Opinion ID: 2166559
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Procedure for Disqualification

Text: The Commentary to section 3.42 of the ABA Standards Relating to Appellate Courts suggests that the procedure for determining disqualification of an appellate judge differs from that applicable to a district court judge. An appellate judge should be subject to challenge for cause on the same grounds as a trial judge, and also when an appeal involves review of that judge's decision. The most difficult problem concerns the procedure to be employed. As in the challenge of a trial judge, if the challenge is sufficient on its face and any reasonable doubt of the judge's disinterestedness is suggested, the judge may be expected to act favorably on the recusal. If the judge does not do so, at the trial level, factual issues relating to disqualification should properly be determined by another judge. See Section 2.32. In the case of an appellate judge, however, that procedure would subject the judge to decision of disinterestedness by peers with whom that judge continues to serve in a collegial capacity in deciding the case. Moreover, because an appellate court decides questions of law rather than fact, the question of an appellate judge's `bias' is often practically indistinguishable from the question of the judge's views on the law, which are not properly subject to challenge through the recusal procedure. Given these complications, it is better that the question of recusal be decided by the challenged judge. There remains the remedy of appeal at the supreme court level from the decision in which the judge participates; it the challenged judge is a justice of the supreme court, reliance must be placed on the justice's recognition that a court should not only be disinterested but that it should appear to be so. Standards Relating to Appellate Courts, supra, at 80-81. This suggestion is consistent with the approach we have taken in the few cases involving disqualification of appellate judges. Thus, we have held that [i]t has long been the practice of [the Minnesota Supreme Court] to honor decisions of its individual members as to whether to participate in a pending proceeding. In re Modification of Canon 3A(7) of the Minn.Code of Judicial Conduct, 438 N.W.2d 95, 95 (Minn.1989); see also Wild, 257 N.W.2d at 363-64. The Minnesota Court of Appeals Special Rule of Practice 10 reflects the same approach by providing that [a]pplication of the principles governing recusal is ultimately the responsibility of the individual judge. [5] This procedure and the broad language of Canon 3D(1) imply that appellate judges must be allowed some discretion in deciding their own disqualification under any particular set of facts. A judge has a duty to minimize the burdens imposed on the judicial system by disqualification. But any discretion must be tempered by the unavoidable conflict of interest that is presented when a judge considers his or her own disqualification. These competing considerations appear to have been recognized in the development of the standard of review that has been applied when a judge's decision not to disqualify is challenged, a standard which requires an objective examination of whether the judge's impartiality could reasonably be questioned. According to the court of appeals in State v. Laughlin, 508 N.W.2d 545, 548 (Minn.App.1993), because Minnesota Code of Judicial Conduct Canon 3C(1) require[s] disqualification where there is an appearance of partiality, a [reviewing] court's inquiry must go beyond the challenged judge's statements and include an objective examination into the circumstances surrounding the removal request. This objective examination displaces any deference that might otherwise be paid to the challenged judge's decision to not recuse. [6] Respondents argue that our standard of review should be considerably narrower in this case because a separate panel of the court of appeals already reviewed the question of Judge Amundson's disqualification and the decision of that panel should be reversed by this court only for a clear abuse of discretion. But the decision of the separate court of appeals' panel did not address the underlying issue of disqualification under Canon 3D(1). It focused instead on the issue of vacatur. For this reason, we will consider and apply de novo the objective examination standard of review for the purpose of determining the initial issue of disqualification.