From the ABA Journal:

A Pennsylvania appeals court has removed a judge from the resentencing of a convicted child rapist, citing the judge’s “demonstrated bias and personal animus” toward the defendant’s lawyer and the public defender’s office.

A three-judge panel of the Superior Court of Pennsylvania ordered the recusal of Judge Donna Jo McDaniel of Allegheny County in an opinion on Wednesday, [November 28] the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports. She was kicked off the case of Anthony McCauley, who was convicted of rape of a child and other offenses for sexual abuse of a minor when she was 6 and 12 years old.

McDaniel made “gratuitous statements” and sarcastic statements about the counsel in an opinion and made a veiled threat implying that their challenges to her decisions could be harmful to other criminal defendants, the superior court said. In addition, McDaniel “continually refuses” to follow sentencing mandates from the superior court in other sex offender cases, the court said.