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The "appearance of partiality" or just a true Reaganite concerned about federal overreaching and costs to taxpayers?

By Douglas A. Berman

I just got a chance to read closely this mandamus ruling issued late last week by the Seventh Circuit in which a panel granted the federal prosecutor's motion to have a district judge disqualified because, according to the Seventh Circuit, the "Government has established that a reasonable, well-informed observer might question the impartiality of the district judge."  There are many interesting aspects of the Seventh Circuit's ruling, but I was struck most by the fact that what seemed to make the district judge appear partial was his commitment to limiting the power and costs of the federal government -- arguably in the tradition of the president who appointed the judge, Ronald Reagan. Though the procedural history is complicated, the case got started when local officials found two guns in a bedroom closet of the defendant's estranged wife...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on July 15, 2009 (boomark / email).