You're a lawyer and you represent Party B in a lawsuit filed by Party A. You later become a judge. Can you now impartially adjudicate Party A's different lawsuit against Party C?
When you strip away the high-profile names of the people/parties involved, that's the essence of the recusal issue in Trump v. British Broadcasting Corp. (better known as the "BBC").
Just recently, Law 360 reported on President Trump's motion to recuse Magistrate Judge Lett from his lawsuit against the BBC. His basis? He argues that, prior to taking the bench, Judge Lett represented a company that Trump had sued in the SDFLA. That company, Orbis Business Intelligence, Ltd., was one of the defendants in Trump v. Clinton (the case, not the election). Trump argues that Judge Lett's defense of Orbis right before she took the bench creates at least the appearance of impropriety such that she should not be handling discovery disputes in his case. The BBC says that Judge Lett previously represented a different party (Orbis, not the BBC) in litigation that is unrelated to the current litigation and that the motion is just a stall tactic.
You can read the motion to recuse here and the BBC's response here.
6 comments:
I like the lawyers representing DJT, but it's an absurd motion. You're worried about a magistrate judge? No offense to any magistrate judges who read the blog, but, come on.
I don't believe DJT's lawyer's are worried about the magistrate. This is a delay tactic, clearly. These delay tactics are particularly painful when the government does them in the criminal context.
If those facts alone for the a necessary basis for recusal, then logic would require every judge who worked at USAO or FPD to recuse from all cases involving USAO or FPD. In other words -- no, those bare facts are a ridiculous basis for recusal.
It's an interesting academic question. And 1:09 raises a solid point in search of its answer.
But if I were Judge Lett, I'd just recuse and let some other Mag deal with the case. Not because the motion has any merit. But because that's safer than denying the motion, which will then cause the filing of a writ of prohibition with the 11th and waste even more judicial resources.
Oh, and of course because denying the motion will lead some random USAO to open a criminal investigation into Judge Lett 🙄
Should just recuse - why fight it.
The law is beyond settled that judges have an obligation *not* to recuse themselves from cases when there is no sound reason to do so. (Yes, I get that that does not always happen in practice, but it's worth pointing out.)
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