If you are near a large academic library, you can possibly get on-site access to legal resources such as Lexis Academic, which gets 8 hits for the case search: Neal v Department of Corrections. Lexis would link you to related cases and cited ones, so you could spend dozens of hours reading these.
If you are near a large public library, you could at least search major newspapers, in subscription databases such as Proquest Newspapers or Newspaper Source, to see what they have on this case. But you might want to first look in the Michigan Court of Appeals database. Searching "Party Name": neal tracy gets a listing for Docket# 281099. When you click on the hot-linked 281099, it gives a summary of actions on the case, including a note near the top: "Status: Open Remarks: trial set for 1-14-08"
In the Fielded Search Opinions, the Party search: neal tracy gets 2 hits:
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NEAL TRACY/ ALL OTHERS SIMILARLY SITUATED
253543 TRACY NEAL V DEPT OF CORRECTIONS
Release Date: 2/23/2006 Judge(s): KJ CMM PMD
Lower Court: WASHTENAW CNTY CIRCUIT COURT Lower Court No. 96-6986-CZ
COA Opinion - On Remand SCt - Per Curiam - Unpublished
Case Type: Class Action Certification Granted
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253543 TRACY NEAL V DEPT OF CORRECTIONS
Release Date: 2/10/2005 Judge(s): KJ CMM PMD
Lower Court: WASHTENAW CNTY CIRCUIT COURT Lower Court No. 96-6986-CZ
COA Opinion - Per Curiam - Unpublished
Case Type: Class Action Certification Granted
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When you click on the underlined hot linked TRACY NEAL V DEPT OF CORRECTIONS, it displays a 4 page pdf of the court's decision.
The search: Neal v Department of Corrections in the Michigan Appellate Digest, Case Name Search gets a listing of legal issues involved. It is even worth searching Google for: "tracy neal" corrections michigan, which gets 55 hits, including a 15 page opinion from Feb 10, 2005.
Once you get more details from these web searches, you can do more detailed searches, such as "tracy neal" corrections "Chief Justice Taylor", which gets Court of Appeals documents talking about his failure to explain why he did not participate in the case, for example, theOrder dated Sept 14, 2007, on page 3.
I hope other Rad Ref folks jump in on this one, since legal questions are very tricky to deal with (we have to be VERY careful not to give "legal advice", for example). Even pinning down all aspects of the precise present status of this case might well take at least a highly experienced law librarian, if not an attorney.
