Judge Who Jailed Kids For Missing Lunch With Dad Learns Fate: Michigan Supreme Court

A suburban Detroit judge who made national headlines in 2015 when she jailed three children for refusing to have lunch with their estranged father has avoided a suspension under a ruling Friday by the Michigan Supreme Court. In a unanimous decision, the justices said Oakland County Judge Lisa Gorcyca should be “publicly censured” for earlier findings that she laughed at the three children at the center of a bitter child custody case, but said her behavior toward the children did not rise to the level of misconduct.

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The call for harsher punishment came from the Michigan Judicial Tenure Commission, where a flurry of complaints about Gorcyca’s handling of the case involving the children of Omer Tsimhoni and Maya Eibschitz-Tsimhoni landed in 2016. Gorcyca admitted to a special master appointed to hear the case that long simmering frustration had boiled over when she ordered the children, ages 9, 10 and 13 at the time, handcuffed and led from her courtroom in 2015.

They were held for 17 days at Oakland County Children’s Village before Gorcyca amended her order and placed them at a summer camp instead.

The parents have been fighting over visitation and custody since their divorce in 2011, and together their lawyers had filed more than 100 motions and other documents, several of them alleging parental alienation. Eibschitz-Tsimhoni accused Gorcyca of arbitrarily siding with her ex-husband in rulings and sought to have her removed. The judge voluntarily recused herself after the complaint was filed with the Judicial Tenure Commission.

The Judicial Tenure Commission recommendation for suspension centered on Gorcyca’s interactions with the children, including referencing notorious killer Charlie Manson and accusing them of engaging in cult-like behavior.

The Michigan Supreme Court alone can suspend judges, so the recommendation for punishment went before the high court. Read the ruling below.

(Daniel Mears/Detroit News via AP, Pool)