1) every judge knows you dont chum it up with jurors sitting on a case, ever. What a fool, taking food, chatting about potlucks. He should have known that it is very touchy to prosecute a case with a child witness and been especially careful to protect every stage of the trial from any challenge - that's the judge's job! His stupidity in running his court also makes me think he may indeed be bad at keeping his prejudices under wraps when interacting with a jury during a case, etc. Ignoring standard court procedure in this way indicates to me that he thinks he is above legal rules and norms.

2) This is based on the news article of course, which itself is clearly biased from the start. I assume there is more to the appeals court decision than reported here. It says "James Degroff is getting a second chance to proving he never molested a 6-year-old girl four years ago." Well, it should be noted that the burden shouldn't have been on him to prove anything 6 four years ago, because he should have been presumed innocent.

If the burden was on Degroff to prove himself innocent, the judges moronic acts would be less of a problem for prosecutors now. The presumption of innocence and other legal rights of defendants are what are going to make this a much harder conviction to get now.