People of Michigan v. Adam Benjamin Stevens

Summary

The Michigan Supreme Court adopted a totality-of-the-circumstances standard for determining when a trial judge's conduct creates an appearance of advocacy or partiality that pierces the veil of judicial impartiality. It held that the judge's repeated, hostile, and one-sided questioning of the defense expert and defendant deprived defendant of a fair trial, and that the preserved constitutional error was structural and not subject to harmless-error review. The court reversed and remanded for a new trial before a different judge.