Black Detroit lawyer accuses West Michigan judge of racism after Zoom hearing request denied

DETROIT (FOX 2) - A Black lawyer claims racism was involved when a West Michigan judge denied her request to attend a hearing virtually.

"You might as well have called me the N-word, what she was doing up there," Lillian Diallo said.

The Detroit-based attorney said she was sick from breast cancer treatment, so she asked to attend a Jan. 6 sentencing for one of her clients virtually because it was in Ottawa County, about three hours away.

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Diallo said she asked to attend via Zoom after seeing that the court's website had a virtual hearing option.

"I asked her clerk, I said, ‘Well, can I Zoom in?,’" she said. 

The clerk told her that Judge Karen Miedema required that she be in the courtroom. Diallo said she obliged to avoid harming her client.

Judge Karen Miedema 

"Ultimately, you don’t want to put your client in a worse position than they are already in," she said.

However, she feels that happened after she confronted Miedema when she saw another lawyer attending virtually.

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"The lawyer was on the screen, allowed to Zoom in for the same kind of proceeding – a sentencing. He’s white, and I am not," Diallo said.

Lillian Diallo

She later learned that the attorney also had a medical condition.

Diallo alleges that her client paid the price – he was not given a plea deal despite being a young first time offender, she said.

"She doesn’t give him a deferred sentence even though he’s eligible and her own probation department recommended it, first time, not even a parking ticket," she said.

When FOX 2 reached out to Miedema for comment, Court administrator Susan Franklin responded.

A statement read in part, "The 20th Circuit Court strongly denies that racism was a factor in any decisions related to this case or others.  The 20th Circuit Court was not informed prior to the hearings that Ms. Diallo was suffering complications of cancer, as court staff was only advised that she was ‘in treatment’ without further detail."

Diallo, who ended up also getting Covid a couple of days later, has now retained a lawyer. She is in the process of filing a grievance against the judge with the Judicial Tenure Commission for violating the American Disabilities Act and failing to be fair and impartial.

"I am not making excuses, but you have to give us parity," Diallo said.