A magistrate judge in South Carolina has declined to recuse herself from considering a suit against a number of social service agencies, including the United Way of Central Carolinas, when the plaintiff said that her service as a volunteer member of the council of a different United Way chapter shows a bias in favor of the defendant chapter. Quoting the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, the magistrate said “there is as much obligation upon a judge not to recuse himself when there is no occasion as there is for him to do so when there is.” The statute requires recusal in any matter in which the judge’s “impartiality might reasonably be questioned” by a reasonable person, who has been defined...