Law:

Section:

(a) Bias--- ----Judicial bias---Recusal from Bench---Due process of law---Scope---Judge participating in the review of a death penalty case in which he was personally involved when he previously served as a prosecutor/district attorney---Whether violation of due process of law---Judge must recuse himself from a defendant's criminal case, based on an impermissible risk of actual bias, when he was personally involved in making a critical decision as a prosecutor earlier in the defendant's case---No attorney was more integral to the accusatory process than a prosecutor who participated in a major adversary decision; the decision to pursue the death penalty was a critical choice---Due process guarantee that "no man can be a judge in his own case" would have little substance if it did not disqualify a former prosecutor from sitting in of a prosecution in which he or she had made a critical decision---Judge's denial of the recusal motion in the present case and his subsequent participation in petitioner's post-conviction appeal violated the due process clause---Appearance of bias demeaned the reputation and integrity not just of one jurist, but of the larger institution/bench of which he or she was a part---Both the appearance and reality of impartial justice were necessary to the public legitimacy of judicial pronouncements and thus to the rule of law itself---Neither the involvement of multiple members on the Bench nor the passage of time relieved the judge in question/former prosecutor of the duty to withdraw or recuse himself---Fact that the judge's vote was not the deciding vote on the multi-member bench of the court did not lessen the unfairness---Supreme Court held that due process entitled the petitioner to a proceeding in which he may present his case with the assurance that no member of the court was predisposed to find against him---Case was remanded to the court below accordingly. [Per John G. Roberts, CJ, (Minority view)]; In the present case, there was no evidence that the judge in question had actually been involved in, or formed a decision on, whether to seek the death penalty, and therefore there was no "objective risk of actual bias" such that it…