Waco Trib By TOMMY WITHERSPOON 9/11/2017
For the second time in two weeks, a visiting judge has removed 19th State District Judge Ralph Strother from presiding over a case involving a biker arrested in the 2015 Twin Peaks shootout.
Christopher Jacob Carrizal, the 36-year-old president of the Bandidos Dallas chapter, is still slated to go to trial Tuesday. However, Judge Matt Johnson, not Strother, will be there in an attempt to impanel 150 potential jurors who have been summoned for Carrizal's trial. The final jury panel would then be selected from that group.
Carrizal's attorney, Casie Gotro, of Houston, said she will file a motion to recuse Johnson on Tuesday morning, which would put a halt — at least temporarily — to Johnson's involvement in the case.
Regional administrative Judge Billy Ray Stubblefield has contacted a judge to hear the recusal motion if Gotro makes good on her pledge to try to remove Johnson, who said he will not step aside voluntarily. That hearing could be held as early as Tuesday morning, court officials said.
Stubblefield appointed Retired Judge Dan Mills, a longtime former federal prosecutor, to hear the recusal motion against Strother. After a six-hour hearing Monday, Mills, like retired Judge James Morgan last month, applied the "reasonable man-on-the-street" test to the question and removed Strother from Carrizal's case.
The test, as the judges explained it, is whether the average person viewing the situation would wonder if the judge was being fair.
Gotro, who continued her sparring match with prosecutor Michael Jarrett during the hearing, said she would seek to remove Johnson because the facts are the same for both judges. Gotro said last week that she only met Johnson briefly for the first time Aug. 25 when the Carrizal jury panel reported for the first time.
More:
http://www.wacotrib.com/news/courts_and_trials/judge-recused-from-another-twin-peaks-biker-trial/article_6d5e0bf8-8c98-52a6-80c2-6d195497630d.html
