ECOT posturing with petition

I respond to the Wednesday Dispatch article on the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow’s attempts to remove Appeals Court Judge Gary Tyack from its pending appeal. I think there needs to be some clarification about when judicial recusal is considered appropriate.

There is a very low bar for recusal if the issue of judicial bias or another problem is brought to the court’s attention early in the case.

ECOT officials are making a fuss about how Tyack questioned it during oral argument, and virtually no one thinks recusal would be appropriate that late in the case. Oral argument is not a trial, and by the time it occurs, an appellate judge has reviewed the record. Judges are supposed to be formulating their decisions at that point and their questions indicate what direction they are leaning.

Each side gets only 15 minutes to argue and answer the panel’s questions. The questions a judge asks are to give the advocate a chance to respond to the judge’s concerns and potentially change his or her mind.

I think the system is biased toward wealth as represented by big law firms and the government against any small advocate or solo attorney, no matter how good they might be. And that is part of the issue here. ECOT expects favored treatment from any Republican judge due to the clout of its contributions to the Republican Party.

The petition to the Supreme Court to remove Tyack, a Democrat, from the ECOT case is a exercise in political gamesmanship and power.

Victoria Ullmann Attorney at law Columbus