Turner v. State, 524, 2016

Todd Turner (a minor) was found delinquent by the Family Court of Drug Dealing and Tier I Possession of a Controlled Substance on August 30, 2016.
Turner moved to dismiss and sought recusal of the Family Court judge, arguing the State introduced prejudicial statements at trial.
Two contested statements: (1) the State described the quantity of heroin Turner allegedly sold/possessed in its response to Turner’s motion to dismiss; (2) the State referenced an unrelated, pending firearms charge when explaining witness delays.
The Family Court judge addressed recusal, stating she believed she could be fair and unbiased and declined to recuse herself.
Turner appealed, arguing the judge should have recused based on both subjective bias and the appearance of bias.
The Supreme Court reviewed the trial judge’s subjective finding for abuse of discretion and reviewed the objective appearance-of-bias question de novo.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether judge should recuse for subjective bias	Turner: judge exposed to prejudicial state statements; cannot be impartial	Judge: expressly stated she could be fair and unbiased	No abuse of discretion; judge passed subjective test
Whether judge should recuse for appearance of impropriety	Turner: an objective observer would question impartiality because of statements about heroin quantity	State: exposure to those statements or knowledge of unrelated charges did not create reasonable doubt about impartiality	De novo review: no reasonable objective question; recusal not required

Los v. Los, 595 A.2d 381 (Del. 1991) (two-part subjective/objective test for judicial bias)
Stevenson v. State, 782 A.2d 249 (Del. 2001) (discussion of appearance-of-impropriety review)
Jones v. State, 940 A.2d 1 (Del. 2007) (standard of review: abuse of discretion for subjective, de novo for objective)
Gattis v. State, 955 A.2d 1276 (Del. 2008) (definition of objective test for recusal)