The underlying dispute involves Russell Austin, who was charged in 2018 with the special-circumstance murder of Erica Johnson, whose throat was torn out in her apartment. Austin filed a claim under the Racial Justice Act of 2020, arguing that the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office charges Black defendants with special circumstances and seeks the death penalty more frequently than similarly situated White defendants.
Austin supported his claim with statistical data covering homicide filings from 2006 through 2019. The case was assigned to Judge Shouka for the evidentiary hearing, at which point prosecutors moved to have her removed, arguing she was too close to the institutional charging practices under scrutiny.
The appellate court agreed with the People, granting their writ petition and ordering the superior court to vacate its denial and enter a new order disqualifying Judge Shouka. The panel held that Austin’s RJA claims put the DAO’s systemic charging decisions squarely at issue, specifically whether there is implicit or explicit bias in how the office filed murder charges.
Acting Presiding Justice Miller wrote that Judge Shouka was personally embedded in those decisions. "Her role was more than just following 'office policy'; she was directly involved in making charging decisions," Miller wrote.
The court drew a sharp line between a former prosecutor who merely handled run-of-the-mill cases and one who was actively shaping the charging culture under examination. Citing a formal opinion issued by the California Supreme Court Committee on Judicial Ethics Opinions, the panel noted the committee had warned the result might differ for a judge who participated in developing or directing the district attorney's policy regarding charging.
The court found Judge Shouka fell squarely in that category. She attended staffing meetings where homicide charging decisions were made, she made filing recommendations in murder cases, and her former supervisor described the homicide unit as "highly collaborative."
The disqualification fight began when the Riverside County District Attorney filed an amended statement of disqualification on July 1, 2025, invoking multiple grounds under Code of Civil Procedure section 170.1. The matter was assigned to Judge Jeffrey B. Jones, who denied the request on August 12, 2025.
Judge Jones concluded that the People had offered only conclusory statements and had failed to identify specific disputed facts about which Judge Shouka had personal knowledge. He wrote that the People's contentions were "not logically related to the impartiality of Judge Shouka" and would not cause a reasonable member of the public to suspect bias or prejudice.
The appellate court was unpersuased. It found that the relevant question was not whether Judge Shouka worked on Austin's 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 Judge Shouka was an active participant.
"While we do not find that Judge Shouka was actually biased in this case," Miller wrote, the appearance standard under section 170.1 requires only that a person aware of the facts "might" reasonably entertain a doubt.
The decision was unanimous. Acting Presiding Justice Miller authored the opinion, joined by Justices Codrington and Menetrez. The panel emphasized 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.
Instead, the court held that each RJA case involving a former prosecutor should be determined based on the facts and circumstances involved. The dispositive factor here was that the record was sufficiently developed to show that Judge Shouka may have been personally involved in the cases that will be examined during the evidentiary hearing.