Posts Tagged ‘JQC’
Best Argument For And Against Recording in the Courtroom
Georgia superior court judges have pursued some polarizing changes to the way they are regulated. Now, they want to impose strict restrictions on the public’ ability to record what happens in open court. On January 17, 2017, they will begin considering a new superior court rule that will give Georgia judges unprecedented control over their…
Read MoreWhy Can’t the Bar Create an Internal JQC to Discipline Lawyers who are Judges?
It appears that the big news from the State Bar’s annual meeting is that the Bar will do nothing to encourage voters to oppose the referendum that will gut the Judicial Qualifications Commission. In the wake of the last-minute vote to gut the JQC, its chair, Lester Tate, resigned. Mr. Tate called upon the Bar…
Read MoreMuch Belated Thoughts on Changes to Georgia’s JQC
I meant to write a post on this topic at the end of the legislative session. Very late in the game, the Georgia General Assembly radically changed Georgia’s Judicial Qualifications Commission, the ethics watchdog agency for Georgia judges. Shortly after these changes were made, the head of the JQC very publicly resigned. I have mixed…
Read MoreCongrats to Jeff Davis, Champion of Judicial Ethics
Jeff Davis has been appointed as the new Executive Director of the State Bar of Georgia. Before that, he was the Director of the Georgia JQC, the agency that governs ethics and Georgia judges. Georgia lawyers and citizens should be proud. I don’t know much about the JQC from before Mr. Davis was its director,…
Read MoreJQC Zaps Another Magistrate Judge
Robin McDonald of the Fulton Daily Report notes in a story today that Murray County Magistrate Judge Bryant Cochran resigned his post as Chief Magistrate Judge. His resignation letter departs from they typical fare of this genre — quivery sharky handwritten script, tendered to Richard Hyde. He doubled the average sentence length to two whole…
Read MoreEx-Magistrate’s Lawsuit Blackens Eye of Ga. Judiciary
This won’t end well. Anthony Peters, the former Catoosa County assistant Magistrate Judge has filed a civil rights suit against the his former boss as well as the Sheriff of Catoosa County. When I read Joy Lukachick’s article (hat tip to her) in the Chattanooga Times Free Press about the lawsuit, I had to pull the…
Read MoreTrial Objections are no Substitute for an Appellate Strategy
The Lawyerist wrote an evocative post last week about when and how to object at trial. In it, Andy Mergendahl notes that “Objecting at times other than when absolutely necessary to keep crucial inadmissible evidence out will really hurt you.” He advises, instead, to handle as many objections as possible as motions in limine. What…
Read MoreGeorgia JQC Sweeps Another Judge’s Conduct Under the Rug
It appears that the best place in the State to skirt the edge of the law is the judicial chambers of a Georgia court. If your crime catches the attention of the Judicial Qualification Commission and they investigate first, then you might lose your job. But that’s about it. Brian K. Finnicum, the Editor of…
Read More21 Judges Disciplined by Georgia’s Star Chamber, the JQC
Robin McDonald’s article poses the question of why the Georgia’s Judicial Qualifications Commission has zapped so many judges this year. The simple answer is that they deserved it. But, read a little more, and the story is pretty disturbing. While the commission has taken out some judges who had it coming, I can’t say that…
Read MoreGeorgia Judicial News: Judges Gone Wild Edition
I don’t want to bury the lead. So, here it is. There must be enough error out there in Georgia to win a slew of appeals. Georgia judges must be messing up on hearsay, the Fourth Amendment, and jury charges. All those things are hard. Many of them, so far this year, are messing up…
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