Russell Austin was charged with special-circumstance murder in the 2018 killing of Erica Johnson, who was found dead in her apartment with her throat torn out; her young son was found alive next to her body, and her unborn child did not survive. The Riverside County District Attorney's Office sought the death penalty. Austin subsequently filed a claim under California's Racial Justice Act of 2020, arguing that the DAO charges Black defendants with special circumstances and seeks the death penalty more frequently than similarly situated White defendants — a claim backed by statistical data covering DAO homicide filings from 2006 through 2019.
The case was assigned to Judge Samah Shouka for the RJA evidentiary hearing. Prosecutors moved to disqualify her, pointing out that she had worked as a deputy district attorney in the DAO's homicide unit from 2015 until 2018 — the same office, and overlapping with the same period, whose charging culture Austin's RJA motion puts directly at issue.
Judge Jeffrey B. Jones denied the amended statement of disqualification on August 12, 2025, concluding that the People had offered only conclusory statements, had not identified specific disputed facts about which Judge Shouka had personal knowledge, and that her prior service was not logically related to her impartiality. Judge Jones emphasized that Judge Shouka had no involvement in Austin's case while at the DAO, and that the 28 cases the People identified as ones she worked on were not among the 21 comparison cases Austin intended to use in his RJA motion. Judge Shouka's verified answer reinforced those points, noting that 20 of the 28 cases involved Hispanic defendants — though the underlying list identified 19 defendants as Hispanic — and that her knowledge of DAO procedures did not impair her impartiality.
The Court of Appeal disagreed and granted the People's writ petition. Acting Presiding Justice Miller, joined by Justices Codrington and Menetrez, held that the relevant question was not whether Judge Shouka worked on Austin's specific case or the precise comparison cases, but whether the RJA hearing would require examination of the DAO's broader charging culture during a period when she was an active participant in it. The record showed she attended staffing meetings where homicide charging decisions were made, made filing recommendations in murder cases, and worked in a unit her former supervisor described as highly collaborative.
The panel drew on a formal opinion issued by the California Supreme Court Committee on Judicial Ethics Opinions, which had flagged that the result might differ for a judge who participated in developing or directing the district attorney's policy regarding charging or was directly involved in making charging decisions, as opposed to merely following office policy. The appellate court held that Judge Shouka fell squarely in that category, and that her actions as a filing and trial homicide prosecutor were intertwined with the institution as a whole. The court was careful to note that it did not find Judge Shouka was actually biased, but that the appearance standard under Code of Civil Procedure section 170.1, subdivision (a)(6)(A)(iii), requires only that a person aware of the facts might reasonably entertain a doubt as to impartiality.
The opinion is expressly limited in scope. The court held that its conclusion does not mean that Judge Shouka, or any other judge who is a former prosecutor, must be recused in every case involving the RJA, and that each RJA case involving a former prosecutor should be determined based on the facts and circumstances involved. The court noted it was simultaneously reviewing a related case, *People v. Mosby*, No. E086782, involving the same judge, and took judicial notice of records from that proceeding.