“A total breakdown”

There are a bunch of reports on the interwebs about the decision of Judge Stadtmueller, E.D. Wisc., to recuse from all criminal cases. The reports include very little actual reporting. Mostly, they quote the overly chatty court clerk, who is embarrassingly clueless about everything and should really just be quiet.

The whole story is, of course, available on Westlaw to anyone who bothers to look. The saga is over a felon-in-possession case that was brought in federal court after the State of Wisconsin nolle prosse’d it. The defendant pled guilty after the government said he was not an “armed career criminal” which would mean a crushing sentence. After he pled, the government changed its mind, and then opposed the defendant’s motion to withdraw his plea. (Ha, what a cagey government!) The defendant withdrew his plea anyway, was convicted after trial, and successfully appealed. After all that, the first trial judge recused and the case landed on Judge Stadtmueller’s desk.

The Judge … called a meeting in chambers on October 9, 2008, with then-United States Attorney Steven M. Biskupic and Federal Defender Daniel W. Stiller. Assistant United States Attorney Gordon P. Giampietro and Associate Federal Defender Nancy Joseph, who were the attorneys actually litigating the case, were not invited. No court reporter was present, and no meeting minutes are reflected on the district court’s docket. The Judge began by telling Mr. Biskupic and Mr. Stiller that he would not hear discussion, comment or response from either of them. According to the parties’ submissions, the Judge then recounted the procedural history of the case and reminded the office heads that, before the confusion surrounding application of the armed career criminal statute, both parties had preferred to resolve the case with a plea bargain. The Judge also suggested that his pending ruling on the motions to suppress would not satisfy either party and recommended that they consult with the assigned attorneys to explore the possibility of resolving the case without additional litigation.
The Government adds that, in discussing the procedural history of the case, the Judge suggested that there was “an awful lot of blame to be spread around for what he considered to be a total breakdown of justice.”
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… The Judge called an off-the-record meeting with the United States Attorney and the Federal Defender. This manner of proceeding in a federal criminal matter is indeed unusual and necessarily raises substantial concerns in the mind of any well-informed observer. We must take special note of the fact that no record was taken of the meeting. In other contexts, this and other courts have pointed out the need to make a record whenever substantive discussions take place between court and counsel, and we see no reason to exempt the present situation from that admonition. …
The substance of the discussion at the meeting convinces us that the Judge misapprehended the limits of his authority. The parties agree that, at the October 9 meeting, the Judge suggested a specific plea bargain. This participation was clearly violative of the specific prohibition in the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure that forbids the court from becoming involved in plea negotiations. …

The Seventh Circuit issued a writ of mandamus ordering the judge to recuse himself. The judge’s subsequent refusal to take criminal cases until the Obama people pick a new U.S. Attorney gets reported as the story of a crazy judge who’s gone off the reservation. (The judge, incidentally, was appointed by Reagan and was the United States Attorney for the district. He’s hardly a pink-o.) This tale needs to be understood in the context of Draconian mandatory-minimum sentences that are routinely relied upon by prosecutors to extort guilty pleas. Judge Stadtmueller isn’t the only judge who’s had enough of this.