Judge Rachel Krause refused to recuse herself from a legal dispute over Judge Ural Glanville, the judge overseeing Young Thug’s RICO trial, in a July 9 court order. Defense lawyers sought Glanville’s recusal due to a controversial meeting between the judge, prosecutors and a key witness in Young Thug’s trial.
Krause was tasked with deciding whether Glanville must step down from the case. Young Thug and his co-defendants questioned her impartiality. Defense attorneys filed a motion requesting Krause’s recusal, citing Glanville’s $2,000 donation to Krause’s re-election campaign. Krause denied any conflict of interest.
“The only consideration for the Court is whether Judge Glanville’s campaign donation to this Court’s re-election campaign warrants recusal,” Krause wrote. “The Georgia Supreme Court has held that the mere fact of a campaign contribution to a judge — even from a party to the case — does not warrant recusal where the contribution was not exceptionally large … This Court does not relish the task to which it has been assigned, but ‘[i]t is as much the duty of a judge not to grant the motion to recuse when the motion is legally insufficient as it is to recuse when the motion is meritorious.’”
Georgia’s former Judicial Qualifications Commission chair Lester Tate criticized Krause’s decision.
“Given the dumpster fire the YSL trial has become, I’m really shocked she has not recused herself,” Tate told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Even if the letter of the law allows it, to benefit the judiciary and protect its image to the public, the better practice would be for her to voluntarily recuse.”
Chuck Boring, another former chair of the JQC, disagreed.
“No judge would want to be put in this position and have to decide this sticky issue,” Boring noted. “However, it is her job and it appears she is not taking the easy way out and just recusing when legally it is not necessitated.”
Young Thug’s trial is on hold until Krause – or another judge – decides if Glanville must recuse himself. It is already the longest trial in Georgia history.
