“Fani Willis is disqualified from prosecuting Trump election case in Georgia, appeals court rules” —

• “A Georgia appeals court has ruled that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her office must be disqualified from the criminal racketeering case she brought against President-elect Donald Trump and his allies over their efforts to alter the results of the 2020 election.”
• “In a 2-1 decision Thursday, the court found that Willis had created the appearance of a conflict of interest stemming from her romantic relationship with an outside prosecutor whom she hired to help run the case.”
• “‘This is the rare case in which disqualification is mandated and no other remedy will suffice to restore public confidence in the integrity of these proceedings,’ Judge Trenton Brown wrote, addressing the legal implications of Willis’ relationship with prosecutor Nathan Wade.”
• “The ruling appears likely to require the case to be assigned to another prosecutor. But Trump’s imminent inauguration as president means the charges against him are almost certain to either be paused while he is in office or dismissed entirely. The proceedings against Trump’s co-defendants — including close allies like former chief of staff Mark Meadows and lawyer Rudy Giuliani — could continue to grind forward during Trump’s presidency.”
• “The prosecution has been stalled for months while Trump and other defendants pressed their claims that Willis and Wade had a financial conflict because they were taking lavish vacations together while Wade was under contract with her office as a special prosecutor on the case.”
• “In March, following high-profile televised hearings featuring testimony from Willis and Wade, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee concluded the prosecutors’ relationship had caused an appearance of impropriety. However, he ruled that Willis could remain on the case if Wade resigned from the team. Wade stepped down within hours of that ruling.”
• “But the divided state appeals court panel found that Wade’s resignation did not go far enough. Willis, the elected Democratic district attorney for the Atlanta area, could appeal Thursday’s decision to the Georgia Supreme Court. But if it stands, it will further derail a case that has been mired in delays and controversies.”
• “Reassigning the case to another prosecutor’s office could take months or even years. And it’s far from clear whether a new prosecutor would agree with Willis’ overarching legal theory, which centered on deploying Georgia’s racketeering law to charge various Trump allies with a conspiracy to try to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory in the state. The newly assigned prosecutor could even choose to drop the case altogether.”
  “The criminal charges are currently pending against 15 defendants after several other defendants reached early plea deals.”

New York: “Judicial Ethics Opinion 24-82” —

• “A town justice may accept a position with the town’s highway department and “ghostwrite” a town’s state and federal grant applications for street, sidewalk, sewer, and infrastructure repairs, provided the judge does not personally solicit funds, permit the use of the prestige of judicial office for fund-raising, or permit the judge’s name to appear as the author or signatory on any grant applications.”
• “We have advised that a town justice may be employed as a laborer in the town highway department, subject to disqualification in matters involving the highway department (see Opinions 08-57; 00-62; see also Opinion 19-07 [discussing three categories of outside employment with the same municipality]).”
• “We have also advised that judges may ‘ghostwrite’ a not-for-profit charitable organization’s fund-raising letters and grant applications that will be signed, submitted and circulated by others without crediting the judge, provided the judge’s name and office do not appear on the applications and are not otherwise used for fund-raising or solicitation (see Opinion 23-145; see also Opinions 23-118 [full-time judge may prepare and submit grant applications in role as food pantry administrator, provided judge does not sign them]; 23-11 [part-time judge may write grant applications in role as volunteer treasurer for local fire company, but must not lend their name to any fund-raising activity]). [1]”
• “Accordingly, we conclude the inquiring judge may accept outside employment with the town highway department and, in that capacity, ghostwrite state and federal grant applications for the town highway department so long as the judge does not sign the applications or otherwise personally solicit funds or permit the use of the judge’s name or the prestige of judicial office for fund-raising.”
• “Assuming the position ‘will not involve the judge in the exercise of high-level executive or management authority on behalf of the town,’ we note that the judge must still disqualify ‘if his/her direct supervisor or municipal department appears as a party in a case before the judge’ (Opinion 19-07).”