Trial Conviction Reversed Because Court Should Have Recused Itself

U.S. v. Franco-Guillen, 2006 WL 2879063 (10/11/06)(unpub'd) - A Kansas judge who apparently has been a visiting judge in Las Cruces [court to defendant: "You have more aliases than I've seen anybody have except one individual down in Las Cruces, NM."], said the following, while setting aside plea agreement when the defendant complained about how high the PSR calculated his guideline range: "I will not put up with this from these Hispanics or anybody else, any other defendants ... I've got another case involving a Hispanic defendant who came in here and told me that he understood what was going on and that everything was fine and now I've got a 2255 from him saying he can't speak English. And he is lying because he told me he could." The 10th vacates the defendant's jury trial conviction, ruling the court should have recused itself from presiding over the case under 28 U.S.C. § 455(a), because a reasonable person would harbor doubts about the judge's impartiality. The 10th raves about how great it was that the government conceded error.