CLEVELAND, Tenn. – Bradley County Criminal Court Judge Amy Reedy stepped away Monday from the 1999 Valentines Day triple slayings case.
First, she denied the district attorney general’s request that she recuse herself. Reedy said she believes she could preside over future hearings and trials fairly. But she also voluntarily recused herself “for the integrity of the case,” citing courtroom conduct by prosecutors.
THE STORY SO FAROn Feb. 14, 1999, the bodies of Dawn Rogers, Cayci Higgins and O.J. Blair were found in a Bradley County apartment. After years of investigation, Maurice Johnson, Twanna Blair and Michael Younger were indicted. Johnson was found guilty in 2009 of first-degree murder and is serving a life sentence without possibility of parole. Twanna Blair’s trial ended with a hung jury in 2009. The case is before the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals. Younger’s case ended with a mistrial in May.
Reedy has asked the 10th Judicial District presiding judge to find another judge.
It was the end of months of back-and-forth between Judge Reedy and the district attorney general’s office.
On June 7, the district attorney’s office filed a motion seeking the recusal.
“The contentious history between the judge and the prosecuting attorney provides a reasonable basis for questioning the ability of the trial judge to be fair and impartial,” the motion reads.
The request says the court has been “openly hostile” to prosecuting attorney Richard Fisher; that the judge in open court accused Fisher of “unethical conduct” during the trials of defendants Maurice Johnson and Twanna Blair; and that the court did not act impartially in the Blair trial.
On Monday, defendant Michael Younger was in the courtroom with his attorneys. His May trial ended with a mistrial declared by the court when Reedy wrote that she found “prosecutorial misconduct for an intentional violation of this court’s orders in the presence of the jury” by Fisher.
“The next of kin of the decedents have expressed their perception of animosity by the Court toward the State prosecutor that has affected the trial of Twanna Blair and could reasonably be expected to affect the trial of Michael Younger and the retrial of Blair,” Fisher wrote in a memorandum of support for the recusal motion, also filed June 7.
Affidavits of support for that motion also were filed by Allen Roenneburg, father of victim Dawn Rogers, Roy Higgins, father of victim Cayci Higgins, and Troy Parker, father of victim O.J. Blair.
In her order, Reedy denied the written and oral requests by prosecutors for her to step down.
She wrote that so far the state has indicted the same three defendants on three separate occasions since 2007 on three different theories of the case. Those theories include that Blair was a victim and not a defendant; that all three conspired to commit murder and that murder was perpetrated during a robbery. During that time, she wrote, the state has been represented by four different assistant district attorneys general.
In her order, signed Monday, Reedy noted “in the trials of co-defendants Johnson and Blair, this court exercised its discretion to rule when objections were made, and when necessary to admonish counsel outside the presence of jurors when possible. On one occasion this court also admonished General Fisher for improper comments that were made in front of the jury.”
In her own recusal order, Reedy said the court should represent the impersonal authority of the law and “not become personally embroiled with the parties and personalities of those involved in the trial process.”
Monday also happened to be victim Cayce Higgins’ birthday. As the family sat in court, her aunt, Phyllis Taylor, said the family has attended all court proceedings.
“We’ve relied on our faith,” Taylor said. “And we keep Cayce’s memory alive.”
Contact Randall Higgins at rhiggins@timesfreepress.com or 423-314-1029.