Opinion ID: 1168287
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Failure to advise Bingham of automatic disqualification.

Text: The judge who presided at the arraignment on the information was a magistrate who had been assigned by this Court to act as a district judge temporarily because of the resignation of a district judge. Bingham did not move to disqualify this judge. When the question of the possible disqualification of the district judge who was presiding at the trial of the case was considered, Bingham himself declared that he had no objection to this district judge presiding at the trial. Bingham now contends that the only reason he did not ask the district judge to disqualify himself was because he understood from his attorney that if the district judge did step down, the magistrate who had been appointed to preside during the early stages of the case would take over the trial. Bingham contends that under I.C.R. 25(a) he would have been entitled automatically to disqualify the magistrate without cause and have another district judge preside at the trial. Defense counsel admitted that he advised Bingham that if the district judge were disqualified that the magistrate would be assigned to the case. He did not advise Bingham that he had a right to disqualify the magistrate automatically. Bingham asserts that this failure of his attorney properly to advise him of his rights constituted ineffective assistance of counsel. We disagree. What Bingham overlooks in his analysis of this issue is that under I.C.R. 25(a) the automatic disqualification without cause must be made not later than fourteen (14) days after service of a written notice specifying who the presiding judge or magistrate to the action will be. Since the magistrate had previously been assigned to act as a district judge in the case and since Bingham had not exercised his right to disqualify the magistrate at that time, Bingham would have had no right automatically to disqualify the magistrate, if the district judge had been disqualified. We note that the magistrate, sitting as a district judge by assignment, was scheduled to try this case when it was first set for trial. The fact that the trial was then rescheduled and the newly appointed district judge began to preside over the case did not reinstate Bingham's right automatically to disqualify the magistrate. Once Bingham had allowed the magistrate to sit on his case without disqualifying him, he did not have the option under I.C.R. 25(a) automatically to disqualify him without cause, if the magistrate were called back into the case to preside at the trial.