I've always respected and admired the Federal Public Defender's Office here in Miami. Of course I'm biased because I'm an alum. But alum or not, everyone must surely agree that they are courageous and fight. Check out this motion to recuse Judge Cannon (file by AFPDs Kristy Militello and Renee Sihvola. You may not agree with it, but it took chutzpah to file it.
It starts this way:
Mr. Routh stands accused of attempting to assassinate Donald J. Trump. He faces up to life in prison. This case has already attracted significant media attention. It will continue to do so, and this Court’s rulings are likely to face intense public scrutiny. This motion presumes that this Court would preside over this case impartially. However, given the heightened stakes and the public scrutiny, there should not be any doubts about even the appearance of impartiality of the presiding judge.
Although Mr. Trump is the alleged victim here, he previously served as President of the United States. While in office, he nominated Your Honor to her current position as a U.S. District Judge on the Southern District of Florida. Your Honor thus owes her lifetime appointment to the alleged victim in this criminal case.
After Mr. Trump left office, he was charged in this District with 40 felony counts relating to his retention of classified documents. Your Honor recently presided over that criminal case, and ultimately dismissed the case against Mr. Trump.
Mr. Trump is the current Republican candidate for President in next month’s election. On the campaign trail, he has repeatedly praised Your Honor for her rulings in his case. As the alleged victim here, he has a significant stake in the outcome of this case too. Were he to become President in the future, he would have authority to nominate Your Honor to a federal judgeship on a higher court were a vacancy to arise.
Taken together, these unprecedented facts and circumstances might create an appearance of partiality in the mind of the public. Accordingly, the Constitution and the federal recusal statute require Your Honor to recuse herself from this case.
5 comments:
Would not every normal judge recuse early on without a motion? She is presiding over a high-publicity criminal trial and the victim in this new high-publicity criminal trial is the defendant in the other one. And she dismissed the other case. How could the current defendant not feel any ruling that goes against him is because judge in tank for victim? And how could any neutral observer not wonder if that is the case? The whole thing looks really bad, I think every other judge in the district would recuse.
We all know what the outcome will be.
It did take a lot of chutzpah and good on them for having backbone.
But, the arguments about political appointment are wrongheaded and detract from the very simple and straight forward point made in the motion but articulated much better by 9:43am above. " She is presiding over a high-publicity criminal trial and the victim in this new high-publicity criminal trial is the defendant in the other one. And she dismissed the other case. How could the current defendant not feel any ruling that goes against him is because judge in tank for victim?"
That's it. That should be the whole motion. This motion should literally be 2 pages long including style, signature, and certificate of service.
Everything else in the motion detracts from this and rubs, even the sympathetic reader like me, the wrong way. It will take a lot of self awareness and humility (something that the article 3 crowd is not always known for) for Judge Cannon to grant this motion after reading all that non-sense about the political process, appointments, etc.
The DOJ failed to take the high road and agree to recuse. Shocking. Cannon cannot be fair and the DOJ should be ashamed of itself for wanting a judge because she is unfairly advantageous to them. Their response to the FPD motion is pathetic. If you don't think she needs to be recused, lay your record instead of the boilerplate they vomited. Im sure Jack Smith will move for her recusal if he wins on appeal. Hypocrisy.
If she grants this, then how would she not recuse from all of the Trump cases (she should).
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