Kevin Miles v. Charles Ryan
Opinion
Opinion
Berzon, J.
Order; Statement by Judges BERSON and TALLMAN.
ORDER
Appellant’s motion for recusal is DENIED.
Appellant’s motion to recuse Judge Graber was, in its format, directed to all three judges on the three-judge panel in this case. Under this Circuit’s procedures, however, each judge may decide for himself or herself whether recusal is appropriate. See, e.g., Suever v. Connell, 681 F.3d 1064 (9th Cir.2012); Feminist Women’s Health Center v. Codispoti, 69 F.3d 399 (9th Cir.1995); 28 U.S.C.A. § 455 . We therefore directed the motion to Judge Graber alone, who has denied the recusal request.
Should our silence be misunderstood, however, we wish to state that were it appropriate for us to have participated in the recusal decision, we would have voted to deny the motion. Indeed, we regard the request itself as an inappropriate one.
The basis for the requested recusal was a tragedy in Judge Graber’s life that occurred close to forty years ago, her father’s murder and the subsequent prosecution of the perpetrator. The suggestion was that Judge Graber cannot fairly decide this capital murder case because of that history and some broad similarities between the two criminal cases.