Main image: A Franklin County courtroom (Franklin County, Indiana); Inset left: Gregory Guilfoyle (Franklin County Sheriff’s Department); Inset right: Franklin County Judge J. Steven Cox (Facebook)
An Indiana prosecutor wants the judge overseeing a high-profile criminal case to be removed over questions about his impartiality.
Gregory Guilfoyle, 32, is facing a vast array of criminal charges over a late December 2022 shooting and kidnapping — for the second time.
The prosecution previously dropped the charges over a different dispute with the judge. Complaining that the court was forcing both parties to go to trial before they were ready, the state dropped the first suite of charges in February — promising to refile them later on.
On Tuesday, Franklin County Prosecutor Christopher Huerkamp filed 12 charges — including two counts of attempted murder — against Guilfoyle. That same day, the state filed a motion asking Franklin County Circuit Judge J. Steven Cox to recuse or be removed from the case over an odd admission allegedly made by the judge himself.
Undergirded by the sheer number and variety of charges filed, the case against Guilfoyle is already complex.
The defendant is alleged to have shot his own wife, Hannah Guilfoyle, who was 23 years old at the time, and is the mother of his daughter, according to Hoosier State law enforcement. Rushed to a hospital across state lines in critical condition, Hannah ultimately survived.
That alleged shooting was in service of kidnapping the girl, who was 23 months old at the time, according to the Indiana State Police.
The impact of the alleged crime spree on the young child was exacerbated since it happened to occur on the night the bomb cyclone famously sent the mercury tumbling across the country just days before Christmas, on Dec. 22, 2022, authorities noted at the time. The girl was treated for injuries sustained due to her father allegedly taking her out into the subzero temperatures.
At around 12:30 a.m. that morning, someone spotted a man carrying a child while walking along the highway in Brookville Township. Franklin County Sheriff’s Department Deputy Arin Bowers responded to the call and both of the adults allegedly fired their weapons, a state police police spokesperson said at a press conference.
The deputy was wearing a bulletproof vest and avoided injury, according to state troopers. Guilfoyle was wounded but taken to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center where he initially recuperated.
The defendant would go on to convalesce further at his parents’ home — and that’s where the judge comes into the state’s complaint.
The prosecutor’s motion takes Cox to task for allegedly visiting Guilfoyle at his parents’ house and, as a result, allegedly reaching some untoward and inappropriate legal conclusions about the case.
“Judge Cox described on the record the personal interaction with the defendant and offered his opinion as to the state of the defendant’s mental health based on knowledge that he gained as result of the interaction,” the Huerkamp motion obtained by Newport, Kentucky-based Fox affiliate WXIX, which serves the broader Cincinnati metro area.
Perhaps ironically, the prosecutor appears to be accusing the judge of prejudice against the defendant due to something he apparently learned during the visit to Guilfoyle’s parents’ residence.
“Judge Cox subsequently denied all of the defense’s competency motions and petitions for interlocutory appeal,” the motion goes on. “Later in the proceedings, prior to a status hearing, Judge Cox engaged in conversation with the court-appointed sanity evaluators outside of the presence of the parties and then issued an order at the conclusion of the hearing that imposed a deadline for completion of the evaluations and limited the evaluators’ access to materials.”
While any given state’s attorney would, in most circumstances, not object to procedural losses for any given criminal defendant, Huerkamp is likely anticipating the potential fallout on appeal due to the interaction between Cox and Guilfoyle.
In other words, if Guilfoyle was convicted, an appellate attorney would likely raise the same issues being raised by the state now.
Huerkamp, in no uncertain terms, wants the judge nowhere near the case as it moves forward through the legal machinery.
“It is clear,” the motion goes on, “that Judge Cox obtained personal knowledge of the defendant’s mental health during the pendency of this matter, which has been an issue in dispute since very early in the proceedings.”
Law&Crime reached out to the Franklin County Circuit Court for comment on this story but no response was immediately forthcoming.
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