New Orleans rape trial halted as judge pleads for recusal | Courts

A Louisiana appeals court on Wednesday paused a rape trial in Orleans Parish Criminal District Court after prosecutors said the presiding judge dismissed a complaint that a male juror made inappropriate comments toward a female member of the prosecution team.

After a male juror twice made unwanted advances in person to a female employee of the prosecutor's special victims unit, Judge Benedict Willard asked her to leave the courtroom, prosecutors said in a court filing Wednesday.

“You are the distraction,” Willard told the woman, according to the file. “I will remove the distraction.”

It was not clear whether Willard also dismissed the male juror.

The trial of Freddie J. Sterling on first-degree rape charges began Monday. In the court filing asking Willard to recuse himself from the case, prosecutors said that on the first day of the trial, a male juror looked at the SVU employee and said, “You're beautiful.”

The next day, as the jury left the courtroom, he turned to the woman and said, according to prosecutors, “How are you? How are you?”

In court documents, lead prosecutor Michelle Jones said Willard asked in open court Tuesday that she and another assistant district attorney be removed from the case after they alerted him to the jury's behavior.

“By now ordering the lead prosecutor, her co-counsel and the case manager not to re-enter his courtroom, Judge Willard has clearly impeded the State's ability to present this case,” Jones wrote.

“Judge Willard has expressed a clear bias against members of the prosecution team that makes it impossible for him to be fair and impartial.”

On Wednesday, the Louisiana Fourth District Court of Appeals ordered a stay of proceedings and ordered that another district judge consider Willard's motion to disqualify for the remainder of the trial.

Ultimately, Jones and her co-counsel, Denisse Parrales, were present in court on Wednesday to argue the case. The SVU employee was not present. Willard dismissed the jury at about 11:15 a.m., after about 90 minutes of testimony on the third day.

Willard declined to comment Wednesday, citing judicial rules that prohibit him from speaking during an ongoing trial. “I try to stay within the boundaries of the law,” he said.

Lionel Lon Burns, Sterling's attorney, said it was the prosecution that acted inappropriately by questioning the judge's actions.

“In all the 25 years that I have practiced here in Criminal District Court, I have never seen the First Assistant District Attorney and the prosecutors assigned to the case attack the judge,” Burns said.

“Just very rude, disobedient and disrespectful behavior,” he added.

Jones referred a reporter to the district attorney's press office. A spokesman for the prosecutor's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.