Was the judge asleep?

(WZZM) - The Michigan Democratic State Central Committee advertisements claiming State Supreme Court Chief Justice Clifford Taylor fell asleep during a case have caused a lot of discussion.

Since the ads are running on WZZM 13 and the Committee to Re-elect Chief Justice Cliff Taylor charged that the ad was untrue, we were required to get substantiation on the claim that Judge Taylor had fallen asleep during the case. Jo-Ann Campbell, the sister of Juanita Fish who is in the ads making the claim, provided a sworn notarized affidavit that she "saw Justice Clifford Taylor fall asleep during the argument."

But, the legal counsel for the Committee to Re-elect Chief Justice Cliff Taylor has their own affidavit. This one comes from James G. Gross, an appellate attorney in the case where the alleged sleeping took place. In his statement he says, "As is my custom, during my opponent's presentation, I took notes and watched the reactions of the Justices to my opponent's arguments. All seven Justices were plainly visible to me throughout my opponent's argument, most prominently the Chief Justice, whose seat is in the center of the bench...If the Chief Justice or any other Justice had fallen asleep, I would have noticed it and remembered it...I can therefore attest to a moral certainty that neither the Chief Justice nor any other Justice fell asleep during either of the aforementioned oral arguments."

David Eggert of the Associated Press tried to get to the bottom of this a week ago in articles posted in the Detroit Free Press and Lansing State Journal. His article says that when Democratic Party Chairman Mark Brewer was pressed for more evidence of the claim, Brewer said no more proof was needed other than the eyewitnesses - Jo-Ann Campbell and Juanita Fish.

In Eggert's report, Republicans claim that Taylor could not have been asleep since the plaintiffs' attorney was Geoffrey Fieger. Republican Party Chairman Saul Anuzis said in a statement in the AP report, "Given Fieger's open hostility to this court, if this allegation had been true, Fieger would have certainly mentioned it by now."

There have been no submissions of video or photographic proof of Taylor's sleeping or alertness. What we have is affidavit vs. affidavit - and one more week to fight it out.