Dominic Bugatto for Business Insider
On a mild Houston day in March 2021, Judge Marvin Isgur prepared to oversee the only case on his docket that morning. It was a motion to recuse his longtime colleague on the bench, David Jones, from a case involving a bankrupt engineering company.
Motions are the bread and butter of the US court system, and litigants use recusal motions to request a new judge if they have concerns about a conflict of interest or bias. An independent judge hears the arguments and decides if there is enough evidence to grant the motion, requiring the assigned judge to step aside.