Greg Mathis
Encyclopedia
Greg Mathis is a retired Michigan
36th District Court judge
and syndicated television
show judge. His show Judge Mathis
is produced by Telepictures Productions, and distributed by Warner Brothers. It is seen five days a week in most television markets in North America. A spiritually inspired play, Been there, Done that, based on his life toured twenty-two cities in the U.S. in 2002, and Inner City Miracle, a memoir was published by Ballatine Books.
, was the fourth of four boys born to Ariel Montañez a Cuban
native and his former wife Alice Mathis, a devoted Seventh-day Adventist
, nurse's aide, and housekeeper. Mathis was raised by Alice and her second husband, a local defense attorney in Detroit during the turbulent 1960s and 1970s.
Mathis' real father was estranged from him, but associated closely with the Errol Flynns
, a past notorious Detroit street gang, that Mathis would eventually join while a teenager. In the 1970s, he was arrested numerous times. While incarcerated in Wayne County
Jail, as a seventeen year old juvenile, his mother visited him and broke the news that she was diagnosed with colon cancer. Mathis was offered early probation because of his stepfather's status.
Once out of jail, Mathis began working at McDonalds, a job he had to maintain or violate probation and go back to jail. A close family friend helped Mathis get admitted to Eastern Michigan University
, and he discovered a new interest in politics
and public administration
. He became a campus activist and worked for the Democratic Party
, organizing several demonstrations against South African Apartheid policies. He graduated with a B.S. Public Administration from the Ypsilanti campus and began to seek employment in Detroit's City Hall. He also became a member of Alpha Phi Alpha
fraternity. Mathis met his eventual wife, Linda, a fellow EMU
student, shortly after his mother's passing. They would go on to have four children together, a daughter Jade, born May 1985, daughter Camara, born October 1987, son Greg Jr. born January 1989 and son Amir, born July 1990.
bar exam once, and had been denied a license
to practice law
for several years after graduating from law school
because of his criminal past. He graduated from the University of Detroit Mercy in 1987. In 1995, he was elected a superior court judge for Michigan's 36th District, making him the youngest person in the state to hold the post. During the five years he was on the bench, he was rated in the top five of all judges in the 36th District; there are about thirty judges each year.
and applied to law school
s; he was conditionally admitted to the University of Detroit School of Law, which was located in downtown Detroit, walking distance from city hall. He passed a summer course and was officially admitted to the night program which took four years to complete.
Mathis was appointed head of Jesse Jackson
's Presidential campaign in the state of Michigan
in 1988. Mathis later became head of Mayor Coleman Young
's re-election campaign and after the victory was appointed to run the city's east side city hall.
Mathis has continued to be involved in politics after rising to national entertainment prominence through his television show. Urban politics and African-American movements have been his focus. He has been a guest speaker for black trade union conferences, such as the A. Phillip Randolph Institute’s National Educational Conference on Social Justice and he was an on stage guest during the Nation of Islam
’s Savior Day conference in Detroit’s Ford Field
in 2007.
Mathis asked for the resignation of Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick
after the Wayne County Prosecutor indicted Kilpatrick and his former top aide, Christine Beatty
, on perjury
, conspiracy, obstruction of justice and misconduct in office charges. Mathis spoke out after he was falsely named in an Associated Press
wire story to have co-founded a legal defense fund for Kilpatrick. The statement released by Greg Mathis stated: "I was contacted Wednesday afternoon by Mayor Kilpatrick. He asked if I could serve on his legal defense committee. I informed him, I support due process, but I could not support him. This is the same type of deceit that has plunged our city into a deep crisis. Not only do I not support him, but I recommend he resign so the city can heal and move forward."
On Friday morning, June 3, 2011, Judge Mathis rewarded local Detroit citizens for their support of his reality-based court show by giving away free gas for an hour. Mr. Mathis gave away close to $92 worth of free gasoline to about 92 drivers.
. The game will focus on a newly released ex-convict working to find a way out of a life of crime, similar to Mathis' own experiences.
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
36th District Court judge
Judge
A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as part of a panel of judges. The powers, functions, method of appointment, discipline, and training of judges vary widely across different jurisdictions. The judge is supposed to conduct the trial impartially and in an open...
and syndicated television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
show judge. His show Judge Mathis
Judge Mathis
Judge Mathis is a syndicated television legal reality show produced originally by Black Pearl Productions. In 2008, it entered its tenth season produced by AND Syndicated Productions and Telepictures. It is taped at NBC Tower in Chicago, but includes cases and litigants from other U.S....
is produced by Telepictures Productions, and distributed by Warner Brothers. It is seen five days a week in most television markets in North America. A spiritually inspired play, Been there, Done that, based on his life toured twenty-two cities in the U.S. in 2002, and Inner City Miracle, a memoir was published by Ballatine Books.
Early life
Mathis was born in Detroit, MichiganDetroit, Michigan
Detroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River...
, was the fourth of four boys born to Ariel Montañez a Cuban
Cuban
Cuban may refer to:* Something of, from, or related to Cuba, a country in the Caribbean* Cubans, people from Cuba, or of Cuban descent. For more information about the Cuban people, see Demographics of Cuba and Culture of Cuba...
native and his former wife Alice Mathis, a devoted Seventh-day Adventist
Seventh-day Adventist Church
The Seventh-day Adventist Church is a Protestant Christian denomination distinguished by its observance of Saturday, the original seventh day of the Judeo-Christian week, as the Sabbath, and by its emphasis on the imminent second coming of Jesus Christ...
, nurse's aide, and housekeeper. Mathis was raised by Alice and her second husband, a local defense attorney in Detroit during the turbulent 1960s and 1970s.
Mathis' real father was estranged from him, but associated closely with the Errol Flynns
Errol Flynns
The Errol Flynns were a criminal organization, or street gang, founded on the east side of Detroit, Michigan during the 1970s. Reportedly the gang appropriated their name from the Hollywood film star Errol Flynn because they fashioned themselves as flamboyant gangsters in dress and ‘jitting’, or...
, a past notorious Detroit street gang, that Mathis would eventually join while a teenager. In the 1970s, he was arrested numerous times. While incarcerated in Wayne County
Wayne County, Michigan
-History:Wayne County was one of the first counties formed when the Northwest Territory was organized. It was named for the American general "Mad Anthony" Wayne. It originally encompassed the entire area of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, as well as small sections that are now part of northern...
Jail, as a seventeen year old juvenile, his mother visited him and broke the news that she was diagnosed with colon cancer. Mathis was offered early probation because of his stepfather's status.
Once out of jail, Mathis began working at McDonalds, a job he had to maintain or violate probation and go back to jail. A close family friend helped Mathis get admitted to Eastern Michigan University
Eastern Michigan University
Eastern Michigan University is a comprehensive, co-educational public university located in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Ypsilanti is west of Detroit and eight miles east of Ann Arbor. The university was founded in 1849 as Michigan State Normal School...
, and he discovered a new interest in politics
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
and public administration
Public administration
Public Administration houses the implementation of government policy and an academic discipline that studies this implementation and that prepares civil servants for this work. As a "field of inquiry with a diverse scope" its "fundamental goal.....
. He became a campus activist and worked for the Democratic Party
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
, organizing several demonstrations against South African Apartheid policies. He graduated with a B.S. Public Administration from the Ypsilanti campus and began to seek employment in Detroit's City Hall. He also became a member of Alpha Phi Alpha
Alpha Phi Alpha
Alpha Phi Alpha is the first Inter-Collegiate Black Greek Letter fraternity. It was founded on December 4, 1906 at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Its founders are known as the "Seven Jewels". Alpha Phi Alpha developed a model that was used by the many Black Greek Letter Organizations ...
fraternity. Mathis met his eventual wife, Linda, a fellow EMU
Eastern Michigan University
Eastern Michigan University is a comprehensive, co-educational public university located in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Ypsilanti is west of Detroit and eight miles east of Ann Arbor. The university was founded in 1849 as Michigan State Normal School...
student, shortly after his mother's passing. They would go on to have four children together, a daughter Jade, born May 1985, daughter Camara, born October 1987, son Greg Jr. born January 1989 and son Amir, born July 1990.
Election to District Court
Mathis failed the MichiganMichigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
bar exam once, and had been denied a license
License
The verb license or grant licence means to give permission. The noun license or licence refers to that permission as well as to the document recording that permission.A license may be granted by a party to another party as an element of an agreement...
to practice law
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
for several years after graduating from law school
Law school
A law school is an institution specializing in legal education.- Law degrees :- Canada :...
because of his criminal past. He graduated from the University of Detroit Mercy in 1987. In 1995, he was elected a superior court judge for Michigan's 36th District, making him the youngest person in the state to hold the post. During the five years he was on the bench, he was rated in the top five of all judges in the 36th District; there are about thirty judges each year.
Political career
Mathis began his political career as an unpaid intern, and then became an assistant to Clyde Cleveland, a city council member. It was at this time Mathis took the LSATLaw School Admission Test
The Law School Admission Test is a half-day standardized test administered four times each year at designated testing centers throughout the world. Administered by the Law School Admission Council for prospective law school candidates, the LSAT is designed to assess Reading Comprehension,...
and applied to law school
Law school
A law school is an institution specializing in legal education.- Law degrees :- Canada :...
s; he was conditionally admitted to the University of Detroit School of Law, which was located in downtown Detroit, walking distance from city hall. He passed a summer course and was officially admitted to the night program which took four years to complete.
Mathis was appointed head of Jesse Jackson
Jesse Jackson
Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr. is an African-American civil rights activist and Baptist minister. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as shadow senator for the District of Columbia from 1991 to 1997. He was the founder of both entities that merged to...
's Presidential campaign in the state of Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
in 1988. Mathis later became head of Mayor Coleman Young
Coleman Young
Coleman Alexander Young served as mayor of Detroit in the U.S. state of Michigan from 1974 to 1993. Young became the first African-American mayor of Detroit in the same week that Maynard Jackson became the first African-American mayor of Atlanta.-Pre-Mayoral career:Young was born in Tuscaloosa,...
's re-election campaign and after the victory was appointed to run the city's east side city hall.
Mathis has continued to be involved in politics after rising to national entertainment prominence through his television show. Urban politics and African-American movements have been his focus. He has been a guest speaker for black trade union conferences, such as the A. Phillip Randolph Institute’s National Educational Conference on Social Justice and he was an on stage guest during the Nation of Islam
Nation of Islam
The Nation of Islam is a mainly African-American new religious movement founded in Detroit, Michigan by Wallace D. Fard Muhammad in July 1930 to improve the spiritual, mental, social, and economic condition of African-Americans in the United States of America. The movement teaches black pride and...
’s Savior Day conference in Detroit’s Ford Field
Ford Field
Ford Field is an indoor American football stadium located in Detroit, Michigan, USA, that is the current home field of the NFL's Detroit Lions. It is owned by the Detroit/Wayne County Stadium Authority. It regularly seats 65,000, though it is expandable up to 70,000 for football and 80,000 for...
in 2007.
Mathis asked for the resignation of Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick
Kwame Kilpatrick
Kwame Malik Kilpatrick is a former mayor of Detroit, Michigan. Kilpatrick's mayorship was plagued by numerous scandals and rampant accusations of corruption, with the mayor eventually resigning after being charged with ten felony counts, including perjury and obstruction of justice...
after the Wayne County Prosecutor indicted Kilpatrick and his former top aide, Christine Beatty
Christine Beatty
Christine Rowland Beatty served as the Chief of Staff from 2002 to 2008 to Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.In January 2008, Beatty resigned amid an emerging political-sex scandal and criminal charges of perjury related to a whistleblower trial for lying under oath about their extramarital affair...
, on perjury
Perjury
Perjury, also known as forswearing, is the willful act of swearing a false oath or affirmation to tell the truth, whether spoken or in writing, concerning matters material to a judicial proceeding. That is, the witness falsely promises to tell the truth about matters which affect the outcome of the...
, conspiracy, obstruction of justice and misconduct in office charges. Mathis spoke out after he was falsely named in an Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
wire story to have co-founded a legal defense fund for Kilpatrick. The statement released by Greg Mathis stated: "I was contacted Wednesday afternoon by Mayor Kilpatrick. He asked if I could serve on his legal defense committee. I informed him, I support due process, but I could not support him. This is the same type of deceit that has plunged our city into a deep crisis. Not only do I not support him, but I recommend he resign so the city can heal and move forward."
On Friday morning, June 3, 2011, Judge Mathis rewarded local Detroit citizens for their support of his reality-based court show by giving away free gas for an hour. Mr. Mathis gave away close to $92 worth of free gasoline to about 92 drivers.
Authored Book
In September 2008, Mathis wrote a book called Street Judge, a novel based on a judge who solves murders. It was co-written by Zane, a well-known erotic series writer of Zane's Sex Chronicles. Mathis also wrote a book titled Of Being a Judge to Criminals and Such.Video game
A self confessed major gamer, Mathis is currently working a video game entitled Mathis: Detroit Street Judge with filmmaker Matty RichMatty Rich
Matty Rich, born Matthew Statisfield Richardson , is a film director and screenwriter who broke into the film world with the 1991 film Straight Out of Brooklyn which was financed by credit cards and donations. Rich also plays a major character in the film...
. The game will focus on a newly released ex-convict working to find a way out of a life of crime, similar to Mathis' own experiences.