Argument Approaching on Texas Motion to Recuse

Texas Lawyer has a story about a fascinating fight shaping up in Texas, all based on an article by David Anderson at the University of Texas School of Law (from whom I took Mass Media Law, by the way).  In brief, his article indicated that defendants won a very high percentage of appeals brought in 2004 and 2005.  The plaintiffs in the appeal have sought the recusal of four justices, contending that this article indicates they cannot be impartial.

…Anderson, who teaches torts and mass media law at UT, gives low odds to the plaintiffs’ chance of winning recusal.

“It’s always hard to get a judge recused. To try to get fourjudges recused just based on statistical evidence would be veryunlikely,” Anderson says. “I’m not sure recusal is the remedy in thesituation that’s revealed in the statistics. It’s political. You haveto elect judges who are less committed to a single side of the docket.”

–BC