ATLANTA — The gavel in the YSL trial passed to a third judge Wednesday.
The Fulton County Clerk of Courts assigned Judge Paige Whitaker to the case. She declined to comment on whether she will accept the position Wednesday.
The change came hours after Judge Shukura Ingram filed an order recusing herself from taking over the trial.
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Ingram’s recusal order said she could not take the case due to her connection to a person attorneys could call as a witness during the trial.
Akeiba Stanley was a deputy working security inside her courtroom when she was arrested, and accused of having a relationship with one of the defendants in the YSL trial, Christian Eppinger.
Ingram’s order said, “While the Court does not regard the aforementioned situation as creating any actual bias for or against any party to this case, the Court does view this as a matter that could cause a reasonable person to question the Court’s impartiality and reasonably give rise to the appearance of impropriety…”
“I respect her for following the judicial canons in her code,” said Doug Weinstein.
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Weinstein is one of the defense attorneys in the YSL case. He filed the motion that led a superior court to order the first judge in the case, Hon. Ural Glanville, to recuse himself.
The ruling came just over a month after the defendants in the case accused Glanville of holding an improper and coercive meeting with the prosecution and a witness without the defense present. However, the judge was not removed from the meeting itself.
The Superior Court’s order emphasized that judges must disclose information in a dispassionate and non-argumentative way to avoid appearing biased.
Legal analysts and attorney Amanda Clark Palmer said the bigger question is whether the trial will have to restart with a new judge.
“The big question that nobody knows the definitive answer to is, “Are we going to have to start all over? There is some prior precedent when you have a new judge pick up in the middle of a trial that says they can review transcripts of the trial and keep going. But, that was in a much shorter trial. So, there’s no clear answer as to what happens now,” said Palmer.
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