Via Turley, an effort by John P. Roache, a private attorney representing the City of Boston, to have United States District Judge Nancy Gertner disqualified from sitting on a case involving the Boston Police Department is rebuffed by the 1st Circuit.

The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has refused to disqualify US District Judge Nancy Gertner from a lawsuit against the Boston Police Department for a wrongful conviction in three rapes. Counsel for the department charged with her showing “deep-seated favoritism and antagonism” in comments made in court.

What did Judge Gertner do that was so awful?  According to Boston.com,

At an Oct. 8 hearing in her Boston courtroom, Gertner questioned whether plans to deport the plaintiff, Ulysses Rodriguez Charles, to his native Trinidad soon were "somehow related" to his lawsuit. His suit is scheduled to go to trial in April, and Gertner urged federal authorities to delay deporting him until May.

Imagine.  A Judge doing her job.  That's outrageous.  It outraged Roache sufficiently to submit a 21 page memorandum seeking to remove herself from the case, alleging that she

disparaged his client recently by voicing "wholly unfounded suspicions" that federal immigration authorities might have colluded with the city to try to deport Ulysses Rodriguez Charles before his suit goes to trial in April.

Now here's the real story.  The problem with Judge Gertner isn't that she is biased, but that she's not.  She doesn't default to the "cops are always right" position.  She doesn't assume that cops can't be wrong.  She actually, really, honest-to-Godly, considers the possibility that the defendant might be telling the truth or, oh no!, innocent.  It's an outrage.

The system has relied upon judges, by default, siding with the government.  When a judge doesn't play that game, the government doesn't see the judge as fair and neutral.  The government doesn't want a judge who's fair and neutral.  The government expects to waltz into court with a leg or two up on its adversary, and a judge who knows that it wins every close call every time. 

When a judge comes along who is disinclined to cut the government a break as needed, she becomes the enemy of the government and is therefore, in the government's eyes, biased against it.  If you're not for them, you're against them.  Since Nancy Gertner isn't for them, she must be biased.  At least as far as the government is concerned.