The judge who last year abruptly dismissed a murder defendant's appointed lawyers and replaced them with local public defenders has himself been asked to bow out of the case.

Three veteran death penalty attorneys say Pike County Superior Court Judge Johnnie L. Caldwell Jr. improperly discussed and planned the lawyer shakeup outside the presence of the defendant or his counsel. Caldwell, they argue, should recuse from the case of Jamie Ryan Weis, facing capital murder charges for the 2006 death of Catherine King during a burglary of her home.

Last November, more than a year into the case, Caldwell dismissed Atlanta lawyers Thomas M. West and Robert H. Citronberg, who were in court to request a delay in the trial due to state Capital Defender office financial problems. Instead, Caldwell appointed Griffin Circuit Public Defender Joseph J. Saia and staff defender Tamara Jacobs to take over Weis' defense, over his objections and those of all four defense attorneys.

Last Friday, Stephen B. Bright of the Southern Center for Human Rights and Donald F. Samuel and Edward T. M. Garland of Garland, Samuel & Loeb filed a motion to force Caldwell off the case. They said that Caldwell's verbal and subsequent written orders indicated that he spontaneously arrived at his decision during the hearing due to the “eloquent” counter-motion of the district attorney.

But new affidavits submitted by the director of the Georgia Public Defender Standards Council, Mack Crawford, indicate that Caldwell had apparently been discussing replacing Weis' attorneys for months prior to the November hearing, unbeknownst to the defendant, his lawyers or the public defenders ultimately assigned to their case.

Following Caldwell's replacement of the lawyers, Bright, Samuel and Garland asked to be admitted to the case, specifically to address the removal of Weis' lawyers. Instead, says the motion, Caldwell met with Weis' new attorneys and “instructed his secretary not to notify Garland, Samuel and Bright of the hearing.”

Caldwell's summary replacement of Weis' counsel flies in the face of established Georgia precedent, says the recusal motion, adding that his off-the-record contact with Crawford raises questions as to whether his impartiality might be called into question.

The recusal bid is the latest of the three lawyers' efforts to have Weis' original defense team restored. In January, the Georgia Supreme Court turned down their bid to have Caldwell's November order reversed, and last month, they filed a petition asking the Pike County Superior Court to order Caldwell to reinstate Weis' original counsel. Calls to Caldwell, Crawford and Saia were unsuccessful.

Staff Reporter Greg Land can be reached at gland@alm.com