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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Utah man accused of raping and killing a 6-year-old girl says the judge in the case is biased and asked the Utah Supreme Court to remove him Monday.
An attorney for Terry Lee Black, 43, told the high court that Judge Mark Kouris scolded Black's lawyers for nine minutes last year after they asked for a delay to decide whether Black was mentally competent to stand trial.
"It wasn't pushing back. It was ridiculing, mocking," said attorney Joan Watt.
Prosecutors, though, said Kouris had reason to be exasperated when lawyers asked for the delay just before the preliminary hearing was scheduled to begin, more than a year after the girl's death.
The judge did ultimately agree to put the case on hold, said Gregory Orme, an appeals court judge sitting with the Utah Supreme Court on the case.
"I'm hard-pressed to say where he has bias when ultimately he does what you want," Orme said.
Another justice, though, asked whether the high court should remove judges as a warning not to launch tirades from the bench.
"Reassigning the case may be a good wake-up call for a judge," said Jill Parrish.
Black could face the death penalty if convicted on charges of aggravated murder, child kidnapping and child rape. The case has been on hold since a lower court denied a request for Kouris to be removed last year.
Black is accused of abducting Sierra Newbold from her home in June 2012. Police say he beat, raped and strangled the 6-year-old before throwing her in a canal where she drowned. He was arrested three days later, accused of robbing a West Jordan bank using a stolen car. Investigators said Black attended the same ward as the Newbolds in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and his apartment was near the canal where she was found.
Police said they had home surveillance video of someone entering the Newbold house through a sliding glass door, and they linked Black to the crime by matching debris on his clothing to a fire-blackened field where Sierra's clothing was found.
No deadline was set Monday for the justices to make a ruling, though Assistant Attorney General Ryan Tenney asked the Utah Supreme Court to speed up their decision so the case can progress.
"We have a victim's family who is obviously waiting for some kind of resolution," he said.
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