In an opinion handed down today, the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled that a D.C. Superior Court judge should have recused herself after receiving two e-mails that included information about a witness in a case she was presiding over. The panel of appellate judges determined that the e-mails created the impression of bias and ordered a new trial in the case.
The appeal stems from a 2007 incident in which three brothers were shot at while walking home from a friend’s house.
The appeals court’s 33-page opinion, written by Judge Vanessa Ruiz and joined by Senior Judges Frank Nebeker and Warren King, says that two of the brothers had been in an altercation earlier in the day so their older brother was escorting them home at the time of the shooting. None of the brothers are identified in the opinion because the younger two were minors at the time.
As they were walking, someone approached them from a side street and opened fire, letting off five or six rounds, one of which hit the oldest brother in the elbow. The shooter called out, “You shot my man,” as he fired the shots.
Once two Metropolitan Police Department officers began investigating the shooting, the three brothers told them that the shooter was an acquaintance who went by the nickname “Buddha.” The name of the alleged shooter is given only as M.C. because he was 15 years old at the time of the incident. There was no physical evidence linking M.C. to the shooting, the opinion says.
During the subsequent trial, which was presided over by Judge Patricia Broderick, one of the shooting victims testified that he was “positive” the shooter was M.C., maintaining the position he had held throughout the investigation.
But the testimony of another of the shooting victims was more complicated. According to the opinion, before the second shooting victim, identified as I.W. because he too was a minor, took the stand, Broderick announced that I.W. had pled guilty before her to two counts in an unrelated juvenile matter that morning and that his case had been transferred to a different judge.
The government then called I.W. as a witness. During I.W.’s testimony, he did not testify that M.C. was the person who shot at him and his brothers. Instead, he said that he did not know who shot at them and that he hadn’t seen the shooter’s face. That testimony contradicted what I.W. had told the investigating officers. I.W. also described the shooter differently than he had previously.
The next day, Broderick informed the parties in the case that the judge to whom she had referred I.W.’s separate case had subsequently sent her an e-mail that contained information regarding I.W. The e-mail said that M.C. and I.W. had been separated in the court’s cell block because they had had a physical altercation with each other.
Broderick said that the information about the altercation was unsolicited and that she would be able to keep it separate from the shooting trial. Lawyers from the prosecution and the defense did not object to Broderick’s determination at the time of the announcement.
One day later, however, I.W.’s defense moved to have Broderick recuse herself due to the ex parte communication. Broderick denied that motion, saying it was “untimely” because no objections were made at the time of the announcement. She also said, “I am completely confident, 100% confident that I can keep these matters separate from the facts that are at trial.”
M.C. was ultimately convicted of 20 separate counts related to the shooting and was committed to the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services for a period not to exceed his 21st birthday.
On appeal, Christine Monta of the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia argued that Broderick’s refusal to recuse herself violated the Code of Judicial Conduct for the District of Columbia Courts. Specifically, Monta pointed to a provision in the code that requires judges to recuse themselves in a proceeding “in which the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”
Because the e-mails included information that went to why I.W. might have changed his story on the stand, Monta argued that the e-mails provided "disputed evidentiary facts concerning the proceeding."
Todd Kim, solicitor general for the District of Columbia, argued that the motion for recusal was invalid because M.C.’s appellate lawyers cited Cannon 3(E)(1) in the motion for recusal and not Cannon 3(E)(1)(a), the specific subsection of the code that deals with situations “in which the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”
Ruiz, writing in the opinion, found that Kim’s argument took too narrow a view of the recusal motion because M.C.’s lawyers cited the “umbrella provision” which would include that subsections that fall under it.
“Our review of the record satisfies us that even if the motion for recusal did not cite the specific subsection on which appellant relies on appeal, the trial judge was informed of the legal principles and facts that underlie the specific prohibition in subsection (a),” Ruiz wrote.
Ruiz also wrote that Kim’s argument that the e-mails fell within the scope of Broderick’s judicial obligation to maintain the security of the courtroom was unpersuasive.
“The District notes, correctly, that this court has observed that for purposes of Canon 3(E)(1), judicial functions are not limited to in-court proceedings, but can also include activities outside the courtroom that are legitimately related to judicial duties. . . . Here, however, the record we have does not support that the emails were ‘necessary in order to enable [the trial judge] to perform [her] continuing duty to conduct an orderly trial and to take appropriate measures designed to protect the participants therein,’ Ruiz wrote.
Based on those findings, Ruiz ordered that M.C.’s convictions be reversed and that M.C. receive a new trial.
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