The Honorable Shelia R. Johnson is the Chief Judge of the 46th District Court, which serves the communities of Southfield, Lathrup Village, Bingham Farms, Beverly Hills, Franklin and Southfield Township.
Judge Johnson was elected in November 2002 and she is the first African American to serve as Judge in the 46th District and the first African American female District Judge in Oakland County.
However, during the early years of Judge Johnson’s career, she never had her eyes set on seeking a seat on the bench.
“I never thought about judging but I did want to be a lawyer,” she says.
How she arrived at the decision to study and practice law with an interesting backstory.
Johnson’s parents grew up in the south. Her grandfather was a teacher and principal of a segregated school. Many of the students of sharecropper families. Families were tied to the land and had to work to pay off their ability to stay on the land. Sometimes parents would keep their children home to work.
Johnson says her grandfather’s life mission was to educate all of the children. Her grandmother stemmed from an education background as well and taught history, her mother grew up in Mississippi and taught English.
“Education was always a premium in my family and always emphasized. His (grandfather) mother was born to slaves but she graduated from college.”
She describes her grandparents being Blacks who were well respected, even among white people in the segregated south. Her grandfather even receiving an award for his work in education, teaching “colored” students.
Johnson, born in Detroit, would always pay a visit on a trip to the south with her parents every summer growing up in the 1960’s and 70s. Countless memories she would have of her trips down south at the height of the civil rights and Jim Crow era.
“For me it was abnormal where we couldn’t stop and eat, so we packed a lot of food, You couldn’t stop at gas station, so we would stop in the woods on a rest stop to use the restroom.”
It was as Johnson grew older when she realized those experiences weren’t right, not fair, and unjust.
“I thought maybe I could do something about it,” Johnson says. She recalls being told by family that she was aa good talker and could always find a way to talk herself out of something.
“I really believe this is what directed me in a career towards law.”
It was an internship where she shadowed a lawyer which gave her an eye-opening experience.
Later, at the University of Michigan Law School she became the first African American President of the student body. It’s where she would gain the leadership experience and connection to the student body and faculty while also beginning to insert positive changes.
Johnson would later encounter federal judges who discussed rarely seeing Black students apply for federal clerkship. Recognizing the value in such experience and opportunity the role would afford someone, such as jobs at top law firms, Johnson would go on to become a law clerk, serving for the Honorable Benjamin F. Gibson, United States District Court, Western District of Michigan. Her tenure at the United States District Court also included time clerking at the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
“Appearing before court can be very intimidating,” Johnson says. “This particular experience closed any fear that I had of appearing for court.”
She would go on to work at a law firm in the Detroit. And ultimately heading up her own private practice in Southfield where she specialized in both civil and criminal litigation, including: divorce, child custody, probate, contract, negligence and intentional torts, federal civil rights, juvenile law, traffic, criminal felonies and misdemeanors.
As Johnson gathered experience in law practice, becoming judge was never at the front of or goal, but as she call it, rather it was a “small flicker” in the back of her mind.
It was the election of Brenda Lawrence, the city of Southfield’s first Black mayor, which really inspired Johnson as she witness the campaign up close during Lawrence’s victory party.
“I happen to say to a longtime friend and political person at the election party, ‘maybe if I ever run for judge, perhaps you can help me too.’”
Her thinking at the time was a move back to Detroit, never did she believe running and winning for a judicial seat could happen for her in Oakland County. But it did.
That suggestion to a friend about a future run she still hadn’t decided, to her shock led the individual to announce to the election night audience that Johnson will be the next district judge. The unplanned announcement and talk around the room of Johnson’s candidacy for judge began to spread.
“Once the little whispering got going, I prayed on it. I eventually just said to myself, why would I limit myself? If people are saying that I am now running, even if I didn’t say it, I say then maybe this is why GOD has for me to serve a purpose and let me step up to the plate.”
Having no name recognition, Johnson would run against an incumbent and across a diverse set of communities. The wide support from the community and relationships built in the law profession yielded Johnson to be elected in 2002.
The whole win was euphoria,” she says. “It was a great feeling because we had worked so hard as a campaign team. Every event that you could possibly think of being held anywhere, I was there.”
Her campaign she says was about attacking her opponent but rather focusing on her own background, and how her experience could represent her community and change she would bring to the court.
“But was also came with it was a serious burden that comes on your shoulder. I had to prove that I could do this job and do it well because would want to test you, to see what you know and how you know.”
One of the things she knows and understood quickly was being a role model to her community. Being elected the first African American to serve as Judge in the 46th District and the first African American female District Judge in Oakland County, it marked a barrier broken on so many levels. It certainly reminded Judge Johnson of her family roots and the image and representation she sought out to uphold.
“It makes me feel that I’ve come full circle, that I’ve carried the mantra of my family which was the importance of education.”
The school in Mississippi led by her grandfather would eventually be named after him, a student body which is now integrated.
The Honorable Sheila Johnson is very community oriented and believes that mentoring youth is of paramount importance.
“If you ever come in a courtroom with the young people that I see, you get a history lesson, because you can’t lock up everybody, but you have an opportunity to plant a seed and help effect change and the mindset of our youth.”
After her election Judge Johnson spearheaded the establishment of a “Court In Schools” program, where actual court sessions are held at local schools with the goal of deterring youth from criminal behavior and inspiring them towards positive career choices.
“I try to instill in them that they are standing on the shoulders of their ancestors as I would come to know that very well.”
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