At the request of David Wong's lawyers, Judge Timothy Lawliss recused himself from David Wong's retrial in a decision dated November 19th, 2004. District Attorney Richard Cantwell had not filed any opposition to the recusal request.

David Wong is a Chinese immigrant wrongly convicted of murder in 1987 in upstate New York. A New York appellate court overturned his murder conviction in October 2004 and ordered a new trial. On November 9, 2004, David Wong's lawyers (Jaykumar Menon of the Center for Constitutional Rights and Professor William Hellerstein of the Second Look Program Clinic at Brooklyn Law School) filed two motions with Judge Lawliss: to recuse himself from the retrial and to dismiss the murder charge because it was based on lies -- a former inmate has admitted that prison guards coached him to fabricate his testimony.

Contrary to a published account that District Attorney Richard Cantwell had written responses to the motions, he in fact did not file any opposition to the recusal motion.

In a decision dated Friday, November 19, 2004, Judge Lawliss announced that he was stepping down from the case by granting the motion for recusal. According to Judge Lawliss, his close ties to the District Attorney did not require him to step down, but he chose to step down because of his written decision in 2003 indicating that he believed the large amount of evidence of David Wong's innocence was incredible -- a conclusion unanimously overturned by the New York Appellate Division in 2004. According to Judge Lawliss, "recusal is appropriate to avoid even the appearance of partiality in any future proceedings." David Wong's supporters believe that Judge Lawliss had demonstrated his bias in this case and that his refusal to acknowledge the overwhelming evidence of David Wong's innocence raises questions about whether he is covering up proof that prison guards manufactured evidence to pin the murder on David Wong, a poor Chinese immigrant who was unable to defend himself.

David Wong is waiting in Clinton County Jail to see whether the retrial scheduled for December 6, 2004 will go forward, will be rescheduled, or whether the District Attorney will agree to drop the case to avoid consuming considerable taxpayers' money to a case that lacks any motive or physical evidence and where several witnesses have identified the name of the real killer.

On November 1, 2004, DA Cantwell failed to fulfill his duty to announce whether he was going to prosecute the case. Instead, Judge Lawliss set an illegal trial date in violation of David Wong’s constitutional rights and refused to change the date to give the defense adequate time for trial preparation. The David Wong Support Committee believes that, expecting a decision by the Appellate court that may humiliate him again, Judge Lawliss chose a face saving route by recusing himself. The collusion between Cantwell and Lawliss is finally broken and now Cantwell is left on his own to drop the case.

David Wong's case is the subject of "The Fight To Free David Wong," a documentary video that has screened at three film festivals.

MEDIA REPORTS

The Plattsburgh Press-Republican in upstate NY wrote an article on November 23 that is for a brief time available for free from their web site. Also, the news was mentioned in a Metro Brief in The New York Times on November 23 (for a brief time, available from the NY Times web site).