A Tulsa County judge has refused to recuse the judge scheduled to hear the murder trial of a former Tulsa police officer.
District Judge Rebecca Nightingale on Thursday rejected the request by the attorney for former officer Shannon Kepler and turned down a request for a stay of the trial that's to begin Monday.
Nightingale says the request by attorney Richard O'Carroll to recuse Judge Sharon Holmes "smacks of abuse of the legal system."
O'Carroll says Holmes should recuse because of her planned participation in a fundraiser by the Christian Ministers Alliance and the NAACP for a youth center in Tulsa. He argues participation effectively aligns her with the state.
Kepler has pleaded not guilty in the 2014 shooting death of 19-year-old Jeremy Lake after Lake introduced himself as the boyfriend of Kepler's daughter.