I try to confine my writing to blurbs about recent sex cases, but ‘J.MH.’ is a case of general importance for everyone involved in the criminal justice system,
J.M.H. plead guilty to a misdemeanor in juvenile court in 2022. She failed to follow the judge’s court ordered conditions of disposition. The judge issued an arrest warrant, which J.M.H’s lawyer challenged as invalid under the juvenile court rules. The judge denied the defense motion, and J.M.H’s lawyer appealed.
By the time J.M.H.’s appeal was considered, the trial judge on her case had been appointed to the Court of Appeals! The judge ended up on the panel reviewing his own decision to issue the warrant!!
The Court of Appeals here upheld the trial judge, with that judge on the panel; sort of a bad optic, and defeats the purpose of having the right of appeal.
The Washington Supreme Court held “a judge cannot review the appeal of a decision that the same judge made when sitting as a trial judge in the same case”, citing a 1955 U.S. Supreme Court case In Re Murchuson 349 U.U. 133, 139.
The Supreme Court reversed and remanded to the Court of Appeals; guessing the new panel will not include the same appellate judge!