Judge Learns His Place The Hard Way
Judge mistakes his role during a trial and gets benchslapped for his efforts.
The small town jurist that runs a courtroom like their own personal fiefdom, where whims of the judge are the ultimate authority is a myth largely perpetuated by urban elitism, but occasionally you hear of a judge that comes straight out of central casting. Or as the Detroit Free Press characterized it, “an unsettling glimpse of criminal justice as it is dispensed in small-town courtrooms.”
The Michigan Supreme Court overturned the conviction of Adam Stevens, found guilty of the murder of his 3-month old son in 2013, saying that the trial judge’s behavior was out of line. As the ABA Journal reports:
Judge John McBain of Jackson County “exceeded the scope of permissive judicial questioning,” the court said. His response to objections by the defense lawyer “seemed to reflect an erroneous belief that his power to question witnesses had no limitations.”
“In several instances,” the court said, “the very words and sequences of questions employed by this judge projected incredulity, bias and hostility.”
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Perhaps McBain simply forgot that his role was not that of an advocate.
The Michigan Supreme Court’s decision was a 7-0 overturning a 2-1 Appellate decision. (Though dissenting Appellate Judge Deborah Servitto got in a benchslap of her own saying, “the trial court’s questioning in this matter went far beyond piercing the veil of impartiality — the judge virtually shredded the veil.”)
Given the trial transcript and the unanimous interpretation the Michigan Supreme Court had of it, Brian Dickerson of the Detroit Free Press takes a dim view of the Appellate panel:
So it’s curious to note that Judge Patrick Meter and Judge Michael Riordan, who [with Judge Deborah Servitto]rounded out the three-judge Court of Appeals panel that first heard Stevens’ appeal, were indifferent to McBain’s egregious misconduct in the trial. “While the trial court could have been more careful in its choice of words, the trial court did not unjustifiably arouse suspicion with its inquiries of the defense witnesses,” Meter and Riordan wrote in an unpublished majority opinion rejecting Stevens’ bid for a new trial last. “We find no error.”
In their unanimous decision reversing the 2-1 Court of Appeals ruling, Bernstein and his colleagues charitably suggest that Meter and Riordan were confused by the lack of “a clear line of precedent for establishing the appropriate test to determine whether a trial judge’s conduct pierced the veil of judicial impartiality.” But this is an unconvincing attempt to excuse the negligence of two appellate court judges who were as conspicuously partial to prosecutors as McBain.
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At least this decision stops the judge in the town’s from having bloodstains on his hands.
Read the full decision on the next page.
Judge’s ‘aggressive’ cross-examination of defense witnesses leads to overturned conviction [ABA Journal]
Reversal offers unsettling peek into small-town justice [Detroit Free Press]
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