Opinion ID: 78403
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Lack of Legal Support

Text: The bankruptcy court also found that the Recusal Motion lacked legal support. We agree. The only case Ginsberg relied on for the proposition that a complaint of judicial misconduct (which Ginsberg equates with an investigation) requires recusal was United States v. Garrudo, 869 F.Supp. 1574 (S.D.Fla.1994). (Recusal Mot. at 20.) In Garrudo, a district court judge was under investigation by the United States Attorney's Office for accepting gratuities worth thousands of dollars.... Garrudo, 869 F.Supp. at 1576. While presiding over criminal cases, the judge was told he was the subject of a pending United States Attorney's Office investigation. Id. The Judge was subsequently interviewed by federal agents and served with a grand jury subpoena duces tecum. Id. Once he was informed that his status was elevated to that of a target the judge recused himself from all pending criminal matters. Id. Criminal defendants convicted or sentenced by the judge while the investigation was pending, but before the judge recused himself, challenged their convictions. Id. The defendants claimed that the judge had an incentive to curry favor with the government. Id. The district court held that recusal was appropriate. [8] Ginsberg argues that the criminal grand jury investigation in Garrudo and the present judicial misconduct complaint are analogous. (Recusal Mot. at 20) (Fortunately there are few cases in which courts have had to apply the recusal statute to a circumstance in which a judge is under an investigation like the instant investigation. A notable exception is Garrudo.  (emphasis added)). However, there is no evidence that Judge Briskman was under investigation, let alone a criminal one. In our view, a civil complaint of judicial misconduct and a criminal grand jury investigation are not analogous. The facts at issue here are further distinguishable from Garrudo. Ginsberg relies on Garrudo for the principle that an alignment of interests between the presiding judge and counsel in a position to influence the outcome of an investigation or inquiry affecting the judge would cause a reasonable objective observer to question the impartiality of the court. (Initial Br. at 32.) In Garrudo, however, the party conducting the investigation (the United States Government) was actually before the court, so the court may have had an incentive to curry favor. Here, there was no investigation, only a complaint which had a 2% chance of becoming an investigation. Moreover, the existence of the investigation was well known in Garrudo and could therefore affect public confidence in the judiciary. The investigation was discussed in various newspapers and was printed on the front page of the Miami Daily Business Review. Garrudo, 869 F.Supp. at 1576. On the other hand, evidence of this Complaint was not in the public forum until Ginsberg filed the Recusal Motion. A confidential complaint that the public is not aware of does not have any affect on the public's confidence in the impartiality and integrity of the judicial process. See Davis, 506 F.3d at 1332 n. 12. In this regard, we agree with the rulings of the bankruptcy court and the district court.