Can a judge remove himself ?

poet123

It could be that the judge has a family member or friend who inadvertently mentioned the case to them and from there they realised that they were sitting on a case involving someone they knew in passing.

Some years ago my cousin who is a DJ moved house and his eldest son made new friends with a neighbour, they were invited round to a party and met a lot of new faces. Some weeks later my cousin had to recuse himself because the Nanny of one of those new neighbours came before him in court. He didn't know her per se, but he felt obliged to pass the case over because he "knew" the family and knew of her.

Better to be safe than sorry.

Nicki

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

It's very likely indeed that this was a legal aid matter, so you're way out of line.

Sentencing hearings are fixed fee within the graduated fee scheme.

It's not wildly off-thread to point out that £1,000 is a ridiculous amount - the standard fee payable for a sentencing hearing involving a single Defendant is £60, and doesn't vary by the experience of the barrister or the nature of the offence, either! If the facts are opened, he will be paid £60 on each occasion, and if the facts weren't opened, the standard mention fee which is, I think, £47.50.

The brief fee / refresher is a way of charging which simply doesn't apply to sentencing hearings, but applies to multi-day trials.

Thanks. I have had very little to do with legal aid, and nothing at all in the last 20 years so the current fee levels are useful.

Nonetheless I think the barrister huffing and puffing IME is much more likely to be down to the personal inconvenience of turning up to court 4 times for a straightforward sentencing hearing which has been fluffed (if this is what happened as per the OP) rather than once, and is most unlikely to reflect any prejudice caused to the defendant by this. Pitching up in Cambridge for a mention at £47.50 does rather preclude you from also being in Ely on a 3 day trial over the same period for example, so the barrister could well be considerably out of pocket where a straightforward sentencing drags on and on needlessly

neverdespairgirl

Nicki wrote: »

Thanks. I have had very little to do with legal aid, and nothing at all in the last 20 years so the current fee levels are useful.

Nonetheless I think the barrister huffing and puffing IME is much more likely to be down to the personal inconvenience of turning up to court 4 times for a straightforward sentencing hearing which has been fluffed (if this is what happened as per the OP) rather than once, and is most unlikely to reflect any prejudice caused to the defendant by this. Pitching up in Cambridge for a mention at £47.50 does rather preclude you from also being in Ely on a 3 day trial over the same period for example, so the barrister could well be considerably out of pocket where a straightforward sentencing drags on and on needlessly

That is all perfectly sensible.

In financial terms, attending sentences and mentions as a barrister is not a good idea at all, let alone 4 in the same case.

thorsoak

OP: why are you asking these questions on a money saving forum? Why are you not asking your solicitor/barrister?

hermadge

Nicki wrote: »

I think where you are going wrong is to assume the second judge would feel duty bound to be harsh on your relative because the first judge knew the victim.

1. Judges are very well trained and very experienced in how to apply sentencing guidelines to facts.

2. Judge 1 clearly wasn't a good friend of the victim or had any personal relationship with them, as otherwise he would have known from the off that he knew them

3. Judges are professional colleagues not friends. They usually move from court to court round a circuit, don't all sit together in the same court house. So Judge 2 probably doesn't know Judge 1 all that well anyway.

4. Judge 1 had no option but to recuse himself if he knew the victim. Why does it affect the sentence judge 2 gave whether judge 1 did this after 3 hearing rather than 1?

The first few days after someone has been given a custodial sentence are going to be hard for the family left behind. Its natural to be upset and desparately trying to think of ways to appeal. Unfortunately I don't think the judge recusing himself gives you any grounds to do so but be guided by your legal team as to whether there are any other grounds.

Thank you for understanding how we are feeling, we were not thinking of appealing the sentence we were just wanting to check that the procedure for the Judge removing himself was correct and so on, my comment about the possibility of the new Judge being harsh was just a thought really, without going into too much detail the sentence is obviously within the guidelines but we are just saddened that the hope of a a suspended sentence was dashed at the last minute. We won't be looking onto it further as our questions have been answered here and I thank everyone who has offered helpful advice.

jacques_chirac

Battleaxe44 wrote: »

Jacques, I was making the comment about a judicial review regarding the first Judge's behaviour. not the sentence imposed by the second judge.

Which is still wrong. Here is an overview of JR, you will see it is not relevant here. You may have been thinking of the Office for Judicial Complaints, but again this is outside their remit. The correct channel to take this further is, as others have said, an appeal.

peachyprice

hermadge wrote: »

Thank you for understanding how we are feeling, we were not thinking of appealing the sentence we were just wanting to check that the procedure for the Judge removing himself was correct and so on, my comment about the possibility of the new Judge being harsh was just a thought really, without going into too much detail the sentence is obviously within the guidelines but we are just saddened that the hope of a a suspended sentence was dashed at the last minute. We won't be looking onto it further as our questions have been answered here and I thank everyone who has offered helpful advice.

It may just have been that you were unlucky with the replacement judge you got, some judges are notorious for their sentencing on certain types of cases, hence the barrister thinking a suspended sentence was a sure thing with the original judge.

Janepig

hermadge wrote: »

Thank you for understanding how we are feeling, we were not thinking of appealing the sentence we were just wanting to check that the procedure for the Judge removing himself was correct and so on, my comment about the possibility of the new Judge being harsh was just a thought really, without going into too much detail the sentence is obviously within the guidelines but we are just saddened that the hope of a a suspended sentence was dashed at the last minute. We won't be looking onto it further as our questions have been answered here and I thank everyone who has offered helpful advice.

Assuming the original Judge asked for a report from the Probation Service, did he ask for "all options" to be included in the report? If so then that means that custody was one of the options he was looking at when he requested the report.

To a degree the Barrister may have thought he or she was right in saying it was likely to attract a suspended sentence, however they were wrong to give you false hope. As I say, if the Judge gave an indication of all options then really everything was on the table to given as a sentence and the starting point is custody.

It can often be pot luck - I worked in a Magistrates Court with a District Judge who would always (and I mean always) send people to prison for City Centre drunken assaults when people were on nights out. If the Defendant went to the Court room next door on the same day in front of a bench of Magistrates, you could almost guarantee a non custodial sentence for them. Not appeal-able though for that reason as still within sentencing guidelines.

Jx

Yorkie1

There was one judge at my local Crown Court who was famous for sentencing burglars at the stronger end of permissible sentences.

It was quite entertaining to watch all the defendants due to be sentenced for burglary try to get their cases transferred to another court! The original judge knew exactly what was going on, and refused to release the cases!

That being said, judges hear so many cases that they are trained / accumstomed to be impartial, and will recuse themselves only where bias or an appearance of bias / requirement for an appearance of fairness requires it.

Other posters are correct that JR is not relevant in this situation, and in any event there isn't a JR Board (as per initial suggestion) - it's a proper court process.

geoffky

It is normal for the judge to excuse himself......Happens quite a bit...No appeal i am afraid.
Once a assault/gbh/mw reaches the crown court then most times but not all it ends with a prison sentence otherwise the magistrates could of dealt with it instead of sending it to the crown court.