Stephanie Musselwhite, et al. v. United States

The government, by means of an ex parte motion that violated the district court’s blind-filing and notice rules, obtained the transfer of petitioner’s federal criminal case to a new judge. Petitioner unsuccessfully moved to vacate the transfer order on due process grounds, and despite the government’s concession that the transfer created an appearance of impermissible forum-shopping and of an attempt to remove the originally-assigned judge who had presided over the case for nine months, the motion was denied. Petitioner renewed the motion to vacate the transfer, after timely verifying the new judge’s financial interest in the case, and the government conceded that the transfer should be vacated to avoid the appearance of impropriety. The new judge recused, but again denied the motion to vacate transfer. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed, concluding that a successor judge’s adoption of the recused judge’s transfer and other orders cured any due process violation. Does the Eleventh Circuit’s theory of ratification of a recused judge’s orders violate the due process requirement of the appearance of impartiality and undermine the remedial holding of this Court in Williams v. Pennsylvania, 136 S.Ct. 1899 (2016), that a clean slate should be afforded to a litigant who timely objected to the participation of a judge whose recusal was required because of a conflict of interest? (i)