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Author:
Cindy
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Date Posted: 09:52:18 04/19/02 Fri
In reply to:
Elli
's message, "new article" on 09:39:49 04/19/02 Fri
Thanks Elli, I found it online at:
http://www.heraldtribune.com/sarasota/s-story.cfm?ID=66782
Attorney wants to question all 24 judges for prejudice
posted 04/18/02
By JENNIFER SULLIVAN
jennifer.sullivan@heraldtribune.com
SARASOTA -- Geoffrey Fieger, the Michigan attorney who defended Ralf Panitz in his murder trial here last month, wants to question all 24 circuit judges under oath. He says he's looking for prejudice against his client.
Fieger filed a motion Wednesday, demanding the right to question the judges, the disqualification of the presiding judge and a new trial for Panitz.
Panitz, 42, was found guilty of killing his ex-wife, Nancy Campbell, in July 2000.
In the weeks after Panitz's second-degree murder conviction March 26, Chief Judge Thomas Gallen criticized Fieger for comments he made about several jurors after the trial. Gallen also filed a complaint against him with the Florida Bar. Fieger sued the judge, accusing him of slander.
Fieger wants to know which judges Gallen has talked to about him. And he wants the trial judge, Nancy Donnellan, who is scheduled to sentence Panitz on May 24, removed from the case.
"To the extent that such extra-judicial activities by Mr. Gallen serve to prejudice Ralf Panitz, it is necessary that the possibility of such prejudice be fully examined in open court prior to any future rulings by this Court concerning the defendant," Fieger wrote in his motion.
He criticized Donnellan for denying his request for a new trial without holding a hearing, a standard practice for local judges.
Fieger told the Herald-Tribune just after the jury verdict that several jurors were "Nazis," "creeps" and "bad people."
Gallen said Fieger violated the Bar rule that an attorney "shall not make a statement that the lawyer knows to be false or with reckless disregard as to its truth or falsity concerning the qualifications or integrity of" court officials and jurors.
In his motion, Fieger said he had "additional evidence" that juror Owen Stacy misbehaved during the trial. Stacy, the motion says, made up his mind before the trial was over. Fieger attached a newspaper clipping quoting Stacy as saying Panitz's testimony "clinched it for me."
Stacy was one of the two jurors that Fieger said acted like a "Nazi."s.
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