BY DARLA L. PICKETT

Staff Writer

SKOWHEGAN -- Superior Court Justice Nancy Mills has withdrawn from delivering a sentencing decision against Shannon Atwood, a Canaan man she found guilty this summer of murdering his girlfriend in 2006.

In a court document filed Monday, Mills wrote that, based on information provided to the court after that verdict was rendered, she had determined to recuse herself from further involvement in the case.

To recuse oneself is to disqualify or withdraw from a position of judging due to prejudice or personal interest, real or perceived.

Mills found Atwood guilty this summer of bludgeoning Cheryl Murdoch, 38, his then-girlfriend. Murdoch's body was found in the woods in rural Canaan.

Atwood previously also had been charged with killing his wife, Shirley Moon Atwood, who has been missing since April 2006. That charge was dismissed in November 2007.

Defense attorney John Alsop filed an Aug. 8 motion that challenged Mills' verdict in the jury-waived trial as "unduly tainted" by prejudicial publicity and prior knowledge. A hearing on that motion was held in October.

Alsop had argued that Mills, prior to the verdict, had acknowledged that she knew a woman Atwood had been convicted of assaulting years earlier. Alsop says the justice used that prior conviction as part of the information on which she based his murder conviction on July 2.

In her filing this week, the judge wrote that the information "creates a circumstance in which the court's impartiality might reasonably be questioned."

Mills said at the October hearing that she went to hairdresser Jennifer Nickerson for about a year, in 2004-05. Atwood went to prison for assaulting Nickerson in 1993.

A story about that assault appeared in area newspapers June 28, 2008, the weekend before Mills' verdict on the Atwood murder case.

Mills said in a meeting with attorneys before delivering the verdict on July 2 that she started to read those articles, but stopped reading when she learned the story was about Nickerson. She said the issue was not whether she knew Nickerson, but what she knew about Nickerson as it involved Atwood.

"Most of the information provided would not have been admissible at sentencing if defense counsel had objected," Mills wrote in the order of recusal. "The information now connects the court to issues in this case."

Mills said she told the defense team of Alsop and Arnold Clark about the issue prior to the verdict and they had no problem before the verdict, but only later raised the question of prejudicial publicity and prior knowledge as a means to seek a new trial.

Alsop said at the time that judges often filter out prejudicial information, but with his client facing a possible life sentence, he felt an obligation to raise the issue.

At the October hearing, Mills ruled that there would be no new trial and scolded Alsop for suggesting she was anything but fair and impartial when she declared Atwood guilty of murder.

Contacted Tuesday about the new development, Alsop declined comment.

Prosecutor Andrew Benson explained that the verdict stands, but another judge will have to impose sentencing: "Justice Mills always takes her ethical obligations very seriously, and while I'm not aware of any particular reason she should recuse herself, apparently she feels otherwise."

In the document, Mills said she has communicated her order of recusal to the chief justice of the Superior Court and a successor justice will be assigned to the case. A transcript of the trial has been requested and is being prepared, according to the document.

Darla L. Pickett -- 474-9534, ext. 341

dpickett@centralmaine.com