Opinion ID: 1115282
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 13

Heading: trial judge bias, prejudice and predetermination

Text: A. How We Get to the Subject. Consideration of a rehearing by the appellate court is no doubt emotionally and philosophically similar to the trial court's consideration of a new trial and particularly so when convinced of guilt even when a principal witness recantation occurs. Regardless, the justice delivery system requires discretion and decision of the judiciary to be exercised with thought and even-handed fairness and not by applied predetermination. This is one of the reasons why, in some jurisdictions, a remand for retrial may justify required reassignment. [8] This is also the reason that I do not accept the thesis of the Hopkinson cases, contrary to the law of any other jurisdiction, that post-conviction relief is only a continuation of the original proceeding in order that the peremptory judge challenge rule, W.R.C.P. 40.1(b)(1), will not be available to the accused. [9] This case presents two facets of judicial conduct and predetermination that are of deep concern. Initially, before those subjects are addressed, it is necessary to recognize that questions of a fair and impartial judge or obligation of recusal was not stated as an issue on appeal or briefed by the litigants. We are faced with the discussion of the issue in the majority which lays out some broad principles as dicta or gratuitous discussion with which I am in total disagreement. B. Factual Basis of Presented Issue. This case, however structured in decision, now presents an issue addressing the status of the deciding trial judge and what the record shows before he held the hearing about his bias, prejudice or prejudgment. At the hearing on the motion for new trial held June 20, 1989, an affidavit of a juror who served on the original jury was not marked but placed into the record, and, at the same time, the entire juvenile files involving both K.B. and M.C.X. were also placed in the record by court order. Nothing in the record reveals that counsel for Brown in that hearing ever had access to those confidential files in advance and appellate counsel stated in response to inquiry at oral argument before this court that he had not reviewed the contents by that time. Since the subject of recusal of the trial judge was not raised as any designated issue on appeal, authorship for the present review essentially comes from the twenty-page monologue discussion at the new trial hearing which constituted a lecture by the trial court to Brown during which the incompetence of the Wyoming Supreme Court and the extraordinary expertise of the trial judge constituted principal topics. The fact that the trial court continued to disbelieve both Brown and the recanted testimony was also clearly communicated. Considering that the majority addresses the subject of a biased or prejudging judge within the information provided by this record, which dicta, as it is, might serve unpleasantly for future cases, requires response. This is a very, very difficult and extremely significant subject and one about which this court in past cases has given less than realistic appellate attention. An accurate or an appropriate re-analysis of the subject requires return to the historical premise and the constitutional imperative within the facts presented here. The test, no differently stated than for a fair and impartial juror, is that within ethical and legal limitations, a trial court should not serve if he undertakes a decision with predisposition or having made an unequivocal advance decision. Wyoming Code of Judicial Conduct, Canon 3(E)(1) (1990). [10] The litigant is entitled to a fair and impartial decisionmaker. Due process of law under state and federal constitutional imperatives requires no less. Wyo. Const. art. 1, § 6, due process; Wyo. Const. art. 1, § 8, open courts. The first event factually presented was an affidavit obtained and submitted on the date of commencement of the scheduled hearing for the motion for new trial. The juror affidavit in part stated: 1. That I was a juror on the case against Walter Joe Brown. 2. That I approached Mr. Brown's attorney, George Andrews, after the verdict. 3. That Mr. Andrews told me to talk to John D. Troughton, District Court Judge, which I did, and was informed the verdict would stand becau[s]e the man was guilty and you can't second guess yourself. 4. That on June 20, 1989, Tom E. Barnes, Mr. Brown's current attorney talked to me and indicated I was free to refuse to talk about the case, and I would not be subpoenaed or forced into Court in any fashion or manner. 5. I agreed to discuss the case. I was told Kathy Brown has now recanted her testimony regarding the August 12th incident for which Mr. Brown was convicted, but was consistent with prior sexual abuse. 6. At trial I could not come to terms fully as to what constitutes reasonable doubt; however, after further discussion with jury members, I willfully voted to convict, but was not entirely comfortable with the result. 7. As the result of the further information I was given, which was simply that Kathy Brown had recanted her testimony, I feel the verdict would most likely be different if this information was presented at trial; however, I cannot say what others may have convinced me of. The trial court then discussed this subject as provided as part of the twenty-page decisional statement by included specific reference: When a juror such as Juror McCarty calls up suffering the agony that judges and jurors often face, the agony that arises from the things about which I have just spoken to you, the agony that arises because you begin to second guess yourselves, when a juror such as Mrs. McCarty calls suffering such agony, if you have any sensitivity, and I hope I have some, what you do is you try to comfort such a person. If you care anything about them as human beings you don't want to see human beings suffer. Particularly if you're a judge you don't want to see a person such as Mrs. McCarty getting the kinds of ulcers that Judge Ranck got. And so what you do you do: You try to reassure her. I tried to reassure Mrs. McCarty. I told her several things. I told her, Mrs. McCarty, you can't second guess yourself. The first thing that you learn in being a judge is that you just can't second guess yourself. What you have to do is you just have to committ [sic] yourself to doing the best possible job that you can do. You have to listen carefully to what the witnesses have to say. You have to listen carefully to what the lawyers have to say. You have to listen carefully to what your own fellow jurors have to say. You have to carefully study the evidence, and then when the times comes, you have to do what you think is right. And after you have consulted with your fellow jurors and done all of those things and have made you decision when you think is the right one, then you don't back off of it. You tell Mrs. McCarty that it's not like you were alone in making the decision. You had eleven other people to talk to, to listen to. It's not like being a judge who is all by himself with no one to talk to, no one to help him, no one to point out his mistakes or his errors, no one to balance off his point of view. You tell Mrs. McCarty, because you have that kind of help and assistance, then the chances of you making the right decision are eleven times better. You tell Mrs. McCarty, have faith in your fellow man. Have faith in your fellow jurors. And remember that they convinced you and they were convinced of the guilt of Mr. Brown. And so don't second guess eleven other people or yourself. Remember that the reason that there are twelve people is to guard against mistakes being made. It's called collective wisdom. And finally, you tell Mrs. McCarty that it really doesn't matter because it's not your decision to make, but if it's any comfort to you, Mrs. McCarty, then [this judge] wants you to know that he agreed with the verdict of the jury; that he agreed that Mr. Brown was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. And then what happens, it comes back that [I] tell[] Mrs. McCarty Mr. Brown is guilty anyway. That's how things get twisted. It's kind of like the game we played in school of `did you hear', and pass it along. Each time it's passed from one mouth to the other something gets lost in the translation. The further difficulty presented is what is revealed in the juvenile records of both M.C.X. and K.B. which, as far as the record reveals, was not available to counsel for Brown prior, or for that matter, after the hearing. Those records appear to have remained sealed until shortly before the time oral argument was held when the entire record, including the confidential files, were reviewed by this writer. At a juvenile hearing over a year earlier, M.C.X. was sent to the Girls' School in Sheridan, Wyoming. The juvenile specifically and directly restated what the trial court already apparently knew  that she recanted her testimony which had created the crime and established the guilt of her father in the original trial. Although not directly stated, it is clear that the trial court specifically rejected the validity of any recantation in the disposition that he then made by commitment of the juvenile to the jurisdiction of the State Board of Charities and Reforms for confinement at the Girls' School in Sheridan instead of her choice to return to her family. The trial court apparently resolved placement by determination that the mother had to abandon her husband (the father), who she continually claimed to be innocent, or the daughter would not be permitted to resume the family relationship with her mother. It is within this perspective that I disagree with the majority's conclusion and in particular a judicial duty to serve. We are presented with a trial judge who, in advance of a new trial proceeding based on a principal witness recantation, expressed an unqualified opinion about the guilt of the accused and then in the presence of the principal accusatory witness, rejected her recantation at a hearing when Brown was neither present nor subsequently advised of what had been said. The impartial jury required by Wyo. Const. art. 1, § 10 equally applies to a judge who has overtly predetermined the case before the initiation of the hearing when a discretional decision is made to grant or deny the new trial. The significance of the twenty-page monologue is in the showing not so much of trial court impatience with this Supreme Court and by name, this writer's dissent in Brown I, but a continued closed mind carried forward from the first trial which realistically afforded no substantive consideration of the credibility of the recantation no matter what the evidence might have been. Wyoming has an adequate number of judges so that the judicial system need not subject it to an appearance of predetermined decision instead of fairness and willingness to listen before deciding. I remain no happier about Story, 788 P.2d 617, Urbigkit, J., dissenting, as evidenced in dissent in a similar situation because of the untidiness portrayed about the Wyoming judicial system. Tested against this factual record, the one Wyoming case cited does not procedurally or constitutionally justify or support the conclusion taken. Cline v. Sawyer, 600 P.2d 725 (Wyo. 1979) involved an associated relationship and, in the challenge for cause, related in no way to the issue presented here. This present appeal certainly does not provide a duty to sit edifice justifying the new trial motion decision by a predisposed (and preannounced) trial judge.