Victim Judge Disqualified

The Chief Judge of the Ohio Supreme Court ordered the disqualification of a judge

Basis

In 2016, Will was charged with intimidation, a third-degree felony, and disorderly conduct, a minor misdemeanor. Judge Leuthold was the alleged victim of the intimidation offense. Because Judge Leuthold was the only sitting judge of the Crawford County Court of Common Pleas, General and Domestic Relations Division, an assigned judge presided over the case. The parties entered into a plea agreement, in which Will pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated menacing, a first-degree misdemeanor. The assigned judge sentenced Will to 90 days in jail. Because Judge Leuthold was the alleged victim of the intimidation offense, the State consulted with him before entering into the plea agreement, and the judge agreed to the terms of the plea deal.

Present case

In support of the allegation, [counsel for Will] Thompson points to the fact that Judge Leuthold was the victim of the threat in Will’s 2016 case. Disqualification is necessary, Thompson asserts, because the judge’s “impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”

In response, Judge Leuthold states that because he was the victim of the threat in the 2016 case, he voluntarily recused himself from that case. However, because he is not the victim in the underlying case, he sees no reason for disqualification. The judge avers that he does not recall any of the details about Will’s 2016 case, including what Will said that led to the intimidation charge, and that until Thompson raised the issue, the judge had completely forgotten he was the victim in the case. The judge further states that he consented to Will’s plea agreement in the 2016 case because he considered Will to be relatively harmless.

Noting that since 2016 he has presided over seven other cases involving Will without any allegation of impropriety, Judge Leuthold states that “[i]f there was no appearance of impropriety in those seven cases, it is ridiculous to claim that there is an appearance of impropriety in the eighth case.”

The court

Just as a judge could be disqualified from a case when the judge is the victim of the crime alleged in the case, there may also be an appearance of impropriety when a judge presides over a case when he or she was a victim of the defendant in an earlier case. The former chief justice recognized that “an appearance of impropriety certainly could exist if a litigant appearing before a judge had previously committed a crime against that judge.” (Emphasis omitted.) DeWeese, 2017-Ohio-9421, at ¶ 5. And based on a review of the record in this case, an appearance of impropriety would be created if Judge Leuthold presided over the underlying case because the judge was previously the victim of a crime committed by Will.

Therefore, this allegation has merit, and Judge Leuthold is disqualified from presiding over the underlying case to avoid an appearance of impropriety.