SHERRY GREENWOOD, PETITIONER,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, RESPONDENT
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Florida appellate court granted petition to disqualify trial judge who improperly attempted to refute facts alleged in defendant's motion to disqualify, thereby establishing grounds for disqualification under judicial ethics rules.
A judge who attempts to refute factual allegations in a motion to disqualify exceeds the proper scope of inquiry and establishes grounds for disqualification.
[1] A trial judge who attempts to refute factual allegations presented in a motion to disqualify exceeds the proper scope of inquiry and thereby establishes grounds for disqu…
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“When a judge has looked beyond the mere legal sufficiency of a suggestion of prejudice and attempted to refute the charges of partiality, he has then exceeded the proper scope of his inquiry and on that basis alone established grounds for his disqualification.”
Court cited Bundy v. Rudd to establish the standard that judicial attempts to refute disqualification allegations constitute grounds for disqualification.
Sherry Greenwood filed a motion to disqualify Judge Helinger in her criminal prosecution. At a pretrial hearing, Judge Helinger denied the motion as l…
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Sherry Greenwood petitions this court for a writ prohibiting Circuit Court Judge Chris Helinger from presiding over her criminal prosecution in Pinellas County Circuit Court case number 14-11063-CF. We grant the petition.
Ms. Greenwood, through counsel, filed a motion to disqualify Judge Helinger from presiding over her case. At the beginning of a pretrial hearing, Judge Helinger provided counsel with an order denying the motion to disqualify as legally insufficient. The order does not comment on the truth of the facts presented in the motion. However, during the hearing, Judge Hel-inger improperly attempted to refute facts that Ms. Greenwood alleged as a basis for believing that she would not receive a fair trial or sentencing before Judge Helinger. See Fla. R. Jud. Admin. 2.330(f); Bundy v. Rudd, 366 So.2d 440, 442 (Fla.1978) (“When a judge has looked beyond the mere legal sufficiency of a suggestion of prejudice and attempted to refute the charges of partiality, he has then exceeded the proper scope of his inquiry and on that basis alone established grounds for his disqualification.”). Accordingly, we grant Ms. Greenwood’s petition, we vacate the stay of the proceedings in case number 14-11063-CF previously imposed by this court, and we order the Chief Judge of the Sixth Judicial Circuit to assign a successor judge pursuant to rule 2.215(b)(4) to preside over the case.
Petition granted.
CASANUEVA, SILBERMAN, and SLEET, JJ., Concur.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
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Wagner v. State (Fla. 2d DCA 2022)…(Fla. 1995) (concluding that the trial court erred by conducting a full evidentiary hearing on the motion to disqualify during which the State presented several witnesses to refute or contradict the movant’s factual allegations); Greenwood v. State, 177 So. 3d 88, 88 (Fla. 2d DCA 2015) (finding an independent basis for disqualification where, at the hearing on the motion, the trial judge "improperly attempted to refute facts that [petitioner] alleged as a basis for believing that she would not receive a fair…
Authorities Cited
- THE Florida BAR v. Sanford Freed, 366 So. 2d 440 (Fla. 1978)