Andrea Larkin decided to cancel her election night party, arranged at Dublin Square Irish Pub on Nov. 6, 2012, fearing that she had lost the race for 54-B District Court judge.
“I was so convinced that I was going to lose because Rep. (Mark) Meadows was a well-liked, well-respected political figure in East Lansing,” Larkin said. “He had run eight consecutive times for different things, from City Planning Commission, to City Council and was a three-time representative. He had never lost, and he had won by 20-plus percentage points in all of his representative races.”
Larkin said she was elated when hearing the news that she won all but two precincts, including all four on-campus polling locations. Larkin took the bench in 54-B District Court as district Judge on Jan. 1, 2013.
“The district court has been described by a judge in Ann Arbor, Libby Pollard Hines, as the emergency room of the criminal justice system,” Larkin said.
Larkin said that 80 percent of her time at the courthouse is spent on the bench listening to cases, many involving students from the local area. While also being a mother of three children, Larkin believes her parental lessons have given her an understanding of what college kids do.
“I am a big believer in giving second chances and giving treatment where it is needed,” Larkin said. “So, not only were the votes of the college students important to me, but also I wanted to know what was going on with them and how they interacted with the court. I spent a lot of time talking and listening to students as well as campaigning.”
Samantha Artley, 24, was Larkin’s campaign manager during the 2012 elections. Just after graduating from Michigan State University, she was in search of a job when Larkin began her campaign. “Everything that she was talking about with her vision, her role in the city, was exactly what I thought a judge should be for East Lansing,” Artley said. Artley and Larkin’s goal was to make the community safe for the residents who live here full time and make it appealing for students.
“A lot of people discount the student vote because they think they’re temporary residents, but they are the residents seeing judges most often, so we focus a lot on the students,” Artley said. Larkin ended up winning 75 to 90 percent of the student vote.
“Her attitude has always been that she wants to make sure that students don’t end up having their lives ruined because of a stupid mistake,” Artley said.
Most cases seen on a day-to-day basis by Larkin are cases like MIPs (Minor in Possession), parking tickets, landlord issues and drug and alcohol-related incidents. “The thing that surprised me the most about what I do is how frequently alcohol and drugs are the root of criminal behavior,” Larkin said. “I did not expect it to be so prevalent.”
Larkin said that the football season, St. Patrick’s Day and the NCAA men’s basketball tournament are always times when there is an increase in the business of the court. “She wasn’t just a trial attorney, she also looked at it from a mother’s viewpoint,” Artley said. “And understanding that we want the community to be safe. We don’t want to punish people for the sake of punishing them. We want to rehabilitate them if they need rehabilitation.”
East Lansing attorney and resident, Ken Lucas, is a friend of Larkin’s and was told early on that Larkin would run for the position of 54-B district judge. “We thought she had a judicial temperament, was very deliberate in her thinking, a very fair-minded person and we thought she would be a great candidate,” Lucas said.
While Lucas does not often have cases in Larkin’s court, he knows other lawyers who visit 54-B frequently. “I have run into several attorneys who have had dealings in that court, and they’ve all had a positive reaction to the work she has done,” Lucas said. “They say that she is very fair and that she is very respectful of the parties and makes good decisions.”
