New judge assigned to Young Dolph murder case following court-ordered recusal

A new judge has been assigned to the cases of the men charged in connection with the 2021 killing of Young Dolph after Shelby County Criminal Court Judge Lee V. Coffee recused himself from the case, court records show.

Shelby County Criminal Court Judge Jennifer Mitchell, who oversees Division 10, will take over the case after the Tennessee Criminal Court of Appeals ruled that Coffee could be viewed as having a bias against Justin Johnson, one of the defendants.

Coffee recused himself Friday, weeks after the appeals court overturned Coffee's own ruling where he refused to recuse himself from the case.

Luke Evans, Johnson's attorney, filed the motion to recuse after Coffee had signed a court order revoking Johnson's contact privileges with everyone except his attorney. Evans argued that the order was signed without Coffee hearing evidence, hence showing bias in the case.

It came after Coffee, while speaking in one of Johnson's co-defendants' cases on Nov. 22, 2022, said he had a "conversation with the chief jailer yesterday about a recording that was allegedly released from the jail by" Johnson. The call to Chief Jailer Kirk Fields was made during a hearing for one of Johnson's co-defendants, and Coffee said the call was initially made to discuss in-jail treatment for that defendant.

Johnson allegedly recorded a rap song from a Shelby County Jail phone that was then posted to YouTube. The song's lyrics were about Johnson's life in jail.

Coffee, in the April court proceeding, argued that the phone call with Fields was not an ex parte communication — which Evans argued it was since neither he nor Johnson were present at the time — because he made the phone call while he was on the bench, and in open court.

The appeals court agreed with Evans that this constituted an ex parte communication, but said that was not what they were set to rule on. Instead, it said its purpose for ruling was to determine whether Coffee would be questioned as an impartial trial judge.

The court said it believed that was the case.

"We conclude that a person of ordinary prudence, knowing all the facts available to the trial judge in this case, would question whether he could be impartial in these proceedings," the ruling read. "Judge Coffee learned of the defendant’s recording from media reports and then, during a phone call on an unrelated issue, sua sponte (of his own accord) discussed with Chief Fields how such a recording could have been made. Although Chief Fields testified that releasing recordings of jail phone calls on the internet created a potential security concern for the jail, he did not seek out Judge Coffee’s assistance with managing those concerns in this case."

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After the ruling, and Coffee's subsequent recusal, the Shelby County Criminal Court Clerk's Office reassigned the case to Mitchell's courtroom.

Both Johnson and Cornelius Smith, who are accused of being the ones to shoot Young Dolph, were set to have their trials begin in March 2024, with a court date in December to handle any last-minute motions or plea agreements. That trial date, since Mitchell was appointed to the case, has been changed in the Shelby County Criminal Justice Portal to be a report date.

It is not clear whether the appointment of a new judge will delay the case's resolution.

Lucas Finton is a criminal justice reporter with The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached at Lucas.Finton@commercialappeal.com and followed on Twitter @LucasFinton.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: New Shelby County judge assigned to Young Dolph murder case