Leslie Tiller Essay

Judge Leslie Tiller and Judge Simon Skinner serve on the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, respectively. Each judge has an involved history with Minnesota’s governor, Joyce Cooper. In this paper, I address whether the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause bars Skinner and Tiller from hearing two unique cases to which Cooper is a party: the Sierra Club Case and the Cooper Corruption Case. I address each of the two cases in two distinct parts of the paper, labeled II and III, respectively, and in part I, I detail the relevant facts that frame this question. Subheading each of those three parts is two additional subparts, A and B. In all sections, subpart A concerns Tiller

Here, there is a fear that Tiller will react to The Sierra Club’s recalcitrant rhetoric in a way that biases her judging. The Court addressed a similar concern in Mayberry v. Pennsylvania. In that case, two defendants orally vilified a presiding judge, who then charged the defendants with criminal contempt. The same judge—the one who accused the defendants of contempt—was also the judge who adjudicated the case that arose from his accusation. The Mayberry Court held that the judge’s presence violated due process, saying, “[a] judge, vilified as was this Pennsylvania judge, necessarily becomes embroiled in a … bitter controversy … [such that he] is [un]likely to maintain that calm detachment necessary for fair adjudication.” So, the Court held that the Pennsylvania judge must recuse. Admittedly, there is a temptation to apply the same reasoning to Tiller, who has experienced comparable vilification courtesy of The Sierra Club, now a party in her court. But, upon closer examination, there are several outcome-swinging ways that distinguish the instant case from