MICHAEL R. MERZ, Magistrate Judge.
This habeas corpus case is before the Court on a Motion by Petitioner labeled "Motion to Expand the Record," but seeking various items of relief which will be decided seriatim.
Petitioner first seeks an order striking Respondent's Answer. In his Objections to the original Report and Recommendations, Woogerd claimed that the State Court Record did not contain a document labeled "Plaintiff's Motion to Dismiss Petitioner's Motion for post-Conviction Relief." (Objections, ECF No. 24, PageID 2386.) In the Supplemental Report and Recommendations, the Magistrate Judge noted that a document bearing a similar title and apparently intended to serve the same function was in the State Court Record (Supp. R&R, ECF No. 27, PageID 2396, citing State Court Record, ECF No. 15, PageID 203-11). If that was not the correct document, Woogerd was invited to submit the correct one for expansion of the record. Woogerd did not do so, but offered an explanation of his difficulties with documents in prison.
The Magistrate Judge has reexamined the State Court Record and finds the document apparently in question is in that record as Exhibit 13. However in his Motion to Expand, Woogerd asserts the Attorney General "failed to serve the Petitioner the `Decision and Entry Sustaining Plaintiff's Motion to Dismiss Petitioner's Motion for Post-Conviction Relief' filed June 6th 2006." (Motion, ECF No. 29, PageID 2412). Upon examination, the Magistrate Judge finds that the referenced Decision is not part of the State Court Record filed by Respondent. Therefore it is not the case that the Decision was filed here, but not served on Petitioner. A search of the web site for the Franklin County Clerk of Courts also does not reveal any such decision.
At the end of his Motion, Woogerd moves to strike both the Report and Recommendations (ECF No. 21) and the Supplemental Report and Recommendations (ECF No. 27) and to "disqualify Michael R. Merz from any further proceedings as Magistrate Judge of the abovecaptioned case." (Motion, ECF No. 29, PageID 2417).
The standard applied in evaluating recusal motions is an objective one. "[W]hat matters is not the reality of bias or prejudice, but its appearance." Liteky v. United States, 510 U.S. 540, 548 (1994). A federal judicial officer must recuse himself or herself where "a reasonable person with knowledge of all the facts would conclude that the judge's impartiality might reasonably be questioned. This standard is not based `on the subjective view of a party,'" no matter how strongly that subjective view is held. United States v. Nelson, 922 F.2d 311, 319 (6
A disqualifying prejudice or bias must ordinarily be personal or extrajudicial. United States v. Sammons, 918 F.2d 592, 598 (6
Liteky v. United States, 510 U.S. 540, 554-55 (1994); see also Alley v. Bell, 307 F.3d 380, 388 (6th Cir. 2002)(quoting the deep-seated favoritism or antagonism standard). The Liteky Court went on to hold:
510 U.S. at 555. Since the decision in Liteky, supra, "federal courts have been uniform in holding that § 455(a) cannot be satisfied without proof of extrajudicial bias, except in the most egregious cases." Flamm, Judicial Disqualification 2d § 25.99, citing In re Antar, 71 F.3d 97 (3rd Cir. 1995), overruled on other grounds Smith v. Berg, 247 F.3d 532, 534 (3rd Cir. 2001).
Woogerd cites no extrajudicial source of any bias the Magistrate Judge might have against him and I have no such extrajudicial knowledge. The Motion to Disqualify is DENIED.