Court Opinion

ID: 9604779
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:26:40.412004+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:23.911801
License: Public Domain

SUSAN LARSEN, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. Although I realize the majority feels constrained to follow the Court of Criminal Appeals opinion in Woodard v. The Eighth Court of Appeals, 991 S.W.2d 795 (Tex.Crim.App.1998), it is my view that the facts in these cases are distinguishable. Moreover, I am compelled to voice my conclusion that Woodard is simply wrong, and I write to urge that the Court of Criminal Appeals revisit it. I write briefly to explain my thinking.
First, I believe the facts here beg for immediate remedy. Three identical recu-sal motions were filed by Mr. Abraham and Ms. Smith. Judge Cardone, assigned to hear the first motion, has already found that grounds exist to justify recusal. She granted the motion on June 2, 2003. The respondent judge then obtained an attorney ad litem. The ad litem immediately filed, on the challenged judge’s behalf, motions to strike or quash the two remaining recusal motions. The respondent judge then granted his own motion in the face of the existing recusal order based on the same facts. His grounds for doing so were not objectively verifiable, but rather that the motions were “facially insufficient and not prima facie adequated [sic].”
Anothér remarkable fact in these cases is the appointment of two attorneys ad *117litem to represent the respondent judge (one attorney at the trial level, a second appellate specialist for appearance before this Court; both appointed by the local presiding judge and presumably to be paid from the county coffers). This Court has found no authority for such appointments; to the contrary, the case law indicates that for a judge to advocate a position in the recusal proceeding at all may itself be grounds for disqualification. Blanchard v. Krueger, 916 S.W.2d 15, 19 (Tex.App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 1995, original proceeding). In my opinion, the respondent judge has now injected himself in the proceedings to such an extent that he cannot maintain the appearance of neutrality in these cases. I believe these facts are more extreme than those presented in Woodard and therefore distinguishable. I would conditionally grant mandamus.
Moreover, for the reasons outlined by Justice Overstreet in his dissent to that case, I think Woodard was wrongly decided.1 Forcing a criminal defendant to trial before he can receive appellate relief on the trial court’s failure to perform a ministerial duty is unfair, inefficient, and wasteful of judicial resources. See Woodard, 991 S.W.2d at 797 (Overstreet, J. dissenting). An appeal is not an adequate remedy when the trial has been conducted by a trial judge tainted by motions to recuse which he has denied, particularly where an identical motion has been granted by an impartial assigned judge, and where the trial judge has obtained counsel to resist the recusal motions.
For these reasons, I would conditionally grant mandamus.

. Curiously, Woodard is a per curiam opinion with a dissent.