[PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

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No. 13-12657

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D.C. Docket No. 2:12-cv-04139-LSC 

In re: WALTER LEROY MOODY, JR.,

 Petitioner.

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Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Alabama

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(January 10, 2014)

Before WILSON, MARTIN, and JORDAN, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM: 

Walter Leroy Moody, Jr., convicted under federal and state law for the 1989

murder of Eleventh Circuit Judge Robert S. Vance, has petitioned for a writ of 

mandamus ordering the recusal of District Judge L. Scott Coogler, who was 

randomly assigned to hear his federal petition for a writ of habeas corpus, see 28 

U.S.C. § 2254, and directing the transfer of this matter to a district judge outside 

the bounds of the Eleventh Circuit. After filing his mandamus petition, 

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Mr. Moody has separately moved for the recusal of all judges on this court, 

requesting that we likewise transfer his mandamus petition to a different circuit.

At bottom, Mr. Moody argues that Judge Vance’s murder, which occurred 

more than two decades ago, necessitates the recusal of all circuit judges on, and all 

district and magistrate judges within, the Eleventh Circuit. According to 

Mr. Moody, allowing any such judges to rule on his habeas corpus petition would 

create an appearance of partiality within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 455(a), and 

also violate § 455(b)(4) by allowing them to sit on a case in which they have an 

“interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome.” Having analyzed the 

unique facts and circumstances of this matter, and with the benefit of oral 

argument, we deny Mr. Moody’s petition and motion.

I

In 1972, a federal jury in Georgia convicted Mr. Moody of possessing an 

unregistered destructive device. See United States v. Moody, 474 F.2d 1346 (5th 

Cir. 1973) (Moody I) (table decision affirming conviction). After his attempts to 

set aside the conviction proved unsuccessful, see, e.g., Moody v. United States, 874 

F.2d 1575 (11th Cir. 1989) (Moody II) (affirming denial of coram nobis relief), 

Mr. Moody mailed a tear-gas package bomb to the NAACP Regional Office in 

Atlanta. That bomb exploded on August 21, 1989, “engulf[ing] NAACP 

employees in clouds of choking gas.” United States v. Moody, 977 F.2d 1425, 

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1428 (11th Cir. 1992) (Moody V). Mr. Moody also sent out a “Declaration of 

War” to the Eleventh Circuit and to television stations around the country, 

accusing the Circuit of deliberate misconduct and rank bias. Id. 

As detailed in Moody V, 977 F.2d at 1428-29, Mr. Moody then built four 

powerful package bombs. He mailed the first of these bombs to Judge Vance in 

Alabama, with the return address of another Eleventh Circuit judge. Judge Vance 

was killed on December 16, 1989, when he opened the package containing the 

bomb, and his wife was seriously injured by the blast. The second of the bombs 

killed civil rights attorney Robert Robinson in Savannah, Georgia, two days later. 

A security officer intercepted the third bomb at the Eleventh Circuit headquarters 

in Atlanta, and the fourth bomb was received but not opened by employees of the 

Jacksonville NAACP office because they had heard about the other bombings. 

In 1990, the government obtained an indictment against Mr. Moody, 

charging him with numerous federal offenses related to the murders of Judge 

Vance and Mr. Robinson. All judges then sitting on the Eleventh Circuit entered 

an order recusing themselves from all cases “relating to the investigation of the 

murder of [Judge] Vance” in which Mr. Moody was a party. See United States v. 

Moody, 977 F.2d 1420, 1423 (11th Cir. 1992) (Moody IV).1

 1 That recusal order is still in effect for all judges who were members of the Eleventh 

Circuit at that time (i.e., Circuit Judges Tjoflat, Fay, Hill, Anderson, Kravitch, Cox, and 

Edmondson). In addition, several other current members of the Eleventh Circuit (Chief Judge 

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All district judges in the Northern District of Georgia also recused 

themselves, and as a result Chief Justice Rehnquist designated Judge Edward 

Devitt from the District of Minnesota to preside over Mr. Moody’s case. Judge 

Devitt granted Mr. Moody’s motion for a change of venue, and moved the trial to 

St. Paul. See United States v. Moody, 762 F. Supp. 1485 (N.D. Ga. 1991) (Moody 

III). After a jury convicted Mr. Moody of 71 counts, Judge Devitt sentenced him 

to seven life terms and 400 years, to be served concurrently with each other and 

consecutively to a 15-year sentence imposed in the Middle District of Georgia on 

separate perjury and obstruction charges related to Mr. Moody’s attempts to 

overturn his 1972 conviction. On appeal, the Eleventh Circuit – with a panel 

comprised of three judges from the Fourth Circuit – affirmed Mr. Moody’s 

convictions and sentences in Moody V.2

 

Carnes and Judges Hull, Marcus, and Pryor) have since voluntarily recused themselves from 

participation in any of Mr. Moody’s cases. At this time, therefore, the only judges in the 

Eleventh Circuit who have not recused themselves from Mr. Moody’s cases are the members of 

this panel. 

2 After several judges in the Middle District of Georgia recused themselves, Chief Judge 

Tjoflat designated Judge Anthony Alaimo from the Southern District of Georgia to preside over 

Mr. Moody’s perjury/obstruction of justice case. Mr. Moody appealed his convictions in that 

case, but the Eleventh Circuit – with the same panel of Fourth Circuit judges who heard Moody V 

– affirmed in Moody IV. One of the arguments Mr. Moody raised on appeal in Moody IV was 

that Judge Alaimo should have recused himself “because of the appearance of bias arising from 

[Mr.] Moody’s (then alleged) involvement in the Vance and Robinson murders.” 977 F. 2d at 

1423. The panel in Moody IV rejected the argument, finding no abuse of discretion in Judge 

Alaimo’s reasoning that “the purported basis for . . . bias was ‘simply too attenuated to raise even 

a reasonable appearance of impropriety.’” Id. 

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The State of Alabama then charged Mr. Moody with the capital murder of 

Judge Vance. A jury found Mr. Moody guilty, and the state trial court, following 

the jury’s 11-1 recommendation, sentenced him to death. The Alabama Court of 

Criminal Appeals affirmed, and the Alabama Supreme Court denied review. See 

Moody v. State, 888 So. 2d 532 (Ala. Crim. App. 2003), writ denied, 888 So. 2d 

605 (Ala. 2004) (Moody VI). When his attempt to obtain post-conviction relief in 

the Alabama courts failed, see Moody v. State, 95 So. 3d 827 (Ala. Crim. App. 

2011) (Moody VII), Mr. Moody filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the 

Northern District of Alabama. The petition was randomly assigned to Judge 

Coogler, who denied Mr. Moody’s motion for recusal. 

II

In relevant part, 28 U.S.C. § 455(a) provides that “[a]ny . . . judge . . . of the 

United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality 

might reasonably be questioned.” In keeping with the aim of “‘promot[ing] 

confidence in the judiciary by avoiding even the appearance of impropriety 

whenever possible,’” United States v. Patti, 337 F.3d 1317, 1321 (11th Cir. 2003) 

(quoting Liljeberg v. Health Servs. Acquisition Corp., 486 U.S. 847, 865 (1988)), 

recusal under § 455(a) turns on “whether an objective, disinterested, lay observer 

fully informed of the facts underlying the grounds on which recusal was sought 

would entertain a significant doubt about the judge’s impartiality.” United States 

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v. Scrushy, 721 F.3d 1288, 1303 (11th Cir. 2013) (citations and internal quotation 

marks omitted). 

Under § 455(b)(4), recusal is required whenever a judge has “any . . . 

interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding.” 

The phrase “any . . . interest that could substantially be affected” is not statutorily 

defined, and “it is not easy to conclude what [it] means.” In re Virginia Electric & 

Power Co., 539 F.2d 357, 367 (4th Cir. 1976). We have held, however, in a case 

alleging improper transactions in a customer’s airline frequent flyer program, that 

§ 455(b)(4) did not require recusal of Eleventh Circuit judges who happened to 

belong to the same program. See Delta Airlines v. Sasser, 127 F.3d 1296, 1297 

(11th Cir. 1997) (explaining in part that the litigation would not “jeopardize the 

viability” of the frequent flyer program as a whole). Cf. Liljeberg, 486 U.S. at 867 

(district judge violated § 455(b)(4) by failing to recuse after learning that he was a 

member of the board of trustees of a university with an interest in the outcome of 

the proceedings before him). 

“[A]ny doubts must be resolved in favor of recusal.” Patti, 337 F.3d at 1321.

Nevertheless, “there is as much obligation for a judge not to recuse when there is 

no occasion for him to do so as there is for him to do so when there is.” United 

States v. Burger, 964 F.2d 1065, 1070 (10th Cir. 1992) (internal punctuation and 

citation omitted). Indeed, “a judge, having been assigned to a case, should not 

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recuse himself on unsupported, irrational, or highly tenuous speculation.” United 

States v. Greenough, 782 F.2d 1556, 1558 (11th Cir. 1986).

III

We first address Mr. Moody’s motion for recusal of the members of this 

panel. Mr. Moody argues that recusal of all Eleventh Circuit judges is required 

because his crimes in 1989 targeted not only Judge Vance, but also the Eleventh 

Circuit as an institution (as well as all of its then-constituent judges). Mr. Moody 

notes that the judges of the Eleventh Circuit received threatening letters 

contemporaneously with Judge Vance’s murder, that a bomb was delivered to the 

Eleventh Circuit’s headquarters in Atlanta, that Judge Vance maintained close 

relationships with a number of circuit colleagues, and that two current Eleventh 

Circuit judges participated in his prosecution. Such facts, Mr. Moody maintains, 

would lead a “objective, disinterested, lay observer” to harbor a “significant doubt”

about the Eleventh Circuit’s ability to decide this matter fairly and therefore 

necessitate recusal under § 455(a). See Scrushy, 721 F.3d 1303 (internal quotation 

marks omitted).

A

Recusal decisions under “§ 455(a) are extremely fact driven and ‘must be 

judged on their unique facts and circumstances more than by comparison to 

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situations considered in prior jurisprudence.’” Nichols v. Alley, 71 F.3d 347, 351 

(10th Cir. 1995) (quoting United States v. Jordan, 49 F.3d 152, 157 (5th Cir. 

1995)). Given the peculiar scenario here, the facts that Mr. Moody relies on do not 

warrant recusal under § 455(a). First, none of the three judges on this panel sat on 

the Eleventh Circuit (or were members of the federal judiciary) at the time of 

Judge Vance’s death or of the contemporaneous bomb threat to the Eleventh 

Circuit’s headquarters.3

 Second, although Judges Wilson and Jordan served as law 

clerks to Fifth Circuit and Eleventh Circuit judges respectively, they did so before 

Judge Vance’s murder (Judge Wilson in 1980 and Judge Jordan in 1987-88). 

Third, no judge on this panel enjoyed a close personal or professional relationship 

with Judge Vance or with any member of his immediate family. Fourth, even 

though two current Eleventh Circuit judges took part in Alabama’s prosecution of 

Mr. Moody, those two judges have recused, so their participation is not an issue.

In short, the only connection between the members of this panel and Mr. Moody’s 

current case is our current service on the Eleventh Circuit and Judge Vance’s 

service on the same court at the time of his death in 1989. And that is not enough. 

Mr. Moody relies heavily on the Seventh Circuit’s sua sponte self-recusal in 

In re Nettles, 394 F.3d 1001 (7th Cir. 2005), but we think that case does not control 

here. The petitioner in Nettles was arrested in 2004 after he allegedly sold 

 

3 Judge Wilson began his service on the Eleventh Circuit in 1999. Judge Martin and 

Judge Jordan followed more than a decade later, in 2010 and 2012 respectively.

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explosives to an undercover FBI agent posing as a terrorist, with the aim of 

destroying the Dirksen Courthouse in downtown Chicago, a building which houses 

the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois and is the headquarters of the 

Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Id. at 1002-03. Concluding that a 

reasonable observer might believe that a district judge stationed in the Dirksen 

Courthouse would want the petitioner to be convicted and serve a lengthy sentence, 

the Seventh Circuit granted the petitioner mandamus relief and ordered the recusal 

of all district judges in the Northern District of Illinois. Id. at 1003. Taking that 

logic one step further, the Seventh Circuit sua sponte recused itself from hearing 

any further appeals in the petitioner’s case, reasoning that “the appellate judges in 

[the Dirksen] [C]ourthouse are as menaced by an Oklahoma City style attack as the 

district judges.” Id.

The Ninth Circuit distinguished Nettles in Clemens v. U.S. District Court for 

the Central District of California, 428 F.3d 1175, 1179-80 (9th Cir. 2005). In 

Clemens, the defendant was charged with making threats (with intent to extort, 

assault, murder, or inflict harm) against three district judges who had handled his 

pro se cases in the Central District of California. He filed a mandamus petition 

asking for the disqualification of all judges in the Central District from his criminal 

case. The Ninth Circuit denied relief under § 455(a), explaining that “[w]here 

other circuits have required recusal, the recused judge was an intended victim of 

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the alleged crime. In Nettles, all the judges of the district could have fairly been 

viewed as intended victims of the charged offense. There is no such allegation in 

this case, either toward the assigned judge or the entire bench. Nor could a 

reasonable person draw an inference of a threat against the entire bench.” Id. at 

1179. The Ninth Circuit rejected the defendant’s argument that, given the type of 

crime charged, no judge in the Central District could be properly assigned to his 

criminal case: “Clemens argues that no judge of the district could preside 

impartially over his trial, given the nature of the allegations. However, we have

previously rejected an attempt to disqualify a judge based on his relationship with 

the victim.” Id. at 1180. 

As we read it, Nettles stands for the proposition that, where a defendant is 

charged with trying to blow up (or otherwise damage) a federal courthouse, judges 

residing in that courthouse at the time of the alleged plot and judges belonging to 

the court based in that courthouse must recuse from cases involving that defendant 

because such judges were potential victims of the alleged attack. See also Nichols, 

71 F.3d at 352 (granting mandamus relief and ordering recusal of district judge 

whose courthouse and chambers were damaged by bomb allegedly set off by 

defendants at nearby federal building). Here, consistent with the rationale of

Nettles, those judges sitting on the Eleventh Circuit at the time of Judge Vance’s 

murder have recused themselves from hearing all cases relating to that murder in 

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which Mr. Moody is a party. See Moody IV, 977 F.2d at 1423. So have all other 

Eleventh Circuit judges, save for the members of this panel, as explained in

footnote 2. 

The narrow question then, is whether, 24 years after Judge Vance’s murder, 

recusal is required for current Eleventh Circuit judges who had no personal 

connection or relationship with Judge Vance and who were not members of the 

Circuit at the time. The answer, we think, is no. The only fact distinguishing this 

panel from a randomly-assigned panel comprised of judges from another circuit is 

that we happen to be assigned to the Eleventh Circuit, on which Judge Vance sat at 

the time of his death in 1989. We conclude that under the unique facts of this case 

such a tenuous connection would not, standing alone, raise significant doubt in the 

mind of an informed, objective, and disinterested lay observer about our ability to 

fairly decide cases involving Mr. Moody. See Clemens, 428 F.3d at 1179-80. 

To the extent that our hypothetical lay observer might have a possible doubt 

about the ability of any federal judge to fairly adjudicate the habeas corpus petition 

of a defendant convicted of murdering another federal judge, such a doubt would 

be based on the notion that federal judges might tend to view an attack on one as 

an attack on all. But such a doubt would extend to all federal judges – regardless 

of their circuit or district – and would, if disqualifying, prevent Mr. Moody from 

having a federal forum in which to obtain review of his state capital conviction and 

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sentence. Cf. Bolin v. Story, 225 F.3d 1234, 1238 (11th Cir. 2000) (“Under [the] 

‘rule of necessity,’ a judge is not disqualified due to a personal interest if there is 

no other judge available to hear the case.”).

B

Mr. Moody also contends that all judges currently sitting on the Eleventh 

Circuit are part of the “victim class” for the crimes of which he was convicted, and 

must recuse themselves because they have an “interest that could be substantially 

affected by the outcome of the proceeding” within the meaning of § 455(b)(4). We 

disagree. 

As we have noted, there is little precedent on the meaning of the phrase “any 

. . . interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome.” One 

commentator, however, has suggested that the word “substantial” in that phrase 

“should probably be read to depend on the interaction of two variables: the 

remoteness of the interest and its extent or degree.” Note, Disqualification of 

Judges and Justices in the Federal Courts, 86 HARV. L. REV. 736, 753 (1973) 

(cited with approval in In re Virginia Electric & Power Co., 539 F.2d at 368). 

That formulation makes sense to us, and we therefore use it in our analysis. See 

13D CHARLES ALAN WRIGHT, ARTHUR R. MILLER, & EDWARD H. COOPER,

FEDERAL PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE § 3547 (3d ed. 2008) (“[T]he courts appear to 

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weigh two factors in deciding whether to recuse under [§ 455(b)(4)]: the 

remoteness of the interest and its extent or degree.”).

As previously discussed, none of the members of this panel had a close 

professional or personal relationship with Judge Vance or his family, sat on the 

Eleventh Circuit in 1989, or were members of the federal judiciary at that time. 

Our interest, if there is one, is remote and weak, such that it is not disqualifying, 

and will not, in any event, be substantially affected by the outcome of 

Mr. Moody’s habeas corpus proceeding. We cannot conclude that we became 

prospective members of the so-called “victim class” upon our confirmation to the 

Eleventh Circuit 10, 21, and 23 years after Judge Vance’s death, and we are not 

aware of any authority suggesting that the murder of a judge requires the recusal of 

all future judges on the victim’s court for time immemorial.

IV

Having determined that we need not recuse ourselves from this matter, we 

now turn to Mr. Moody’s mandamus petition. We conclude that Mr. Moody is not 

entitled to the recusal of Judge Coogler. 

We ordinarily review a district judge’s decision not to recuse for abuse of 

discretion. See Scrushy, 721 F.3d at 1303. Because Mr. Moody has petitioned for 

mandamus, however, our review of Judge Coogler’s failure to recuse is even more 

stringent. The Supreme Court has instructed that “the remedy of mandamus is a 

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drastic one, to be invoked only in extraordinary situations” and “only exceptional 

circumstances, amounting to a judicial usurpation of power, will justify the 

invocation of this extraordinary remedy.” Allied Chem. Corp. v. Daiflon, Inc., 449 

U.S. 33, 34-35 (1980). See also In re Lopez-Lukis, 113 F.3d 1187, 1187-88 (11th 

Cir. 1997) (“[M]andamus is an extraordinary remedy, which is available only to 

correct a clear abuse of discretion or usurpation of judicial power. The petitioners 

have the burden of showing that their right to issuance of the writ [requiring 

recusal] is ‘clear and indisputable.’”) (citations omitted). Indeed, “a party is not 

entitled to mandamus merely because it shows evidence that, on appeal, would 

warrant reversal of the district court.” In re BellSouth Corp., 334 F.3d 941, 953 

(11th Cir. 2003). 

Mr. Moody raises many of the same arguments with respect to Judge 

Coogler’s recusal as he does with respect to our own recusal. He asserts that 

because Judge Coogler serves on a district court in Alabama, within the Eleventh 

Circuit, recusal is mandated under § 455(a), as an informed objective, 

disinterested, lay observer would entertain a significant doubt about his 

impartiality. He also contends that, because of his status as a district judge within 

this Circuit, Judge Coogler has an interest that could be substantially affected by

the outcome under § 455(b)(4).

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As we see it, Judge Coogler properly exercised his discretion in declining to 

recuse himself for substantially the same reasons discussed earlier. Judge Coogler, 

like the members of this panel, occupied no federal judicial position at the time of 

Judge Vance’s death, has had no close connection to Judge Vance or his relatives, 

and took no part in the underlying investigation and prosecution of Mr. Moody. 

Judge Coogler, furthermore, was never personally subjected to the threats that were 

sent to Eleventh Circuit judges sitting at the time Judge Vance was murdered. See 

United States v. Yousef, 327 F.3d 56, 169 (2d Cir. 2003) (recusal of district judge 

was not warranted in light of threat that “did not specify a particular judge”); 

Moody IV, 977 F.2d at 1423 (holding that district judge in Georgia did not have to 

recuse from Mr. Moody’s perjury/obstruction of justice case because of 

Mr. Moody’s alleged involvement in the murder of Judge Vance and Mr. 

Robinson). And to the extent that Judge Coogler could be characterized as 

belonging to a prospective “victim class” of district judges in this case, the same 

characterization would apply to all federal district judges nationwide.

4

Mr. Moody also argues that we should order Judge Coogler to recuse 

because he teaches as an adjunct professor at the University of Alabama School of 

 

4 At oral argument, Mr. Moody’s counsel was unable to articulate a concrete, workable 

standard for determining which district judges would be able to hear Mr. Moody’s case if we 

were to grant his mandamus petition. For example, one would think that a district judge from 

another circuit whose family members were killed by a disgruntled pro se litigant might not be 

the appropriate person to rule on Mr. Moody’s habeas corpus petition, but at oral argument Mr. 

Moody’s counsel was equivocal about such a scenario. 

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Law, which in turn maintains a professorship named in Judge Vance’s honor, and 

because of some perceived connection between Judge Coogler and the Robert S. 

Vance Federal Building and United States Courthouse in Birmingham, Alabama. 

But the mere fact that Judge Coogler teaches at a university that has chosen to 

memorialize Judge Vance does not mandate recusal. See Wu v. Thomas, 996 F.2d 

271, 275 (11th Cir. 1993) (holding that “no reasonable observer would assume that 

[the district judge] had extra-judicial knowledge of this case or otherwise question 

[his] impartiality” because the district judge merely served as adjunct professor 

(without a salary) at, and donated to, the defendant university). Nor does the 

presence of a federal building and courthouse named for Judge Vance in 

Birmingham entitle Mr. Moody to a writ of mandamus. As Judge Coogler 

explained, he is not stationed in Birmingham, and does not hold court there.

V

We recognize the systemic and case-specific importance of recusal in our 

judicial system and the grave consequences that may result from an erroneous

failure to recuse. But given the unique circumstances of this case, including the 

many years that have passed since Judge Vance’s death, we conclude that we are 

not required to recuse as a panel under 28 U.S.C. §§ 455(a) & 455(b)(4), and that 

Mr. Moody is not entitled to a writ mandamus requiring the recusal of Judge 

Coogler. We take Judge Coogler at his word that he will be able to rule on 

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Mr. Moody’s habeas corpus petition fairly and impartially, and have no doubt that 

he will take appropriate action should he decide otherwise in the future.

MOTION FOR RECUSAL OF PANEL DENIED; MANDAMUS PETITION DENIED. 

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