The Lane Myers Experience had a stunning setback on Wednesday night when Judge D. Douglas Metcalf ruled on leader Lane Myers’ motion to force Metcalf, who is over seeing Myers’ probation revocation hearing, to recuse himself from the case.
Myers was counting on knocking Metcalf out of presiding over the case by objecting to his appearance on participation in the Arizona Supreme Court Task Force on the Rules of the Supreme Court, which had a recent hearing which in part was devoted to a rules change proposed by the husband of Myers’ victim.
Members of the Lane Myers Experience also objected to Metcalf’s involvement in the task force as they claimed that the entire hearing was caused by and devoted to Myers.
Metcalf addressed those concerns:
It is true that Mr. Walker is both a witness for the State in this case and a person who filed his own rule petition to amend the Supreme Court Rules regarding the use of cameras and portable electronic devices in the courtroom. It is possible that Mr. Walker’s rule petition (which is posted on the Supreme Court’s publicly available Rules Forum) may be included in the materials that the Task Force has reviewed as to amendments to Supreme Court Rules 122 and 122.1, although this Division does not have a recollection of that. However, matters considered by Task Force are judicial in nature because rule making is a judicial function. Burney v. Lee, 59 Ariz. 360, 364 (1942) (“[T]he rule-making power is essentially judicial in its nature.”); Ariz. Constitution, Art. 6, § 5(5) (“The supreme court shall have … [the] [p]ower to make rules relative to all procedural matters in any court.”). It is not, as Defendant contends, “extrajudicial.”
It is well-settled “that the bias and prejudice necessary to disqualify a judge must arise from an extra-judicial source and not from what the judge has done in his participation in the case.” Smith v. Smith, 115 Ariz. 299, 303 (App. 1977). To the extent that this Division has been exposed to anything regarding Mr. Walker’s rule petition, or has any thoughts about recommending a rule change to Supreme Court Rules 122 and 122.1, it did so in its judicial role of working on court rule changes as a member of the Supreme Court’s Task Force. Under Smith v. Smith, this cannot create the potential for bias.
Moreover, and importantly, to the best of this Division’s recollection, the only time Defendant’s name has been mentioned during any Task Force meeting was during comments made by members of the public, at least one of whom is associated with Defendant, during a call to the public at the September 3 meeting. It is well settled that a litigant (in this case through proxies) cannot claim bias or prejudice when “a party acts deliberately and with an ulterior motive in such a way as to cause the judge to become biased and prejudiced against that party….” Id. To allow a litigant to cause a judge to have to recuse himself based on the litigant’s own conduct (through proxies) would “severely hamper[] and thwart[]” “the orderly administration of judicial proceedings.”
Metcalf ultimately concluded:
Defendant has not met his burden to show bias or prejudice by producing evidence of actual bias that goes beyond mere speculation, as Arizona law requires. State v. Macias, 249 Ariz. 335, 342, ¶ 22 (App. 2020). (“To rebut the presumption of judicial impartiality, the challenging party must show actual bias; mere speculation about bias is not sufficient.”) (internal quotation marks omitted). The Court will not recuse itself due to its participation in the Arizona Supreme Court Task Force on the Rules of the Supreme Court because such participation does not call into question whether its impartiality might reasonably be questioned in the unrelated revocation of probation proceedings in these two cases.
The new developments in Myers’ case did not bring new attention to his GiveSendGo campaign for Thursday.
John “First Amendment Protection Agency” Medaglia’s ILLEGAL ARREST DEFENSE FUND!!! Won the day with $25.00 in new donations. He was followed by Christopher “Direct D” Ruff’s Help Christopher Ruff (Direct D) Clear His Name GoFundMe, which took in $20.00.
SeanPaul “Long Island Audit” Reyes’s Support The Fight Against Tyranny & Corruption! Campaign placed third with $17.00 in new donations.
No other campaigns that we follow saw donations for Thursday.
This is a breaking news story.
[Full disclosure: Mr. Myers has both threatened to sue and/or to file an injunction against ReallyCoolNews. If you’d like to contribute to our fund set up to fight possible legal action/keep the lights on/keep the cats fed, our GoFundMe is located at https://www.gofundme.com/f/reallycoolsite-ongoing-expenses.]
