Rule 44.4.Assignment of Judge for Habeas Corpus Proceedings

Rule 44.4 keeps a death-penalty habeas case out of the hands of a judge in the circuit where the death sentence was handed down. The Executive Committee of the Council of Superior Court Judges writes guidelines for assigning these cases statewide, and those guidelines must exclude judges from the sentencing circuit. Once the Executive Director receives the petition — through the clerk’s notice under Rule 44.2 — the president of the Council has thirty days to assign a judge under those guidelines.

That thirty-day window can leave a gap before any judge is formally in charge. Subsection (B) fills it: the presiding judge of the court where the petition was filed can act on emergency matters during that gap, or during a later vacancy if an assigned judge becomes unavailable. That authority has one limit — it doesn’t apply if the presiding judge is disqualified under Uniform Superior Court Rule 25.

Together, the two halves of this rule make sure a capital habeas case always has someone who can act on it, whether that’s the outside judge the Council eventually assigns or the local presiding judge handling urgent matters in the meantime.