probably be a little heavier in the front
end of the season and kind of leak off,
towards the middle of summer but for the moment we have five or six ready and

(01:03:46):
I think you're going to enjoy them so or at least we hope we do so there you
have it we'll look forward to talking with you next time in the interim as always mind your.
Music.