bvelliquette@heraldsun.com; 419-6632
DURHAM – An attorney has asked that a judge issue a show cause order to require Durham District Attorney Tracey Cline to appear in court to explain why she shouldn’t be held in contempt of court for filing a motion to have Superior Court Judge Hudson recused from a case the attorney was defending.
Attorney Stephen Lindsay made the motion at the close of a hearing involving his client, Clint Edward Pollard Sr., Friday in Durham County Criminal Superior Court.
Cline had previously filed similar motions in other cases, and had lost those motions, Lindsay said.
“Our position is it was a frivolous motion,” Lindsay said.
Cline has repeatedly filed motions and other documents claiming that Hudson has a personal bias against her and that he should be removed from hearing all criminal cases in Durham.
In Cline’s motion for the Pollard case, she wrote, among other things: “The District Attorney alleges, upon personal knowledge and upon information and belief, that this Honorable Court uses his power to retaliate against the District Attorney in total disregard of the facts and law; the legal rights of victims and / or victim’s families, and even the horrific impact these actions have on the integrity of the justice system.”
During a hearing Friday morning, Superior Court Judge Henry Hight took the bench to rule on Cline’s motion.
When Hight walked in and took his seat on the bench, he immediately began dictating a few basic facts of the case, such as when various motions were made, and then without hearing oral arguments from Cline or Pollard’s attorneys, Kerry Sutton or Lindsay, Hight quickly ruled that Cline had failed to provide a factual basis that Hudson would be biased against her and he dismissed her motion to recuse Hudson.
Cline then left the courtroom and returned to her office, and Pollard and his attorneys walked to another courtroom to start the hearing that was originally scheduled for Friday morning.
Cline did not attend that hearing and from the arguments made in that case, it did not appear that she had any involvement in the case.
In December, Cline filed three motions asking that Hudson be removed from three cases she was prosecuting. The long, book-length motions accused Hudson of a number of things, including intentional and malicious acts, moral turpitude, dishonesty and corruption. She has repeatedly claimed that she had a good working relationship with Hudson until she disagreed with him on a 1999 case that was being appealed, and that’s when he turned against her.
Superior Court Judge Carl Fox heard the three motions in December, and when it appeared he was about to rule against Cline in two of the cases, she dropped them, but Fox did deny her motion to have Hudson removed from a hearing involving Michael Peterson, who was requesting a new trial.
Fox called the affidavits that Cline presented during those arguments as “woefully inadequate,” as evidence of Hudson’s alleged bias against her.
On Friday, after Hight denied her motion, and Hudson then heard the arguments in the Pollard case, Lindsay asked Hudson to issue the show cause order to require Cline to appear in court to show why she shouldn’t be held in contempt of court for filing the motion to recuse.
He and Sutton had to spend hours preparing for that motion, rather than spending their time preparing for the hearing in which they asked that the charges be dismissed against their client, Pollard, he said.
Cline had already been warned by Superior Court Judge James Hardin that she needed to be careful and accurate when she filed motions and not to file motions irresponsibly, Lindsay said.
The motion she filed in the Pollard case was just a rehash of motions that she had already filed and been denied by Fox, Lindsay said.
She also did not provide them with a witness list seven days in advance as required, Lindsay said.
Hudson said he would think about it, saying he wasn’t sure he felt comfortable taking the matter up and said it was a matter for another judge to consider.
Lindsay suggested Hudson assign the matter to another judge.
“I’ll think about it,” Hudson said.
On Friday afternoon, Cline sent a written statement by email to The Herald-Sun about her reaction to Hight’s ruling on her motion to recuse Hudson.
It said: “Truth should be intimidated by the pressure of the powerful or fear of failure. It is a constant trying to correct a wrong which eventually makes the difference.
“I respect Judge Height (sic) as an excellent judge with vast knowledge and experience. I appreciate clearly the time and thought he put into his decision and I respect his decision and his findings.”
The first sentence in her statement appeared to be missing the word, “not,” as in “Truth should not be intimidated by the pressure of the powerful or fear of failure.”
The Herald-Sun replied to her email suggesting that the word “not” may have been inadvertently left out of the sentence, but Cline did not respond to it.
Lindsay is an attorney from the Asheville area and is involved in the Pollard case because Pollard was living in Asheville area when the charges were filed against him. He hired Lindsay to represent him. Lindsay then contacted Durham attorney Kerry Sutton to work with him on the case since the charges were filed in Durham because the incidents allegedly occurred in Durham.
