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Alameda County DA moves to disqualify judge who torpedoed plea deal in three-count murder case
April 6, 2023
Judge denied recusal motion hours before announcement
By NATE GARTRELL | ngartrell@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group
PUBLISHED: April 5, 2023 at 10:05 p.m. | UPDATED: April 6, 2023 at 7:40 a.m.
OAKLAND — Weeks after an Alameda County judge shot down a plea deal that would have sentenced a man accused of three homicides to 15 years, the district attorney announced she is moving to disqualify him from all criminal cases.
Alameda County DA Pamela Price announced the move Wednesday afternoon on a YouTube video, hours after Judge Mark McCannon denied motions by both the prosecution and defense to recuse him from the case of Delonzo Logwood. In the video, Price took aim at McCannon, saying the judge “overstepped his boundaries” and “created a firestorm of prejudicial comments that do not, in my view, serve justice.”
It is an uncommon but hardly unheard of practice that is more often used by defense attorneys. But last July, then-DA Nancy O’Malley, Price’s predecessor, wrote that her prosecutors “cannot have a fair and impartial trial or hearing or any criminal procedure” before Judge Amy Sekany in a motion to disqualify her.
In Contra Costa County, the Public Defender’s office has moved to disqualify various judges several times in recent years, and the Alameda County Public Defender sought to remove a superior court judge last year as well.
Price didn’t specify which of McCannon’s comments she was referring to, nor did she say which law her office will cite to disqualify McCannon. State law provides two options — flood a judge with disqualification petitions in a practice commonly known as papering, or file a singular motion with a much higher legal standard to forcibly recuse the judge for bias.
Price’s exact wording — that her office will file “a motion” to disqualify McCannon from “any criminal cases being prosecuted by my office” — suggests she was referring to the latter option, though simply papering McCannon would likely produce faster results. The California civics code allows attorneys on either side one opportunity per case to disqualify a judge simply by asking for recusal, provided there hasn’t been a factual hearing in the case.
Last month, McCannon, a former prosecutor, rejected a plea deal for Logwood, an alleged West Oakland gang member accused of murdering three people when he was 18. McCannon said he had “many sleepless nights” while contemplating the deal.
McCannon told Logwood, ““You can’t think an apology will make this all better,” and at an earlier hearing, called it one of the most lenient deals he’d ever seen.
On Wednesday, just hours before Price announced she was moving to disqualify McCannon, he rejected motions by both prosecutors and Logwood’s attorney to remove him from the case. The Berkeley Scanner wrote that McCannon chided the attorneys, telling them, “I am not the low-hanging fruit or scapegoat for the debacle this case has become.”
“It seems to me you all don’t like my ruling, so you think that I should be disqualified,” he later added, the Berkeley Scanner reported.
Logwood’s attorney says he is planning to appeal McCannon’s ruling, and meanwhile, the clock is ticking for Logwood’s trial. Jury selection has been tentatively scheduled for April 17, and unless Logwood waives time, that’s when it will start. Logwood was charged, along with Dijon Holifield, in 2015. Since then, Holifield’s case has been sent to juvenile court, since he was 17 at the time of the alleged offenses.
Adding to the confusion, the Deputy District Attorney who had been handling Logwood’s case for years recently resigned, joining roughly two dozen attorneys who have been quit, been fired, or been placed on leave since Price took the oath of office last January.
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