By The Vanguard Staff
OAKLAND, CA – Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price, on a YouTube video, announced late last week said a judge “overstepped” his boundaries when he killed a plea deal that would have sentenced a young man to 15 years in prison for three homicides, according to a story in the Mercury News.
Price said she was moving to disqualify Judge Mark McCannon from all criminal cases, charging, reported the Mercury News, the judge had “created a firestorm of prejudicial comments that do not, in my view, serve justice.”
McCannon denied motions by both the prosecution and defense to recuse himself from the case of Delonzo Logwood, noting the judge told Logwood, “You can’t think an apology will make this all better” after calling the plea deal one of the most lenient deals he’d ever seen, said Mercury News reporting.
Price said her office would file a motion to disqualify Judge McCannon from “any criminal cases being prosecuted by my office” but didn’t explain, said the Mercury News, whether she’d do it by flooding the judge with disqualification petitions or file a motion to forcibly recuse the judge for bias.
McCannon, who has reportedly said he had “many sleepless nights” while contemplating the deal, told lawyers, “I am not the low-hanging fruit or scapegoat for the debacle this case has become,” according to The Berkeley Scanner.
“It seems to me you all don’t like my ruling, so you think that I should be disqualified,” he added, the Berkeley Scanner reported.
Logwood’s attorney said he will appeal McCannon’s ruling. The trial is set for April 17. Logwood, 18 at the time of the alleged crime, was charged, along with Dijon Holifield, in 2015. Holifield’s case has been sent to juvenile court because he was 17 at the time of the alleged offenses, reported the Mercury News.
The Contra Costa Public Defender’s Office has moved to disqualify various judges several times in recent years. The Alameda County Public Defender also sought to remove a superior court judge last year as well, said the Mercury News.
