Criminal Procedure – mandamus — trial delay

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United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Criminal

Criminal Procedure – mandamus — trial delay

An 11-day hiatus in trial and change of judge while the government sought mandamus in the Court of Appeals did not prejudice the defendant’s right to a fair trial.

“The defendant argues that when the trial resumed, the jurors, remembering the skeptical remarks that the original judge had made about the government’s evidence, must have thought that he had been “punished” for siding with the defendant by being removed and therefore that the jury should convict. That is unpersuasive conjecture. Because of sickness most commonly, but sometimes for other reasons, such as belated discovery of a ground for recusal, a judge is sometimes replaced during a trial and when that happens the new judge tells the jury that such replacements happen occasionally and the jurors are not to worry about the change in judges or speculate about the reason for it.”

Affirmed.

11-2894 U.S. v. Herrera

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Pallmeyer, J., Posner, J.