In what I predict will be the benchmark opinion for analyzing motions for judicial recusal in Delaware, the Chancery Court’s recent decision in Reeder v. Delaware Dept. of Insurance, download file, provides a scholarly and comprehensive discussion of the topic. Reference was made in the opinion to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Scalia’s decision denying a motion for his recusal. That U.S. Supreme Court opinion was summarized in one of my earliest blog entries here.
The Chancery Court opinion also addresses a Freedom of Information Act claim in detail, and the motion for recusal was a “non-motion” to the extent that it was only indirectly suggested by a pro se litigant. But to its credit, once the issue was raised, however improperly and frivolously, it needed to be addressed by the Court. I commend the reader to the text of the decision at the above link, but when reading it myself I could not help feeling how unfortunate it was that the court had to dignify such a baseless claim with a reply, though in doing justice to the issue, we now have a work of art on the topic.