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My divorce case has been going on in the in California Family court for the last 8 years. I completed custody and Property trial last year with the same Judge. I have support trial set up for February 2015. My question is: Can I recuse or disqualify my Judge for the upcoming February 2015 trial? My attorney who says that we cannot do it (though he is not 100% sure about it), because the Judge is an all purpose judge and should have been disqualified the very first time before or immediately after the first trial begun. I have a feeling that each trial is different. We will have a new Pretrial order for the support trial soon. We had pre-trial orders for custody and Property trials too. We have never attempted to disqualify our current Judge before. Please let me know, if we can disqualify my judge using CCP Sec 170.6, or any other process, given my situation, as described above, for my upcoming trial in February 2005. Please share P&A, case laws, Family Codes to support your answers.
1 ANSWER
Family Law Attorney serving Suisun City, CA
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Law Offices of Russo & Prince
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Your time for a peremptory challenge has passed. Your only claim now is to disqualify the judge for cause. These motions are very rarely granted and you must have cause - i.e. the judge has a personal investment in the outcome of your case, is biased against you for some reason, etc... I almost never recommend filing a motion to disqualify a judge for cause because you very likely will lose and then you have to proceed to trial in front of that same judge. If your lawyer isn't clear on these rules then you might consider getting a second opinion with another experienced attorney in your area.
Answered on Jan 04th, 2016 at 10:45 AM