Case Title: In re Disqualification of Blanchard

Citation: 2017-Ohio-5543

Docket Number: 17-AP-033

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 2017-05-17T00:00:00Z

Document:
[Cite as In re Disqualification of Blanchard, ___ Ohio St.3d ___, 2017-Ohio-5543.] 
 
 
 
IN RE DISQUALIFICATION OF BLANCHARD. 
IN RE C.D. ET AL. 
[Cite as In re Disqualification of Blanchard, ___ Ohio St.3d ___,  
2017-Ohio-5543.] 
Judges—Affidavits 
of 
disqualification—R.C. 
2701.03—Affiants 
failed 
to 
demonstrate bias or prejudice—Disqualification denied. 
(No. 17-AP-033—Decided May 17, 2017.) 
ON AFFIDAVIT OF DISQUALIFICATION in Coshocton County Court of Common 
Pleas, Juvenile Division, Case Nos. 21530027, 21530028, 21530029, and 
21530030. 
____________ 
O’CONNOR, C.J. 
{¶ 1} J.D. and F.D., the parents of the minor children in the above-captioned 
neglect and dependency cases, have filed, through counsel, affidavits with the clerk 
of this court under R.C. 2701.03 seeking to disqualify Judge Van Blanchard II from 
presiding over any further proceedings in the cases.  Various motions are pending 
before the court, including a motion by the Coshocton County Department of Job 
and Family Services for permanent custody of one of the parents’ children. 
{¶ 2} According to the affidavits, F.D.’s case plan requires her to participate 
in the Coshocton County Family Dependency Specialized Docket—commonly 
referred to as “family drug court”—but she has not yet successfully completed the 
program.  Judge Blanchard oversees the family drug court.  The parents question 
whether he can impartially preside over both the juvenile-court dependency cases 
and F.D.’s drug-court hearings.  Specifically, they allege that Judge Blanchard has 
“heard numerous prejudicial facts about the parents” in the drug-court hearings, 
facts that are not part of the record in the dependency cases.  According to the 
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parents, these facts “color his opinion” against them, which “amounts to a bias 
which he cannot avoid.”  The parents also assert that Judge Blanchard “is in the 
position of being a fact witness” because completion of the family-drug-court 
program is a condition of F.D.’s case plan in the underlying dependency cases. 
{¶ 3} Judge Blanchard has responded in writing to the affidavits and 
requests that they be denied.  The judge acknowledges that in specialized-docket 
cases—and especially in family-drug-court hearings—a judge does learn ex parte 
information about parents and family members that may not be part of the record 
in a general-docket case.  But a judge’s enhanced familiarity with parties in a 
general-docket case as a result of drug-court hearings, Judge Blanchard argues, 
should not automatically lead to a finding of bias or an appearance of bias in the 
general-docket case.  According to Judge Blanchard, “the solution lies in a case by 
case analysis” to determine whether the bias alleged in a specific case rises to an 
unacceptable level.  Here, Judge Blanchard asserts, the parents have not sufficiently 
supported their claim that an appearance of bias exists in the underlying 
dependency cases based on information that he heard in F.D.’s drug-court hearings. 
{¶ 4} Judge Blanchard is correct that there is no inherent conflict in his 
presiding over all the proceedings involving F.D.  That is, the fact that the same 
judge presides over a parent’s dependency case and her drug-court hearings does 
not, without more, mandate the judge’s disqualification from one of those matters.  
See, e.g., In re M.W., 8th Dist. Cuyahoga Nos. 98214 and 98215, 2012-Ohio-5075, 
¶ 28.  Nor does the fact that Judge Blanchard may have heard prejudicial 
information about the parents in drug-court hearings necessarily require his 
removal from the dependency cases.  In general, what a judge learns in his official 
judicial capacity in another proceeding is not the kind of information that leads to 
disqualification.  See In re Disqualification of Basinger, 135 Ohio St.3d 1293, 
2013-Ohio-1613, 987 N.E.2d 687, ¶ 5 (“because ‘ “evidence presented in the trial 
of a prior cause * * * do[es] not stem from an extrajudicial source,” it creates no 
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personal bias requiring recusal’ ” [ellipsis and brackets sic] ), quoting State v. 
D’Ambrosio, 67 Ohio St.3d 185, 188, 616 N.E.2d 909 (1993), quoting State v. 
Smith, 242 N.W.2d 320, 324 (Iowa 1976).  “Just as ‘[a] judge is presumed to follow 
the law and not to be biased,’ In re Disqualification of George, 100 Ohio St.3d 
1241, 2003-Ohio-5489, 798 N.E.2d 23, ¶ 5, a judge is presumed to be capable of 
separating what may properly be considered from what may not be considered.”  
Basinger at ¶ 5. 
{¶ 5} Judge Blanchard is also correct, however, that the ability of a judge to 
preside fairly and impartially in a particular matter must be analyzed on a case-by-
case basis.  Hypothetically, a judge could be exposed to such highly prejudicial 
information in a parent’s drug-court hearings that the likelihood of bias or an 
appearance of bias in a parent’s dependency case would be unacceptably high.  But 
here, the parents’ general and nonspecific claim that Judge Blanchard “heard 
numerous prejudicial facts” about them in drug-court hearings is insufficient to 
overcome the presumption of the judge’s impartiality. 
{¶ 6} Similarly, the parents’ supposition that Judge Blanchard may be a fact 
witness is, at this point, insufficient to remove him.  “[W]hen the evidence may be 
obtained from witnesses other than the trial judge, the judge is not such a material 
witness as to require the judge’s disqualification,” and “mere familiarity with the 
circumstances surrounding the trial does not render the judge a material witness.”  
In re Disqualification of Matia, 135 Ohio St.3d 1246, 2012-Ohio-6343, 986 N.E.2d 
8, ¶ 9.  If Judge Blanchard ultimately concludes that he is likely to be a material 
witness in the dependency proceedings, he can and should disqualify himself as 
Jud.Cond.R. 2.11(A)(2)(d) directs.  The parents, however, have not sufficiently 
explained why they believe that Judge Blanchard must testify as a fact witness in 
the underlying dependency cases or why they believe that he possesses evidence 
that is unobtainable from other sources. 
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{¶ 7} For these reasons, the affidavits of disqualification are denied.  The 
cases may proceed before Judge Blanchard. 
________________________