Circuit Judge Denise Langford Morris says she's seen just about everything in her 18 years on the bench in Oakland County.

In more than 50,000 cases, Langford Morris says she has handled rapes, murders, robberies, car-jackings and embezzlements.

Michigan Supreme Court candidate Denise Langford Morris talks about her 18 years on the bench in Oakland County during a forum in Ann Arbor.

Ryan J. Stanton | AnnArbor.com

"I just heard a case with a poor gentleman who lost his job — didn't want to tell his wife — after almost 30 years at Chrysler," she said. "And what he did is he kept going out the door, pretending like he was working. And one day he went back home and he killed her and he tried to kill himself because he couldn't stand telling anyone, especially her, that he wasn't working.

"So these are the kinds of things that I see."

Langford Morris is hoping to take her experience to the state's highest court. She is seeking the Democratic Party's nomination on Saturday in Detroit to run for the Michigan Supreme Court against GOP Justice Robert Young.

She made a stop in Ann Arbor on Thursday and addressed a crowd of about 30 people during a one-hour forum at the Washtenaw County Democratic Party's headquarters.

Stuart Dowty, the local party chairman, said two other Supreme Court candidates were expected to attend but cancelled late in the day.

"I am prepared to do what needs to be done on the Michigan Supreme Court to upright justice in Michigan," Langford Morris told the crowd. "It is not uprighted, and it is not fair, and I have an 18-year-record of sitting on the bench. We had 1,700 cases a year when I first started. Now we're getting about 1,200 cases a year. So if you add those up, I've handled over 50,000 cases."

Both the statewide Republican and Democratic parties are holding conventions on Saturday to nominate candidates for the Supreme Court. Langford Morris is one of four Democrats who have shown interest in challenging two incumbent GOP justices. One of them, Elizabeth Weaver, resigned on Thursday.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm named Appeals Court Judge Alton Thomas Davis to replace Weaver on the court. Davis now will appear on the November ballot as an incumbent.

Langford Morris appears to be the Michigan Democratic Party's favored candidate to challenge Young, who is expected to be nominated by the GOP on Saturday. Judges running for the second GOP nomination are Michigan Court of Appeals Judge Jane Markey and Wayne County Circuit Judge Mary Beth Kelly.

The other Democratic justice hopefuls are Southfield District Judge Shelia Johnson and Wayne County Circuit Judges Robert Colombo Jr. and Deborah Thomas.

Supreme Court candidates run on a nonpartisan part of the ballot, even though they're nominated by political parties.

Langford Morris was appointed to her post by Republican Gov. John Engler in August 1992, then was elected in 1994 and reelected in 2000 and 2006. She is Oakland County’s first black Circuit Court judge and is the longest serving female judge on the bench in the county.

Commenting on being appointed by Engler, Langford Morris assured Thursday's crowd that she holds strong Democratic values. She said she was raised in a union household and grew up working at the polls for Democratic political candidates.

In addition to her law degree, she has a master's degree in guidance and counseling from Wayne State University. She spent several years working for the state as a protective services investigator, first for disabled adults and senior citizens, and then for abused and neglected children. She also worked in the Oakland County Prosecutor's Office in the 1980s.

"I held down the 48th District Court by myself," she said. "I did every single misdemeanor trial and every single felony exam for all three judges."

She was promoted to trial work at the Circuit Court level, principally before Judge Steven Andrews. She said she prosecuted cases ranging from shoplifting to murder.

After a brief stint in private practice, she returned to the public service sector and took a job in the civil division of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Detroit. And it's from there that she transitioned to becoming a judge in Oakland County.

"I was really wondering how I was going to handle being a judge — the first African American in Oakland — but I knew that God had placed me in a good place," she said. "All of that social work background, all of that litigation experience, over 80 jury trials, and all of the extensive state, federal, civil and criminal litigation experience, I needed every bit of it when I got on the bench."

Langford Morris commented on the unique work of the seven-justice Supreme Court, which hears cases appealed to it from the Court of Appeals.

"The Michigan Supreme Court never sees a witness — all they do is read transcripts," she said. "So if you don't understand all the possibilities behind that printed word ... if you've never sat down with a witness or tried a case or prepared a witness for trial, if you've never sat in the seat where I sit and seen the pain and heard the pain from witnesses that testify, then you don't know the truth behind the printed word. My experience will allow me to bring that printed word alive."

Ryan J. Stanton covers government and politics for AnnArbor.com. Reach him at ryanstanton@annarbor.com or 734-623-2529.