McCuin v. Texas Power & Light Co.

ALVIN B. RUBIN, Circuit Judge:

The right to counsel, safeguarded by the constitutional guarantee of due process of law, includes the right to choose the lawyer who will provide that representation. The defendants in each of these cases employed the brother-in-law of the judge before whom the case was pending. That judge then assigned the case to another judge, who found that in each case, the defendant had engaged the judge’s relative as a strategem in order to disqualify the judge and that the employment was a sham. We hold that the judge to whom each case was initially assigned was required…