As the clock ticks down before the start of a hearing which could throw out the 25-year-old murder conviction of Anthony Sanborn Jr., the stepmother of the victim in that case is calling for the judge to step down.
“I don’t feel she should be hearing this case,” Susan Briggs told CBS 13’s Jon Chrisos in an exclusive interview, aired Thursday night.
The Sanborn case has attracted great publicity in recent months, as the man found guilty of stabbing 16-year-old Jessica Briggs to death on the Maine State Pier nearly three decades ago has sought to overturn his conviction.
Who killed Jessica Briggs? For the first time in 28 years, hear from her family #OnlyOn13 #LiveOnCBS13 @ 530 #Maine #crime pic.twitter.com/BeacrYXUdn
— Jon Chrisos (@JonWGME) July 20, 2017
Key to his case is the fact that an eyewitness for the prosecution has recanted her testimony and said she was legally blind at the time she said she saw Sanborn at the crime scene. Cumberland County Superior Court Justice Joyce Wheeler granted Sanborn bail in April and the man has been free, awaiting the start of his new hearing.
That hearing was scheduled to begin on Monday, but Wheeler agreed on Thursday to delay the hearing until October.
In her interview with Chrisos, Susan Briggs took issue with comments Wheeler made in previous hearings and argued she should step down.
“She’s telling him, ‘You should fare well on your motion.’ It sounds like she already has her mind made up he’s an innocent man,” Briggs said. “Everyone is jumping on the bandwagon, like, ‘Oh he’s been wrongly convicted,’ and that has not been proven. It’s like he has a cult following now. … Nothing has changed. He’s still a convicted murderer.”
Briggs is not alone. The Maine Attorney General’s Office previously also asked Wheeler to recuse herself, but the judge has refused.
A spokeswoman for the Maine Judicial System told CBS 13 Wheeler would not comment on a pending case, and an attorney for Sanborn told the station the man is unavailable for an interview.
“I was convinced and so was the prosecution and the jury — everyone was convinced that it was him [who was guilty],” Briggs told Chrisos. “(Sanborn’s attorneys) haven’t done anything to change my mind yet. If I do or don’t agree with the outcome, I need it to be fair, and I don’t feel it will be fair with her presiding over it.”
