People v. Julien

The majority concludes that a judge who was formerly employed by the district attorney's office is not required to recuse himself from presiding over a criminal case that was pending while he worked in the D.A.'s office unless he had some role in or supervised the investigation or prosecution of the case or has personal knowledge of disputed eviden-tiary facts. I believe that this bright-line rule is inconsistent with both the Code of *1201Judicial Conduct and the core values of our judicial system. I also believe that the trial judge in this case should have disclosed his recent employment with…