A most interesting series of opinions from the Third Court of Appeals on the issue of when to recuse an appellate judge. Judge Puryear leads off with the majority opinion, denying the motion to recuse and explaining that judges must have had lives before reaching the bench. Here is his majority opinion.

He takes a lot of time to reveal the inner workings of the court (including e-mail messages between judges) in explaining why the majority opinion was reached without the formal vote of one of the members of the court.

Judge Patterson provides a dissenting opinion at this link. Judge Henson provides an even louder dissent at this link.

What do you think of the intra-court arguments?

The majority opinion frankly provides some pretty good answers to the kinds of motions to recuse we see thrown against local judges in high publicity cases. Might want to keep this link handy.

[This message was edited by JB on 01-02-09 at .]

[This message was edited by JB on 01-05-09 at .]