With over 25 years of legal experience, Magistrate Tamara Garwood has made the decision to run for the open judge seat on the 15th District Court in the Nov. 5 election. A graduate of the University of Michigan and the Detroit College of Law, Garwood worked in the Child and Family Abuse Bureau at the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office throughout law school, where she handled hundreds of domestic violence cases and personal protection order cases.
Garwood worked as an attorney for 17 years and was then appointed Magistrate for the 15th District Court, a position she has held for eight years. As Magistrate, she”s handled over 40,000 criminal and civil cases. Garwood has made the decision to run for the judge seat primarily because she has seen that as Magistrate, she has greatly increased countless defendants’ access to justice, and if elected, she hopes to continue to promote that access to justice across all of Washtenaw County.
For Garwood, increasing access to justice means a number of things. It means giving every person the opportunity to seek a fair, impartial ruling regardless of their social or economic status. It means ensuring that when people go to court, they understand exactly what’s going to happen to them and the repercussions of what they did. It includes guaranteeing that people’s voices are heard and that they are treated with respect in the court. It also means ensuring that people have the resources to physically get to court. Garwood believes that increasing access to justice should be a fundamental freedom in this country, and she wants to bring this access to Washtenaw County.
The main way Garwood will implement this in Washtenaw County’s local government is by putting an end to what she calls “cookie-cutter justice” and instead implementing an individualized approach to justice, which is something she already strives to do as a magistrate. Cookie-cutter justice involves applying the same rules and guidelines to people as you do laws. It fails to treat people convicted of crimes as individuals and instead treats them as the crimes they’ve committed, without looking beyond to notice any conditions under which they may have been brought to court.
“If we just apply everything as cookie-cutter justice, if you get charged with driving while license suspended, that’s it. $500, this is your due date,” Garwood said. “But what if you don’t have a job, what if you have a disability? There’s no money coming in. Is it appropriate to say that person should pay $500?”
Garwood’s personalized approach to justice holds people accountable but puts the person before the crime they committed. It involves thinking through all she can about a convicted person’s background before sending them to court and deciding the verdict. It could mean providing people with online or remote options if they physically can’t get to court, scheduling court on Zoom for people who have to take care of their young children and can’t leave their homes, providing people with an attorney who don’t have access to one, making sure that people understand what’s going down during court appearances and providing people who are unhoused or who experience food insecurity shelter, food and ways to communicate with others.
“If someone comes to my courtroom, I’m going to treat them not as their crime, not as their criminal history, but I’m going to try to figure out who you are and what brought you here,” Garwood said. “I’m looking at you as an individual so I can address whatever disparities there are.”
Garwood always gets to know the people that come to court, which she believes many judges throughout America fail to do.
“I believe that I do a nice job of connecting with people,” Garwood said. “One of my favorite things is actually engaging with people in the courtroom, hearing their stories and trying to figure out what brought them to court and what we can do, because we as a community have a responsibility to uplift everyone in our community so we can all be productive members of society.”
As Magistrate, Garwood’s approach to justice is something she knows that she can carry out on a higher level if she is elected.
“I can tailor the right solution for you so that you have effective and appropriate justice for you, not for the next person, just for you,” Garwood said. “Every time that I’m able to make one of those connections and make the world a little better for that one person, that’s enough to guide me to want to continue to do this and do this on a bigger scale.”
People often experience bias in court because of their race, ethnicity or sexuality. Garwood’s approach will help to eliminate biased treatment.
“By treating people like just regular people, like we’re talking on the street, I’m treating everybody equally and fairly and giving everybody an opportunity to be heard,” Garwood said. “It’s always my goal that there are no disparities based upon different things because I treat everybody with respect. You’re human and you’re entitled to that respect.”
In addition to implementing her individualized approach to justice in court, if elected judge, Garwood plans on increasing community engagement and youth outreach. This entails teaching the frameworks of law and policy to children of all ages through many different avenues. Most Ann Arbor children attended Safety Town, a Rec & Ed program to teach kids about safety before they started kindergarten. Garwood has made an effort to go to Safety Town once a week during each session to teach the children about the consequences of not being safe. Garwood plans on continuing to do this, and if elected judge, she’ll find additional ways to teach young kids about the law and the criminal justice system.
“It’s just a little thing, but it’s getting kids used to knowing and understanding what the law is, what the expectations are and that there are consequences if you don’t follow that,” Garwood said.
In addition to teaching preschool children, Garwood plans to advance community outreach for high school students, like those at Community High School. She plans on creating a program for high schoolers, and a similar program for fourth and eighth graders, which introduces them to the legal system. She hopes to go to high schools across AAPS to teach 10th grade students about the law and help them write their own scripts to prepare for a mock trial. Then, she’ll organize an opportunity for these students to come to the courtroom, where they’ll participate in their own trials, with students acting as jurors, bailiffs and judges. This is an incredible opportunity to demystify what happens in the courthouse.
“[Through this, kids will] understand that there are rules and there are consequences if you don’t follow them and understand that the court isn’t just a place of punishment, it’s a place of healing, it’s a place of rehabilitation,” Garwood said. “So I think that does a lot to engage with the community and teach young people. And who knows, maybe someone will be inspired and they’ll go into public service or want to be a lawyer.”
Garwood also plans on finding more ways for high school students to be given opportunities for growth toward positive futures. Indeed, she views youth as a powerful force who holds the future in their hands, and she does what she can to promote the civic engagement of young people. Garwood encourages young people to vote as soon as they are eligible and hopes to continue to promote this if elected judge.
“What do you need to have a successful world? You have to vote,” Garwood said. “You have to vote because it’s your turn, it’s your chance, it’s your opportunity to make a difference in the world, and the way you do that is by being involved, deciding who our leaders should be, deciding what our policies should be, what’s going to carry us forward. So I can make those decisions for you as a 50-something year old, but really, young people are the ones who should be making those decisions. Because it’s your world.”
Garwood is thus not someone who will only expand justice in the courtroom and in the community but will expand justice in schools, classrooms and in the minds of the youth.
It’s not uncommon for someone to be arrested for drug possession who hasn’t eaten a proper meal for days, felt clean for weeks or slept on a bed in months. Imagine an unhoused and underfed man walking into court on an early morning charged with drug activity. Picture Garwood as the judge, sitting on the bench in the courtroom ready to preside over this case. This man would have someone who wants to ensure that he’s treated with dignity, respect and care. This man would have someone who would ensure that he has a bed to sleep on, food to eat and a shower to get clean. This man would have someone who sees him as a whole person, not solely as someone who has done something wrong. This man would have Judge Garwood.
