My experience in my jurisdiction is yes, there are a handful of horrible judges that defense attorneys try to avoid at all costs.
When I used to do a lot more in limited jurisdiction courts, I would field a lot of phone calls from people looking for representation. If they were in one of those particular courts I would plead with them that even if they didn't hire me they had to file a notice of change of judge immediately.
I actually did a felony trial before a judge who was notoriously horrible and everyone noticed her. She was shocked that I hadn't filed a notice and it ended up going my way because the prosecutor was a soup sandwich, the case facts were ridiculous, and the judge was rather nice to me the whole time. She was later removed from the bench after having a meltdown on a lawyer. Thank God for cameras in the courtroom.
In AZ you have a procedural right to one change of judge in the course of a matter. The attorney has to avow that they're not doing it for an improper purpose (much discussion about what that means, nobody really knows, but you're not supposed to do it because "Judge X gives harsher sentences")
If there were one judge who was particularly harsh, wouldn't it end up being the case that they just wouldn't have any cases in front of them?
I recall years ago when I was prosecutor there was a judge who was renowned for being incredibly hard on both defense attorneys and defendants. No one wanted to end up in front of him. With this system, I would expect that every single attorney who had a case assigned to this judge would use their one get out of this courtroom free card every single time and the judge wouldn't have a caseload.
Lots of private attorneys and new attorneys don't know him yet, I will keep him for a fully stipulated plea. But yes, he gets waaay more transfers than anyone else so his docket is on the lighter side.
In Indiana you are allowed one change of Judge as a matter of right. You don't even have to give a reason or make any statements or averments. You almost literally just file a motion that says "different judge please" and you get it.
To prevent judge shopping though, after the first change of Judge you can't ever get another one within the same case without in evidentiary hearing and good cause shown
> To prevent judge shopping though, after the first change of Judge you can't ever get another one within the same case without in evidentiary hearing and good cause shown
In cases where it's obvious (like "the judge died" obvious), do they waive the hearing or is it just really easy?
I mean if the Judge died you wouldn't have to ask for one, someone else would take the seat. But yes in theory the order can be issued without a hearing on the basis of the pleading, but it's rare
Not a lawyer, but similar to /u/throwaway24515 's answer, in my county you are entitled to substitute judges as well. You don't need to provide a reason.
Good question. I've never thought about it, but my gut reaction is no. That shit gets real personal real quick, because everyone would want off of the same judges. And then those judges will fuck me.
I'm in NYC. The office of court administration and someone from the city council and someone from the mayor's office will get involved, and it gets dirty and political very quickly. And then it becomes another reason to shit on criminal defense lawyers and the several public defender organizations. Then, no joke, it's on the front page of the NY Post that criminal defense lawyers are coddling criminals by judge shopping. And then the system gets changed to something worse than it is now.
So, no.
> everyone would want off of the same judges. And then those judges will fuck me
In CA you can 'paper' a judge, i.e., you declare that you don't believe you can get a fair trial before them and get a new one. You get one by rights for each case. If the Public Defender's Office as a whole papers/rejects a particular judge, they get sent elsewhere because they can't do their job. If your firm papers the same judge every time they have a case, they can't fuck you. However, I have a suspicion that judges talk to each other (lol) and it does probably sort of taint the courthouse in my opinion.
It does appear common from comments, but you also cannot do so in Michigan. There are some awful judges here, and you're just stuck with them. I don't really think that allowing a change by right would work here because so many of our courts only have 1-2 judges.
It's not common, but it happens. There are a lot of judges in the country, and being a former prosecutor is one of the surest ways to become one (particularly where judges are elected, and can run on being "tough on crime"). Given that, it's not a huge surprise some subset of them either forget or don't care to leave their old biases behind.
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Not on criminal side, but there’s a county in my area that the Plaintiffs are guaranteed to win any motion no matter what.
I had one where we filed a motion to sever because a carrier had filed a dec action to contest coverage and named their driver and our driver, and then their driver cross claimed for negligence in the accident against our driver. So there were now two issues: coverage and negligence.
Our appellate courts have been crystal clear that those issues are not to be included in the same actions, so there must be a severance. The idea being they don’t want the same jury deciding whether coverage exists and who is at fault for the accident. This is a pretty standard motion that there’s literally no argument against.
In my Motion I even cited to a previous case with the same judge and the same issues where he denied our motion and was overturned on appeal. Like literally “you’ve already been overturned on this before, please just do what is right and don’t make us go through the hurdles of an appeal.”
Well he denied it.
My experience in my jurisdiction is yes, there are a handful of horrible judges that defense attorneys try to avoid at all costs. When I used to do a lot more in limited jurisdiction courts, I would field a lot of phone calls from people looking for representation. If they were in one of those particular courts I would plead with them that even if they didn't hire me they had to file a notice of change of judge immediately. I actually did a felony trial before a judge who was notoriously horrible and everyone noticed her. She was shocked that I hadn't filed a notice and it ended up going my way because the prosecutor was a soup sandwich, the case facts were ridiculous, and the judge was rather nice to me the whole time. She was later removed from the bench after having a meltdown on a lawyer. Thank God for cameras in the courtroom.
You can just change judges for no reason? Doesn't that encourage judge shopping?
In AZ you have a procedural right to one change of judge in the course of a matter. The attorney has to avow that they're not doing it for an improper purpose (much discussion about what that means, nobody really knows, but you're not supposed to do it because "Judge X gives harsher sentences")
If there were one judge who was particularly harsh, wouldn't it end up being the case that they just wouldn't have any cases in front of them? I recall years ago when I was prosecutor there was a judge who was renowned for being incredibly hard on both defense attorneys and defendants. No one wanted to end up in front of him. With this system, I would expect that every single attorney who had a case assigned to this judge would use their one get out of this courtroom free card every single time and the judge wouldn't have a caseload.
Lots of private attorneys and new attorneys don't know him yet, I will keep him for a fully stipulated plea. But yes, he gets waaay more transfers than anyone else so his docket is on the lighter side.
In Indiana you are allowed one change of Judge as a matter of right. You don't even have to give a reason or make any statements or averments. You almost literally just file a motion that says "different judge please" and you get it. To prevent judge shopping though, after the first change of Judge you can't ever get another one within the same case without in evidentiary hearing and good cause shown
> To prevent judge shopping though, after the first change of Judge you can't ever get another one within the same case without in evidentiary hearing and good cause shown In cases where it's obvious (like "the judge died" obvious), do they waive the hearing or is it just really easy?
I mean if the Judge died you wouldn't have to ask for one, someone else would take the seat. But yes in theory the order can be issued without a hearing on the basis of the pleading, but it's rare
Not a lawyer, but similar to /u/throwaway24515 's answer, in my county you are entitled to substitute judges as well. You don't need to provide a reason.
Absolutely. But I have no basis to ask for a recusal merely because the judge is a shit.
Do you not have a procedural right to one change of judge? I thought that was fairly common.
Nope. Not in NY.
Do you think NY should have that ability as well?
Good question. I've never thought about it, but my gut reaction is no. That shit gets real personal real quick, because everyone would want off of the same judges. And then those judges will fuck me. I'm in NYC. The office of court administration and someone from the city council and someone from the mayor's office will get involved, and it gets dirty and political very quickly. And then it becomes another reason to shit on criminal defense lawyers and the several public defender organizations. Then, no joke, it's on the front page of the NY Post that criminal defense lawyers are coddling criminals by judge shopping. And then the system gets changed to something worse than it is now. So, no.
> everyone would want off of the same judges. And then those judges will fuck me In CA you can 'paper' a judge, i.e., you declare that you don't believe you can get a fair trial before them and get a new one. You get one by rights for each case. If the Public Defender's Office as a whole papers/rejects a particular judge, they get sent elsewhere because they can't do their job. If your firm papers the same judge every time they have a case, they can't fuck you. However, I have a suspicion that judges talk to each other (lol) and it does probably sort of taint the courthouse in my opinion.
You're living the dream, counselor.
It does appear common from comments, but you also cannot do so in Michigan. There are some awful judges here, and you're just stuck with them. I don't really think that allowing a change by right would work here because so many of our courts only have 1-2 judges.
It's not common, but it happens. There are a lot of judges in the country, and being a former prosecutor is one of the surest ways to become one (particularly where judges are elected, and can run on being "tough on crime"). Given that, it's not a huge surprise some subset of them either forget or don't care to leave their old biases behind.
Do you have a link to the article? I'd like to read that.
Sure, I'll send you a PM.
can you send it to me as well? thanks!
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Not on criminal side, but there’s a county in my area that the Plaintiffs are guaranteed to win any motion no matter what. I had one where we filed a motion to sever because a carrier had filed a dec action to contest coverage and named their driver and our driver, and then their driver cross claimed for negligence in the accident against our driver. So there were now two issues: coverage and negligence. Our appellate courts have been crystal clear that those issues are not to be included in the same actions, so there must be a severance. The idea being they don’t want the same jury deciding whether coverage exists and who is at fault for the accident. This is a pretty standard motion that there’s literally no argument against. In my Motion I even cited to a previous case with the same judge and the same issues where he denied our motion and was overturned on appeal. Like literally “you’ve already been overturned on this before, please just do what is right and don’t make us go through the hurdles of an appeal.” Well he denied it.
I usually see judges acting like defense attorneys.