Federal judge to rule in Burdine case

Posted on October 18, 2002 by Charles Kuffner

Federal judge David Hittner will decide by next week whether or not Calvin Burdine should be represented by his appeals attorney in his murder retrial, or if he should let stand Judge Joan Hoffman’s ruling that Burdine should be represented by an appointed attorney. It’s highly unusual for a federal judge to intervene in a case that is still in progress. Hittner is actually ruling on whether or not he has the authority to intervene, which is just a tad bit convoluted to me, but whatever. For sure if he rules that he can step in, he will rule that Burdine should get the lawyer of his choice, as anything else would make the whole exercise pointless. Time to set a precedent, Your Honor…

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5 Responses to Federal judge to rule in Burdine case

  1. R. Alex says:
    October 18, 2002 at 3:15 pm

    Why does the name David Hittner sound so familiar? What other high profile cases has he been involved with?

    Whitlock

  2. Charles Kuffner says:
    October 18, 2002 at 4:37 pm

    Actually, he was the federal judge who first ordered a new trial for Burdine, as the article mentions. Perhaps that’s where you heard the name before?

  3. R. Alex says:
    October 18, 2002 at 7:26 pm

    No, I haven’t been following the Burdine thing very closely.

    Was he the judge in the Reyes/Moldanato/Yarbrough/others trial?

    Whitlock

  4. Charles Kuffner says:
    October 19, 2002 at 12:08 pm

    That I couldn’t tell you. I’d have to do some Googling or Chron archive searching.

  5. R. Alex says:
    October 20, 2002 at 2:24 am

    He did. I looked it up. I remember being impressed by his handling of that case.

    Whitlock

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