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"Federal Judge Refuses To Take New Criminal Cases"

By Douglas A. Berman

The title of this post is the headline of this NPR piece about a notable federal district judge's decision to reshape his docket.  Here are the basics from the piece: A federal judge in Milwaukee has taken the unusual step of refusing to accept new criminal cases and recusing himself from existing ones, in a move observers say is about politics, impropriety and, possibly, hurt feelings.  Federal Court Clerk Jon Sanfilippo says the way he sees it, the reason Judge J.P. Stadtmueller is refusing criminal cases "really springs from one case." Sanfilippo, the only person at the federal courthouse in downtown Milwaukee who was willing to talk about the situation, says it all started after a ruling in July by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. Prosecutors thought Stadtmueller showed bias in a gun case and took the rare move of asking the appeals court to remove him, which it did...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on September 03, 2009 (boomark / email).