The Pennsylvania Superior Court recently issued a precedential decision reaffirming when a judge must step aside from a case—not because of proven bias, but because the appearance of bias alone is enough to undermine confidence in the process.
In Commonwealth v. Freeman, 2026 PA Super 5 (Jan. 9, 2026), the Court vacated two resentencing decisions after concluding that the trial judge should have recused himself due to his prior role as a prosecutor in closely related matters. The opinion offers guidance on judicial recusal and reinforces that sentencing must be conducted by a judge whose impartiality cannot reasonably be questioned.
The Core Legal Principle: Appearance Matters
Pennsylvania law has long recognized that recusal is not limited to situations involving actual prejudice. The standard is objective:
Would a reasonable person question the judge’s impartiality under the circumstances?
If the answer is yes, recusal is required, regardless of the judge’s subjective belief that he or she can be fair.
The Superior Court reiterated that this principle applies with full force at sentencing.
Why This Case Raised a Recusal Problem
The defendants in Freeman were juveniles at the time of the offenses and were originally sentenced in the 1990s to mandatory life without parole. After changes in juvenile-sentencing law, their cases returned to the trial court for resentencing decades later.
By then, the original judge had retired, and the cases were reassigned. The newly assigned judge had previously served as a prosecutor in two ways that mattered:
- He represented the Commonwealth in the appeal of a co-defendant involved in the same homicide case.
- He prosecuted a separate murder case in which the Commonwealth’s theory relied heavily on the Freeman murders as the motivating influence.
Defense counsel sought recusal before resentencing. The trial court denied the motion and imposed new sentences. The defendants appealed.
The Superior Court’s Analysis
The Superior Court held that recusal was required.
Relying on Pennsylvania precedent and the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Williams v. Pennsylvania, the Court explained that a judge’s prior significant, personal involvement as a prosecutor in a related case creates an impermissible risk of bias.
The concern is not misconduct or bad faith. Rather, the problem is structural. First, prosecutors make adversarial decisions central to a case’s outcome. Second, those decisions can become psychologically fixed over time. Third, when a former prosecutor later serves in an adjudicatory role regarding the same events, even years later, public confidence in neutrality is compromised.
The Court emphasized that this risk exists even when the judge did not personally prosecute the defendant, but instead prosecuted a co-defendant or advanced a theory of culpability rooted in the same facts.
Why This Decision Matters
This case reinforces several important principles:
- Judicial recusal protects the system, not just defendants
- Sentencing must be conducted by a judge whose neutrality is beyond reasonable question
- Prior prosecutorial involvement—even years earlier—can require recusal when it is closely tied to the case
For lawyers, the decision provides strong appellate authority when raising recusal issues in post-conviction or resentencing proceedings. For the public, it reaffirms that fairness in criminal cases is measured by the integrity of the process itself.