United States v. Quinones, CRIMINAL ACTION NO. 2:16-cr-00116

• Decision Date: 16 August 2016
• Docket Number: CRIMINAL ACTION NO. 2:16-cr-00116
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of West Virginia
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Miguel QUINONES, Defendant.

201 F.Supp.3d 789

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff,

v.Miguel QUINONES, Defendant.

CRIMINAL ACTION NO. 2:16-cr-00116

United States District Court, S.D. West Virginia, Charleston Division .

Signed August 16, 2016

Jennifer Rada Herrald, U.S. Attorney's Office, Charleston, WV, for Plaintiff.

Christian M. Capece, Federal Public Defender's Office, Charleston, WV, for Defendant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

JOSEPH R. GOODWIN, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

Pending before the court is the defendant's Motion to Recuse [ECF No. 34]. The defendant asks that I recuse myself from this case pursuant to either 28 U.S.C. § 455(b)(5)(ii) or § 455(a) because of my son's past tenure as United States Attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia. For the reasons discussed below, this Motion is DENIED .

I. Factual Background

The following facts are relevant to the instant Motion. R. Booth Goodwin II ("Goodwin"), my son, served as United States Attorney ("U.S. Attorney") for the Southern District of West Virginia from June 25, 2010, until December 31, 2015. Mr. Miguel Quinones is a criminal defendant whose case was assigned to me on June 21, 2016. A criminal complaint initiating this litigation was filed by a representative of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms ("ATF") against the defendant on June 14, 2016, approximately five and a half months after Goodwin left his position as U.S. Attorney. Resp. 5, 7 [ECF No. 37]; Crim. Compl. [ECF No. 3]. The current U.S. Attorney's name, Carol Casto, appears on the June 21, 2016 Indictment [ECF No. 16]. The Indictment charges Mr. Quinones with being a felon in possession of a firearm on two separate dates in 2013. Id. According to the facts provided by the parties, the U.S. Attorney's Office was contacted sometime shortly after December 3, 2013 regarding Mr. Quinones, at which point Assistant United States Attorney ("AUSA") Jennifer Herrald referred the matter to ATF for investigation. Resp. 4; Mem. Supp. Mot. Recuse 2 [ECF No. 35]. The United States asserts that between this referral in December 2013 and the June 14, 2016 filing of the criminal complaint, "there was no contact with the federal court system in connection to the matter." Resp. 4. The defendant asserts that in the months following AUSA Herrald's referral of the matter to ATF, "the government continued its investigation in tandem with a lengthy state investigation." Mem. Supp. Mot. Recuse 2. The defendant does not specify whether the "government" investigation refers to ATF or the U.S. Attorney's Office. Neither party alleges any personal involvement or knowledge on the part of Goodwin.

The defendant argues that because my son was serving as the U.S. Attorney when his office "began, and continued, to investigate Mr. Quinones for the federal firearms violations with which he is currently charged," I must recuse myself pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 455(b)(5)(ii). Mem. Supp. Mot. Recuse 3. Additionally, in a single sentence, the defendant asserts that recusal pursuant to § 455(a) is also appropriate because a "reasonable observer, knowing that Mr. Goodwin was involved in this case prior to his departure from the United States Attorney's office and that he is the son of Judge Goodwin, could reasonably question Judge Goodwin's impartiality." Id. at 4. The United States timely responded in opposition, arguing that recusal is not appropriate under either subsection of § 455.

II. Legal Standard

Recusal of federal district court judges is governed by 28 U.S.C. § 455.¹ Subsection 455(a) states the general rule that a judge "shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned." Subsection 455(b) enumerates several specific circumstances in which a judge must disqualify himself. Relevant here is § 455(b)(5)(ii), which states in pertinent part that a judge "shall" disqualify himself if a "person within the third degree of relationship" to him "[i]s acting as a lawyer in the proceeding."² These provisions are to be read together and "divide the universe of disqualification into two halves: the general, catch-all category of § 455(a)... and a list of more specific grounds for disqualification in § (b)." Charles Gardner Geyh, Fed. Judicial Ctr., Judicial Disqualification: An Analysis of Federal Law 10-11 (2d. ed. 2010), http://www.fjc.gov/public/pdf.nsf/lookup/judicialdq.pdf/$file/judicialdq.pdf; see also id. at 29 ("When relatives ... appear as counsel, the issue is ordinarily resolved by § 455(b)(5). However § 455(a) is sometimes used to fill gaps.").

The circumstances warrant a brief detour into the history and rationale behind judicial disqualification based on family relationships. Under English common law, judicial disqualification was limited to the judge's direct financial interest in a case. See Raymond J. McKoski, Disqualifying Judges When Their Impartiality Might Reasonably Be Questioned: Moving Beyond a Failed Standard , 56 Ariz. L. Rev. 411, 418 (2014) (explaining that "[t]he presumption of impartiality protected judges from all other claims of interest or bias"); see also Richard E. Flamm, The History of Judicial Disqualification in America , Judges' J., Summ. 2013, at 12, 13 ("A judge could be disqualified for direct financial interest in the cause before him, and for absolutely nothing else.").

In 1792, Congress codified and expanded the common law with legislation that became the precursor to 28 U.S.C. § 455, providing for disqualification of a judge who was "concerned in interest" as well as a judge who had been "of counsel for either party." Geyh, Judicial Disqualification, supra , at 5. In 1821, for the first time, the statute added disqualification based on family relationships, requiring "disqualification when relatives of the judge appeared as parties." Id.

More than a century later, relationship to a party's attorney , rather than the party itself, was added as grounds for judicial disqualification. In 1948, § 455 was modified to require disqualification of a judge "so related to or connected with any party or his attorney as to render it improper, in his opinion, for him to sit on trial, appeal, or other proceeding therein."Id. at 6.³

In 1974, the statute was rewritten to conform with the ABA's Code of Judicial Conduct, which was approved by the ABA in 1972 and adopted by the Judicial Conference of the United States in 1973, making it applicable to federal judges. H.R. Rep. 93-1453, at 6352 (1974). With only a few exceptions, the 1974 amendments to § 455 were intended to align the statutory and ethical standards governing disqualification of federal judges. Id. at 6353 ("The bill would make both the statutory and the ethical standard virtually identical.").⁴ Most notably, the 1974 revisions codified the stance that the appearance of impartiality was just as important as actual impartiality. See generally Raymond J. McKoski, Disqualifying Judges , supra, at 413–14 (describing the new rule announced by the ABA in 1972 as "an unprecedented expansion of the grounds for judicial recusal" in protecting against the appearance of partiality rather than just actual partiality). The purpose of the enactment was to "clarify" the grounds for disqualification and "promote public confidence in the impartiality of the judicial process." See In re Drexel Bu r nham Lambert Inc. , 861 F.2d 1307, 1313 (2d Cir.1988) (quoting H.R. Rep. 93-1453, at 6355 (1974)), cert. denied , 490 U.S. 1102, 109 S.Ct. 2458, 104 L.Ed.2d 1012 (1989).

Generally speaking, the goal of disqualification is to ensure a "fair trial in a fair tribunal," a basic tenet of due process. In re Murchison , 349 U.S. 133, 136, 75 S.Ct. 623, 99 L.Ed. 942 (1955). "To this end no man can be a judge in his own case and no man is permitted to try cases where he has an interest in the outcome." Id. Modern disqualification statutes have supplemented this rationale with the goal of promoting public confidence in the judiciary. See McKoski, Disqualifying Judges, supra , at 418 (noting the shift in 1972 "when the ABA decided that promoting public confidence in judicial impartiality, rather than protecting a litigant's right to a fair judge, supplied the primary rationale for disqualifying judges"); see also Note, Disqualification of Judges and Justices in the Federal Courts , 86 Harv. L. Rev. 736, 746–47 (1973) (noting a second, "public relations," concern rooted in the "peculiar nature of the judicial process" because the courts' authority lies in public acceptability of judicial decisionmaking).

More specifically, the prohibition on family members appearing as counsel before the judge seems to have stemmed from an interest in avoiding the impression that any person might "improperly influence" the judge or "unduly enjoy his favor." Canon XIII, American Bar Association, 1924 Canons of Judicial Ethics; see also The Judicial Conference of Senior Circuit Judges, 28 A.B.A. J. 817, 820 (1942) (noting that allowing judges to preside over a case in which a near relative is "of counsel" goes against the "spirit" of Canon XIII, even though Canon XIII counseled disqualification only when the relative was a party). Family relationships between the judge and counsel implicate concerns of "direct influence or favoritism flowing from the bench to a related attorney" or a "suspicion that the lawyer-relative is benefiting from a case in the judge's court." Leslie W. Abramson, The Judge's Relative is Affiliated with Counsel of Record: The Ethical Dilemma , 32 Hofstra L. Rev. 1181, 1181 (2004).

I have identified three potential sources of bias or perceived partiality against which § 455 might seek to guard in considering a judge's relative participating as an attorney. First, in keeping with the original roots of disqualification at common law, the risk of bias may relate to the relative attorney's financial interest in the outcome of a case. Relatedly, some courts also consider substantial non-pecuniary interests such as a relative attorney's reputation or...