Navigation Parkland shooting judge disqualified from capital case appeal
The Florida Supreme Court has granted a Death Row inmate’s request to disqualify the judge hearing his appeal, based, in part, on her interactions with his prosecutor in the Nikolas Cruz mass slaying trial.
In an April 13 ruling in Randy W. Tundidor v. State of Florida, Case No. SC2022-1732, justices noted that the law does not require Tundidor to show that the judge is “actually biased” or “unable to be impartial.”
“Rather, ‘[t]he question of disqualification focuses on those matters from which a litigant may reasonably question a judge’s impartiality rather than the judge’s perception [of her] ability to act fairly and impartially.’”
