United States v. Carla Florentine Hines, Leroy Dale Hines, Robert E. Woolverton, Anna Mae Hines, and Anthony A. Cassel

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• ruling that in absence of circumstances suggesting otherwise, it should be assumed that judge would have disqualified himself or herself if any reasonable question of impartiality existed
• observing that “the procedural requirements of [Section 144], which are quite specific, have been strictly construed,” and thus, “actual disqualifications under [the statute] have been rare”
• upholding denial of motion to disqualify based on hearsay statements allegedly made by the judge to an unnamed individual
• finding no abuse of discretion when the court held a hearing to determine the nature of a two-minute conversation between an FBI witness and two jurors and concluded that the conversation did not involve the merits of the case or evidence and did not taint the jury
• “[T]here is no prejudice if evidence is such that the jury could compartmentalize it against each defendant.”
• “[I]n practice, the procedural requirements of this statute, which are quite specific, have been strictly construed . . . . As a result, actual disqualifications under section 144 have been rare.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).