Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To disqualify or seek to disqualify (a judge or juror) from participation in the decision in a case, as for personal prejudice against a party or for personal interest in the outcome.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In numismatics, a coin which, owing to the shifting of the die or dies, has been struck twice and thus bears a double impression.
  • To refuse; reject; specifically, in law, to reject or challenge (a judge or juror) as disqualified to act.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb To withdraw oneself from serving as a judge or other decision-maker in order to avoid a real or apparent conflict of interest; -- often used with the reflexive.
  • transitive verb (Law), obsolete To refuse or reject, as a judge; to challenge that the judge shall not try the cause.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb transitive To refuse or reject (a judge); to declare that the judge shall not try the case or is disqualified to act.
  • verb intransitive, of a judge To refuse to act as a judge; to declare oneself disqualified to act.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb disqualify oneself (as a judge) in a particular case
  • verb challenge or except to a judge as being incompetent or interested, in canon and civil law

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English recusen, from Old French recuser, from Latin recūsāre : re-, re- + causa, cause.]

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Examples

  • He also said that some of the explanations that he and his supporters gave for his failure to recuse from the Vanguard case in 2002 -- such as a “computer glitch” or the fact that his promise to the Committee was somehow time-limited -- were not in fact the true reasons that he failed to recuse himself from the 2002 case.

    The Courts 2009

  • VELEZ-MITCHELL: And that ` s Judge Stan Strickland, smacking down the defense motion to recuse, which is a fancy way of saying get rid of the prosecution team.

    CNN Transcript Jan 30, 2009 2009

  • While judges are required to "recuse" themselves from presiding over a trial where there is a conflict-of-interest -- let's say the judge owns a significant amount of stock in a company owned by the defendant -- there is no parallel definition of conflict of interest when it comes to lawmakers or regulators.

    Jane White: Where Are the Tea Party Traitors When It Comes to Financial Reform and the Revolving Door? Jane White 2010

  • While judges are required to "recuse" themselves from presiding over a trial where there is a conflict-of-interest -- let's say the judge owns a significant amount of stock in a company owned by the defendant -- there is no parallel definition of conflict of interest when it comes to lawmakers or regulators.

    Jane White: Where Are the Tea Party Traitors When It Comes to Financial Reform and the Revolving Door? Jane White 2010

  • While judges are required to "recuse" themselves from presiding over a trial where there is a conflict-of-interest -- let's say the judge owns a significant amount of stock in a company owned by the defendant -- there is no parallel definition of conflict of interest when it comes to lawmakers or regulators.

    Jane White: Where Are the Tea Party Traitors When It Comes to Financial Reform and the Revolving Door? Jane White 2010

  • While judges are required to "recuse" themselves from presiding over a trial where there is a conflict-of-interest -- let's say the judge owns a significant amount of stock in a company owned by the defendant--there is no parallel definition of conflict of interest when it comes to lawmakers or regulators.

    Jane White: Where Are the Tea Party Traitors When It Comes to Financial Reform and the Revolving Door? Jane White 2010

  • You know, we were talking about this Baez motion to recuse which is a fancy way of saying, Jayne, that he wants the entire prosecution team thrown off the case.

    CNN Transcript Jan 29, 2009 2009

  • Just because he's black and President does not mean he must "recuse" himself from commenting on obvious reality: the racist placards and signs of the right wing protesters are not only a call to action for white supremacists and Klansmen, they are a clarion call to those being attacked.

    Clarence B. Jones: Head in the Sand? 2009

  • B. 's conjectural emendation, "recuse" for "secure," but that, unless my memory and Ayscough are both deceptive, the word "recuse" is nowhere to be found in Shakspeare; nor, as far as I know, in any dramatist of the age.

    Notes and Queries, Number 196, July 30, 1853 A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc Various 1852

  • Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, asked if she would recuse herself from future gun control cases because she ruled in the past that the right to bear arms under the Second Amendment does not apply to state gun control laws.

    NRA opposes Sotomayor nomination to Supreme Court 2009

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