LOS ANGELES - An appeals court has removed a Los Angeles federal judge from a wrongful conviction lawsuit, ruling that U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson's impartiality in handling the case "might be questioned."

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals acted yesterday, the same day Anderson declared a mistrial after the jury deadlocked over Herman Atkins' damages claim, the Los Angeles Times reported. The case will be retried before another judge.

Now 40, Atkins spent 12 years in California prisons before DNA evidence cleared him of a 1986 Riverside County rape.

His lawyers, who alleged misconduct by a Riverside County sheriff's deputy, had repeatedly complained that Anderson was biased against their client, according to The Times.

Panel chief Judge Mary Schroeder and her colleagues, Stephen Reinhardt and Kim Wardlaw, said their review of Anderson's rulings and the trial transcript "lead us to conclude that in light of (Anderson's) cumulative actions in this case … (his) impartiality might be questioned," The Times reported.

They said that his removal from the case "will be in the interests of the district judge as well as the parties, and it will preserve the appearance of justice, if any future trial in this matter is conducted by another judge."

With the jury deadlocked, Anderson yesterday declared a mistrial in the case.

Atkins was seeking damages from ex-Riverside County sheriff's Detective Danny C. Miller, alleging that he fabricated evidence and misrepresented facts in court when Atkins was convicted of an April 8, 1986, rape during a robbery at a Lake Elsinore shoe store.