Microsoft Judge May Recuse Himself After Appeal

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Feb 26, 2001 | by Jamie Dettmer, | Timothy W. Maier, | Shelia R. Cherry

The federal judge who ordered that Microsoft Corp. be split in two appears none too keen to handle the antitrust case again if his ruling is reversed by the U.S. Court of Appeals and sent back to him.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's controversial Microsoft ruling has been stayed pending a judgment on appeal later this spring. Meanwhile, Jackson has come under fire for speaking publicly about the case prior to the appeals court's final judgment.

If the appeals court's decision on Microsoft is excessively critical of his ruling or upbraids him for speaking publicly about the case, he "will voluntarily recuse" himself, he told a Rotarians meeting.

The judge insisted that splitting Microsoft "was never my remedy of choice," and he said that he never intended to put himself in a position to be a federal regulator of private industry. His stated objective simply was to determine whether the market in a particular segment of commerce was operating as it should.

Still, he acknowledged, "essentially, everything I've done may be vulnerable on appeal."

Although Jackson strove to keep his opinions private until the case was out of his courtroom, he pointed out that he still has made no public statements on the actual merits of the case.

A good deal of the Microsoft evidence was wanting in persuasive force, he said. With that, he invited his fellow jurists in the audience to review the deposition of the star defendant, Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Bill Gates, for themselves.

And it's entirely possible, Jackson admitted, that the new administration will have less interest in pursuing the case than its predecessor or that a settlement could be reached at any time.