United States v. Turner

• Court: District Court, District of Columbia
• Decided: May 28, 2024
• Docket: Criminal No. 2022-0019
• Status: Published

Opinion

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

v. Case No. 1:22-cr-19-RCL

GREGORY RICHARD PURDY, et al.,

Defendants.

MEMORANDUM ORDER

This matter comes before the Court on defendant Matthew Purdy’s renewed motion for

recusal. See 2d Recusal Mot., ECF No. 180. Defendant Robert Turner has moved to adopt this

motion. ECF No. 184. Back in March, all three defendants moved for the Court’s recusal. See

1st Recusal Mot., ECF No. 99. For the reasons given below, the Court will once more DENY this

motion.

At an April 5 status conference, the Court denied defendants’ recusal motion in a lengthy

oral ruling. See Min. Entry Apr. 5, 2024. The Court explained that defendants had “not come

close to establishing a valid basis for disqualification” based on either the appearance of bias under

28 U.S.C. § 455(a) or personal bias under § 455(b)(1). The Court noted that recusal is only very

rarely warranted by what a judge has said in the course of a judicial proceeding, because “opinions

formed by the judge on the basis of facts introduced or events occurring in the course of the current

proceedings, or of prior proceedings, do not constitute a basis for a bias or partiality motion unless

they display a deep-seated favoritism or antagonism that would make fair judgment impossible.”

Liteky v. United States, 510 U.S. 540, 555 (1994).

Although defendants faulted the Court for asking hard questions of defense counsel, the

Court observed that “[b]lunt language, without more, does not translate into a showing of judicial

1 bias.” United States v. Caramadre, 807 F.3d 359, 374 (1st Cir. 2015). The Court also explained

that the Court’s “measured, accurate description of the facts of January 6, facts with which the

Court is familiar from numerous cases” did not trigger disqualification, emphasizing that

“[d]efendants do not and cannot point to any specific comments suggestive of bias toward any

defendants, let alone these specific defendants.” “To the contrary,” the Court observed, “a number

of January 6 defendants have thanked the Court for fairly handling their cases” and “[o]ne

defendant even credited the Court with saving his life by intervening to protect his constitutional

rights at the D.C. Jail.” Finally, the Court concluded that defendants’ assertion that death threats

directed at the Court had adversely affected the Court’s view of January 6 defendants was not

substantiated by evidence and was precisely the sort of “conclusory, unsupported or tenuous

allegations” that cannot warrant recusal. See In re Kaminski, 960 F.2d 1062, 1065 n.3 (D.C. Cir.

1992) (per curiam).

On May 27, Matthew Purdy filed a renewed motion for recusal or disqualification. Since

the Court has already denied defendants’ previous recusal motion, which relied on most of the

same reasoning, this motion will be considered a motion for reconsideration and evaluated under

that standard.1

The Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure do not address the legal standard applicable to

motions to reconsider interlocutory decisions, but courts in this District have applied the ‘as justice

requires’ standard under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b).” United States v. Caldwell, No.

1 Oddly, Matthew Purdy assert that his previous motion “was not a formal motion to recuse and/or disqualify.” 2d Recusal Mot. 1 n.1 (emphasis added). The Court is unaware of a distinction between “formal” and “informal” motions that may permit a party to renew its prior motion while evading the standard for motions for reconsideration. In any event, Matthew Purdy’s attempt to downplay his previous motion fails. The previous motion invoked the disqualification statute, argued that the Court could not administer this case impartially, called for the Court to step aside from the case, and stated that in filing the motion counsel sought to “raise this seminal issue” of the Court’s disqualification. 1st Recusal Mot. 4–5.

2 21-cr-28 (APM), 2022 WL 203456, at *1 (D.D.C. Jan. 24, 2022) (first citing United States v.

Hassanshahi, 145 F. Supp. 3d 75, 80 (D.D.C. 2015) and then citing United States v. Hemingway,

930 F. Supp. 2d 11, 12 (D.D.C. 2013)). “[A]sking ‘what justice requires’ amounts to determining,

within the Court’s discretion, whether reconsideration is necessary under the relevant

circumstances.” Cobell v. Norton, 355 F. Supp. 2d 531, 539 (D.D.C. 2005). Bases for

reconsideration include “when the Court has patently misunderstood a party, has made a decision

outside the adversarial issues presented to the Court by the parties, has made an error not of

reasoning but of apprehension, or where a controlling or significant change in the law or facts [has

occurred] since the submission of the issue to the Court.” Singh v. George Washington Univ., 383

F. Supp. 2d 99, 101 (D.D.C. 2005) (alteration in original) (internal quotation marks and citation

omitted).

Here, reconsideration is not warranted because the renewed motion mostly reiterates the

reasons already rejected by the Court and any additional reasons fall short of a significant change

that would justify reconsideration. The renewed motion mostly retreads the same ground as

before: the Court’s tough questions for defense counsel Ms. Isaak, the Court’s statements relating

to January 6 made in the course of prior judicial proceedings, and the Court’s statements on judicial

security and its own death threats. But a motion for reconsideration is not “simply an opportunity

to reargue facts and theories upon which a court has already ruled.” United States v. Hassanshahi,

145 F. Supp. 3d 75, 81 (D.D.C. 2015) (quoting New York v. United States, 880 F. Supp. 37, 38

(D.D.C. 1995)).

The remaining reasons do not necessitate reconsideration. First, Matthew Purdy argues

that the Court’s law clerk engaged in an improper ex parte communication in a previous January

6 case involving defendant Jacob Chansley. On February 3, 2021 Mr. Chansley, who was then in

3 the custody of the D.C. Department of Corrections (DOC), filed an emergency motion seeking a

religious dietary accommodation. Defendant’s exhibit indicates that at the Court’s instruction, the

Court’s law clerk forwarded a copy of the motion to the DOC and stated that the Court may hold

a hearing that day. Ex. 3 to 2d Recusal Mot. 34, ECF No. 180-3. The Court indeed held a hearing

that day. Since the U.S. Attorney did not take a position on the defendant’s request for a dietary

accommodation, “a representative of the DOC appeared at the hearing to defend the DOC’s

rejection of defendant’s request.” See ECF No. 8 at 2, United States v. Chansley, No. 21-cr-3

(RCL) (D.D.C. Feb. 3, 2021). The Court then granted the defendant’s motion for dietary

accommodation. Although Matthew Purdy asserts that the Court’s forwarding of Mr. Chansley’s

motion was an improper ex parte communication, the Code of Conduct for United States Judges

expressly provides that a judge may “when circumstances require it, permit ex parte

communication for scheduling, administrative, or emergency purposes, but only if the ex parte

communication does not address substantive matters and the judge reasonably believes that no

party will gain a procedural, substantive, or tactical advantage as a result of the ex parte

communication.” Judicial Conference of the United States, Code of Conduct for United States

Judges, Canon 3A(4)(b) (2019). The Court’s alerting DOC to the existence of Mr. Chansley’s

motion was clearly appropriate. And the Court is puzzled that Matthew Purdy would try to show

the Court’s bias against January 6 defendants by invoking the Court’s ruling for a January 6

defendant, which generated public criticism that the Court was biased in favor of such defendants.

Second, Matthew Purdy criticizes the Court for denying defendant Gregory Purdy’s request

for yet another continuance in this case. See ECF No. 172. But as the Supreme Court has made

clear, “judicial rulings alone almost never constitute a valid basis for a bias or partiality motion.”

Liteky, 510 U.S. at 555. That is especially true for an order on a motion for a continuance, since

4 “[a] trial judge enjoys great discretion in ruling on” such a motion. United States v. Poston, 902

F.2d 90, 96 (D.C. Cir. 1990).

Third, Matthew Purdy asserts in passing that the Court failed to arraign him and Mr. Turner

on the Superseding Indictment. Defendants were initially indicted and arraigned in January 2022.

See Indictment, ECF No. 22; Min. Entry (Jan. 28, 2022). On May 1, 2024 the grand jury returned

a superseding indictment. See Superseding Indictment, ECF No. 143. The Superseding Indictment

added three counts against Gregory Purdy but did not add additional counts against Matthew Purdy

or Robert Turner. In response, Gregory Purdy moved to continue the trial and the Court held a

combined arraignment and hearing on that motion. Before the hearing, each defendant waived

appearance pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 10(b)(2). As required by that

provision, each defendant acknowledged that he had received a copy of the Superseding

Indictment and that his plea was not guilty. See ECF Nos. 155, 157, 163.

As the Superseding Indictment did not add new charges against Matthew Purdy or Robert

Turner, the Court did not see a reason to re-arraign them and they did not object at the hearing or

afterward. See United States v. Cook, 972 F.2d 218, 222 (8th Cir. 1992) (holding that the district

court did not err in denying a motion to dismiss a count of a superseding indictment for failure to

arraign the defendant on that count because “[a]n arraignment is not required where the defendant

has had sufficient notice of the accusation and an adequate opportunity to defend himself at trial.”

(citing Garland v. Washington, 232 U.S. 642, 645 (1914) and United States v. Coffman, 567 F.2d

960, 961 (10th Cir. 1977)); cf. United States v. Reiter, 897 F.2d 639, 644 (2d Cir. 1990) (holding

that a defendant may not be tried in absentia on a superseding indictment for which he was not

arraigned if the superseding indictment was not similar enough to the original indictment on which

he was arraigned to apprise the defendant of the nature of the proceedings against him). At any