Judge Michelle Childs recused from Murdaugh case

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WCBD) – Judge Michelle Childs, who made headlines recently as one of the top contenders for President Joe Biden’s Supreme Court nomination, recused herself Monday from a case brought by disgraced Hampton County attorney Alex Murdaugh against the Columbia jail in which he is being held.

Murdaugh brought the case against the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center and Interim Director of the center, D. Shane Kitchens, after recordings of phone calls Murdaugh made from the jail were released to the media.

Murdaugh also made the request for the case to be reassigned, saying that he knows “Judge Childs would not be influenced by any bias or improper concern.” But noting “it is important, however, that there be no possible pretext for allegations damaging public confidence in the legal basis for the Court’s decisions or the integrity of the Court.”

The motion went on to claim that “intense public interest in [the] case and the resulting media coverage create a very real danger that Judge Childs’s tangential and irrelevant connections with [Murdaugh] and his counsel will be portrayed in a manner creating an ‘appearance of impropriety’ even in the eyes of reasonable members of the public.”

Murdaugh did not, however, elaborate on the nature of the “tangential and irrelevant connections” between him, his counsel, and Childs.

In her order granting recusal, Childs alluded to “several unprovoked public attacks on the judiciary made as a result of the filing of the instant matter here,” and determined that “a reasonable person would not be able to discern truth from falsity regarding any further allegations of impropriety.”

The case has gone through five judges since it was filed on February 28.