James Biernat
By: Brian Wells | C&G Newspapers | Published November 20, 2025
MACOMB COUNTY — Since taking the bench in 2011, Macomb County Chief Judge James Biernat has been involved in a number of memorable cases.
In 2013, he saw a jury find Daniel Daniels guilty of physically and sexually abusing his two daughters. And in 2023, he saw a jury reach an almost $10 million settlement against Henry Ford Macomb Hospital after a jury found that a 41-year-old woman died after her surgical wound infection wasn’t properly treated by a doctor.
“That stood out because I’ve never had a jury award almost $10 million, and I don’t think there has been a jury verdict in Macomb County over $10 million,” Biernat said.
Biernat also recalls presiding over the case of “The Backpage Murders,” a series of killings committed by James Brown in Macomb County in 2014.
Brown killed four women he met through an adult website, backpage.com, and stuffed their bodies into car trunks. The trial, Biernat said, took over a month. In the end, Brown continually refused to attend the sentencing.
“He was literally afraid of the victim’s family. It was the only time I can think, especially in a capital case, where the defendant refused to show up at sentencing,” he said.
Biernat was elected as a judge in 2012. In 2015, he began serving as chief judge after former Chief Judge John Foster retired. Since 2016, he has been reappointed as chief judge every two years.
Since then, Biernat has overseen massive renovation projects, including moving all of the county’s circuit and probate courts into one downtown location.
“When I first became chief in April of 2015, we were in the process of a massive, multimillion-dollar building project, which I helped usher in,” he said. “And bringing all the probate judges down here into the one building, along with building out all the archaic structures we had here and helping to finish our downtown campus, so to speak.”
He has also seen the addition of other courts, such as the sobriety and mental health courts.
On Nov. 14, Biernat was reappointed as chief judge by the Michigan Supreme Court.
“It is my honor to once again be appointed chief judge of these Macomb County courts,” Biernat said in a statement.
As the chief judge, in addition to maintaining a docket he said is about 90% the size of his fellow judges, he oversees the staff that manages the court system.
“That doesn’t mean I don’t have a docket,” he said. “I still have trials.”
Biernat also serves as the chief judge for the Macomb County Probate Court and the 42nd District Court in New Baltimore and Romeo. With his reappointment, he will also begin serving as chief judge in the 38th District Court in Eastpointe, though he won’t be added as a judge until it gets approved by the state’s House, Senate, and governor, and the Eastpointe City Council.
Looking ahead, in addition to finding room to add another judge in Eastpointe, Biernat is also looking to also find more space to expand the probate court.
“If that new space is in the bill, that could be in the building we’re in, or a new building, so that would be the new project in the future. Where is probate going to go, what space does probate need right now, how can we accomplish it, because of course, Macomb County is growing,” he said.