Alameda County District Attorney Price seeks to have judge disqualified from her cases
OAKLAND – Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price is seeking to have a judge disqualified from hearing any criminal case her office prosecutes, Price said Wednesday in a YouTube video.
Price is seeking to disqualify Alameda County Superior Court Judge Mark McCannon, saying he has made inappropriate comments or behaved inappropriately on two occasions.
Price did not say exactly what McCannon said or did on those occasions.
McCannon "overstepped his boundaries as a judicial officer and has created a firestorm of prejudicial comments that do not, in my view, serve justice," Price said in the video.
McCannon is presiding over a case involving defendant Delonzo Logwood, who is accused of killing three people when he was 18 years old.
Price sought a 15-year sentence for Logwood, a plea deal that McCannon would not accept.
Price and defense attorneys on Wednesday sought to disqualify McCannon from the Logwood case. McCannon denied both motions.
McCannon wrote in an order denying the motions that he could not tell which of two sections of the California Code of Civil Procedure that Price was seeking to disqualify him under. He addressed both.
He said the challenge under Section 170.6, which would disqualify him for prejudice, was filed too late. The challenge under Section 170.1 sought to disqualify him because he may be biased.
McCannon wrote that Price needs to set "out the facts that support the disqualification" from the case. He said Price's "request is completely devoid of facts that support the request for disqualification."
Price merely "stated conclusions in support of the disqualification request," McCannon wrote. Conclusions "are insufficient," McCannon's order said.
McCannon set a date of April 17 for the trial for Logwood to begin.
Price is a former civil rights attorney, and she is seeking to change the criminal justice system, she has said. Numerous attorneys in her office have reportedly left or been forced to leave since she took office after being elected in November.
McCannon, through the court's executive office, did not respond late Wednesday to a request for comment on the effort to disqualify him from any criminal case Price's office prosecutes.
Price's office did not immediately respond to a request to interview her or a member of her staff for this story.