Florida District Courts of Appeal, 2015

Greenwood v. State

Greenwood v. State
Florida District Courts of Appeal · Decided October 14, 2015 · Casanueva, Per Curiam, Silberman, Sleet
177 So. 3d 88; 2015 Fla. App. LEXIS 15180; 2015 WL 5966270 (Southern Reporter, Third Series)

Greenwood v. State

Opinion

PER CURIAM.

Sherry Greenwood petitions this court for a writ prohibiting Circuit Court Judge Chris Helinger from presiding over her criminal prosecution in Pinellas County Circuit Court case number 14-11063-CF. We grant the petition.

Ms. Greenwood, through counsel, filed a motion to disqualify Judge Helinger from presiding over her case. At the beginning of a pretrial hearing, Judge Helinger provided counsel with an order denying the motion to disqualify as legally insufficient. The order does not comment on the truth of the facts presented in the motion. However, during the hearing, Judge Hel-inger improperly attempted to refute facts that Ms. Greenwood alleged as a basis for believing that she would not receive a fair trial or sentencing before Judge Helinger. See Fla. R. Jud. Admin. 2.330(f); Bundy v. Rudd, 366 So.2d 440, 442 (Fla. 1978) (“When a judge has looked beyond the mere legal sufficiency of a suggestion of prejudice and attempted to refute the charges of partiality, he has then exceeded the proper scope of his inquiry and on that basis alone established grounds for his disqualification.”). Accordingly, we grant Ms. Greenwood’s petition, we vacate the stay of the proceedings in case number 14-11063-CF previously imposed by this court, and we order the Chief Judge of the Sixth Judicial Circuit to assign a successor judge pursuant to rule 2.215(b)(4) to preside over the case.

Petition granted.

CASANUEVA, SILBERMAN, and SLEET, JJ., Concur.

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