Is there bias?

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/lawyer_in_infanticide_case_accuses_catholic_judge_of_bias_over_his_religion/

A lawyer defending a woman accused of murdering her infant son has made a rather desperate attempt to accuse the judge of being unfit to preside over the case based on his religion.

“An attorney in Michigan defending a woman charged with smothering her newborn daughter to death has claimed that a judge’s Catholic religion and affiliation with Ave Maria Law School will color his judgment. The lawyer argued the judge’s work at the school was equivalent to attending a Ku Klux Klan meeting while trying a black man.”

There is no excuse powerful enough to defend the murder of a child. The defense attorney knows this is the case. Hence his only option is to attack the credibility of the judge. Ave Maria Law School educates through a pro-Catholic point of view (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ave_Maria_School_of_Law).

Now normally I would argue that religious schools are the worst place to receive an education but, if the case was made that the judge is unfit to hear the case it could set an ugly precedent in which a judge’s credibility may be dismissed on the basis of where he was educated. Imagine if a judge who was presiding over a case of fraud had been educated at a very pro-business school. Wouldn’t that affiliation indicate that he has a bias and is therefore unfit to see the case? Affiliation alone does not make a person biased.

Scharg would have to prove that during his time at Ave Maria Law School the judge advocated positions that explicitly indicate him as being biased towards a case of infanticide.

“At a Tuesday hearing Judge Timothy Kenny ruled that Scharg’s argument that Judge Ryan was biased was “not persuasive,” the Detroit Free Press reports.”