Petition for habeas relief from convictions for first-degree murder and armed robbery
Suh v. Pierce, 09-3946, concerned a challenge to the district court's denial of defendant's petition for habeas relief from his conviction for first-degree murder and armed robbery.
In affirming, the court held that, although defendant has abandoned the
argument that his convictions and sentences were tainted because the
trial judge had an undisclosed relationship with the family of the
murder victim, his claim that the due process clause requires recusal,
even in the absence of any potential for actual bias, where it might
appear to an outsider that the judge had an interest in the outcome of
the case is procedurally defaulted because defendant never presented
this theory in state court.