Judge disqualifies himself from DA’s removal hearing, will preside at trial
Criminal Court Judge Mark Ward rendered a split decision Friday on a motion from defense attorneys that asked him to disqualify himself from the retrial of a man who has been on death row since 2001.
Ward ruled that he will ask the Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts to provide a special judge to oversee proceedings in a motion to disqualify the Shelby County District Attorney General’s office from inmate Andrew Thomas’ retrial.
But Ward will preside over the trial himself.
Defense attorneys Claiborne Ferguson and Michael Working asked Ward to disqualify himself primarily because of Ward’s campaign contribution to Criminal Court Judge Jennifer Nichols’ campaign. Nichols was co-counsel with then assistant attorney general Amy Weirich during Thomas’ first trial.
While the contribution was within the legal and ethical boundaries judges are allowed, Ferguson argued that Nichols’ past actions as an assistant DA might become part of the trial.
And the donation indicates that “this court has put its own personal money and its own personal reputation on the line” in support of Nichols, he said. Ward said he found “absolutely no merit” to the defense’s request, but “out of an abundance of caution,” agreed to request a special judge to hear the motion to have Weirich’s office disqualified.
Ferguson and Working said they will review Ward’s decision and could possibly appeal.
Both Weirich, now the district attorney general, and Thomas where in court on Friday for the hearing.
Thomas was convicted in 2001 of first-degree murder in the death of James Day Jr.
Thomas robbed a Walgreens store on Summer Avenue in 1997 when he also shot Day, an armored car courier for Loomis, Fargo and Co., in the back of the head. Day survived but was paralyzed.
He was able to testify against Thomas in federal court on the robbery. Thomas was found guilty and sentenced to life plus five years.
Day died in 1999, and the medical examiner ruled the death stemmed from the injuries sustained in the shooting.
Thomas was granted a new trial in 2017 after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled that prosecutors should have disclosed the $750 payment his ex-girlfriend, Angela Jackson, received from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Jackson testified in his federal and state trials.
Weirich has said she did not know about the payment until 2011, which was made in 1998, after Thomas’ conviction in federal court, a year before Day died and three years before Thomas was convicted on state charges.
Statements from the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the state attorney general’s office, which handled the appeal, support that timeline.
Still, the Thomas case was cited in a Harvard report this year about prosecutorial misconduct. Researchers with Harvard Law School’s Fair Punishment Project ranked the Shelby County District Attorney General’s Office highest in Tennessee for misconduct and reversals.