The U.S. attorney's office filed a response Friday asking U.S. District Judge Arthur J. Schwab to reconsider his decision to disqualify himself from all cases involving attorneys from the federal public defender's office.

In the response, U.S. Attorney David J. Hickton wrote that his office found no basis for the disqualification.

The public defender's office filed a motion Tuesday requesting that Judge Schwab be removed from 21 cases in which defendants are represented by public defenders because they said Judge Schwab was biased against the office.

They cited the case of Youa Vue, who was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm and was being represented by an assistant public defender. The office discovered in June that a confidential informant against Mr. Vue was also being represented by the office and asked to be removed from Mr. Vue's case to avoid a conflict of interest. Judge Schwab denied the motion and criticized the assistant public defender for failing to recognize the conflict earlier in the case. He eventually allowed the office to bring in outside counsel to represent Mr. Vue. The public defender's office said Judge Schwab's behavior showed that he was biased against the public defender's office and requested that he be removed from all cases involving their attorneys.

Judge Schwab complied, issuing an opinion Wednesday that he would remove himself from the cases if all affected defendants agreed to the arrangement.

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