Earlier today, Judge Peter Wadel ruled that he would be the trial judge if Sean Phillips would be tried for the open murder charge on his baby, Katherin Phillips (aka Baby Kate).  As noted previously, other Mason County judges have had to disqualify themselves from the case, and the prosecutor of Mason County and the Michigan Attorney General attorney have thought that Judge Wadel should recuse himself from the case, effectively on the grounds that in a preliminary hearing, he opined that there was not enough evidence of murder to warrant a trial against Phillips by the state, and so there was an appearance of impropriety.

After the new decision by Judge Wadel, the attorneys for the state have automatically appealed his decision to the State Court Administrative Office (SCAO) for finding a different judge.  Chances are likely that the state will find no disqualifying factors out of the previous part that Wadel played in this case, so it appears to many that the move by Prosecutor Paul Spaniola and AGO attorney Donna Pendergast is purely political or at worst an attempt at judge-shopping. 

It appears as if the prosecutors of this case do not care about the fate of Baby Kate but whether they can get a favorable result for their side by getting a judge who would be more inclined by the fact that there is a missing baby and the last person alleged (albeit by Ariel Courtland) to have been with an alive baby was Sean Phillips.  If Judge Wadel's ruling does get overturned by the SCAO, it will be pure politics, as judge's frequently get cases sent back to them so as to make new findings even if their initial rulings went against how an appeal's court ruled.  If anything the appearance of impropriety in this chain was done when Judge Cooper overruled Wadel.

LUDINGTON, MI - The Mason County judge who last year dismissed the "Baby Kate" murder case against Sean Phillips - a ruling later reversed by a higher court - has declined to remove himself from presiding over Phillips' trial.

Mason County 79th District Judge Peter J. Wadel on Monday, April 6, rejected a motion by the Michigan Attorney General's office and Mason County Prosecutor Paul Spaniola asking that Wadel disqualify himself from the case.

Prosecutors are appealing that decision, according to Spaniola and Andrea Bitely, press secretary for Attorney General Bill Schuette. The State Court Administrative Office is expected to appoint a visiting circuit judge to hear their appeal.

The prosecutors contend that having Wadel preside over a murder case that he had previously ruled too weak to bring to trial would create an "appearance of impropriety." Phillips' attorney argued the contrary.

After a hearing Monday, Wadel ruled that there is no reason to remove himself from the murder case.

Wadel, acting as chief judge of Mason County's courts, in February appointed himself as Phillips' trial judge. That's normally the job of a circuit judge, but 51st Circuit Judge Susan Sniegowski and Mason County Probate Judge Jeffrey Nellis - the county's only other judges -- had disqualified themselves because of prior connections with parties in the case as attorneys before they were judges.

The 4 ½-month-old Katherine Phillips disappeared in Mason County on June 29, 2011. She has never been found.

Phillips, her father, was charged in October 2013 with open murder.

After a preliminary examination, Wadel on Sept. 15, 2014, ruled that there wasn't proof that Baby Kate had been slain, so he declined to bind Phillips over for trial in circuit court. In a written opinion, Wadel stated that the prosecution had "failed to show the crime of open murder has been committed because the proofs failed to show death by criminal act of defendant."

But since-retired 51st Circuit Judge Richard I. Cooper in December overturned that ruling, even while expressing doubt about the wisdom of the prosecution pursuing its purely circumstantial case. Citing case law involving other no-body murder cases, the circuit judge said Dec. 5, "I reluctantly agree with the prosecution that our current case law does allow the prosecution to go forward."

Phillips, 25, formerly of the Scottville area, is already serving a prison term of 10 to 15 years for unlawful imprisonment of his daughter. A Mason County jury convicted him of that in April 2012. His earliest possible release date is June 29, 2021.

http://www.mlive.com/news/muskegon/index.ssf/2015/04/baby_kate_judg...

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Today it was reported in the City of Ludington Daily News that the state's appeal to the SCAO failed in getting Judge Wadel replaced as the judge for the Sean Phillips murder trial... if it is ever decided to be tried. 

A decision by the MI Appeals Court to overrule Judge Cooper's reversal of Judge Wadel's preliminary finding (that there wasn't enough evidence presented by the state to proceed with a murder charge against Sean Phillips), could murder the probability that the case for murder will get tried.  I see few compelling reasons made by the prosecution that would sway the MI Supreme Court to make a ruling on any further appeal.

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