GUAM
Pacific Daily News
Haidee V Eugenio , heugenio@guampdn.com April 1, 2017
Superior Court of Guam judges continue to recuse themselves from hearing Catholic clergy sex abuse cases, now that the local court is seeing a second wave of filings.
As of March 30, local judges have filed 89 disqualification memos to avoid doubts about their partiality.
The first wave of former altar boys filed their lawsuits in the Superior Court of Guam as early as Nov. 1, 2016, but started moving their cases to the U.S. District Court of Guam in January.
Local court judges said they have familial or business ties to either the plaintiffs or the defendants, court documents show.
But since March 9, the local court started seeing new cases.
Clynt Ridgell, director of Policy Planning and Community Relations at the Judiciary of Guam, said in a case in which all Superior Court judges have been disqualified, the presiding judge will send a request to the chief justice to assign a judge pro-tempore.
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