Oklahoma court: past sexual relationship between judge and prosecutor entitles criminal defendant to new trial; should more cases be reversed?

An Oklahoma court recently held that the fact that a judge and a prosecutor were involved in a sexual relationship during the beginning stages of a murder trial entitles the defendant to new trial.  The ABA Journal has the story here.  

You can read the court's opinion here.

If the relationship had been ongoing during the trial, this result would not be surprising, of course.  In this case, the judge and prosecutor were in a relationship during the initial stages of the case only.  The trial itself happened two or three years later. 

One interesting question is whether the judge and the prosecutor should be subject to discipline for concealing the relationship while it was ongoing.  The judge resigned his judgeship in spring 2021—after the prosecutor and two other lawyers accused him of sexual misconduct.

The judge acknowledged sexual relationships with two prosecutors, but he said they were consensual.  A special prosecutor declined to bring charges in connection with the allegations.

Now I wonder if all the criminal cases tried by those prosecutors and presided by the judge should be looked into.  If I were a criminal defense lawyer, I would look to see if I had represented any defendants during the years that they had ongoing relationships.