Famous people's places / Detroit – Downtown
36th District Court
Detroit's busiest court, downtown at Madison and Witherell, where a young Greg Mathis served as judge before he became television's Judge Mathis.
01 / The story of this place
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The 36th District Court handles Detroit's misdemeanor, traffic and landlord-tenant cases from its building on Madison Street downtown, and it's the busiest single district court in Michigan. Greg Mathis, who grew up on Detroit's west side and had a juvenile record before turning his life around, was elected judge here in 1995. He served on the bench for four years, becoming known for community-minded rulings that pushed young offenders toward mentorship programs instead of jail. In 1999 he left the bench to launch his own syndicated courtroom show, Judge Mathis, which is still on the air today. The court he left behind kept growing, and it remains one of the busiest courts in the country, processing hundreds of thousands of cases a year.
- Detroit's main lower court for misdemeanors, traffic and landlord-tenant cases
- Greg Mathis served as judge here from 1995 to 1999
- The busiest single district court in Michigan
- Mathis left the bench in 1999 to start the TV show Judge Mathis
Famous Detroiters
Famous people tied to this place 1
Lexicon entries for the people who lived, worked, performed or liked to spend time here.
- Greg Mathis born 1960 · judge, television arbitrator, author
Worked here
Detroit's district court, where he served as judge before his television career.
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Sources & fact check · Checked: 2026-09-25
An independently written bilingual guide. This collection is not an attendance-based ranking.
03 / Events
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