Judicial Ethics & Qualifications, yawn

Seriously, should we be yawning about this? I think not.

I realize the political news today is mostly about the “Cainwreak” that is/was his cray-cray campaign, but buried down in the twitter verse was a fascinating story about a possibly little known GA agency called the Judicial Qualifications Commission.

The Judicial Qualifications Commission — which has seen its caseload swell the past few years — also recently filed charges against one of the most influential judges in southeast Georgia, and the case is headed toward a potentially explosive trial.

~snip~

The commission received 517 complaints against judges during the past fiscal year and singled out 97 of them for further investigation. That’s up from 337 complaints, 37 of which were designated for more investigation, three years earlier.

The most notorious of the folks they are investigating is Judge Amanda Williams of Glynn County.

The judicial commission has filed 12 ethics charges against Chief Superior Court Judge Amanda Williams of Brunswick, who ran the state’s largest drug court. The complaint accuses her of sending defendants to jail indefinitely with orders they not be allowed to contact their family or their lawyers.

The complaint also alleges that Williams engaged in nepotism, gave false statements and used rude, abusive and insulting language to those who have appeared before her in court.

Judge Williams had an opponent last fall, but she still got 64.73% of the vote in Glynn County. So much for using elections to keep judges “honest”.

According to the article, the following Judges were named as being investigated and are according to them are

“Stepping down”

In recent years, a number of Georgia judges have left the bench after being investigated by the state Judicial Qualifications Commission. Among them:

• Muscogee County Superior Court Judge Douglas Pullen was accused of tipping off targets of an FBI probe and presiding over a case in which a child molester he sentenced to prison in 2002 remained at large until this year.

• Cobb Chief Superior Court Judge Kenneth Nix was accused of inappropriately touching a county prosecutor and investigator.

• Fayette Chief Superior Court Judge Paschal English was found by a deputy having sex in a parked car with a public defender assigned to his court.

• DeKalb State Court Judge Barbara Mobley was accused of using probationers to work for her campaign, misusing public funds and exerting her influence to help a male companion in a child-support case.

A few minutes on the google tells me that none one of these jurists were challenged in their most recent elections. The above named judges all ran in 2008 unopposed. Sure would be nice if this agency was a bit more visible around election time.

While I chuckle at ol’Paschal English getting his hustle on in a parked car with PD,  none of these characters has anything on former Reagan appointee Federal Judge Jack Camp who was notoriously bounced when Camp bought drugs from an unnamed stripper in Atlanta, who was also an F.B.I. informer. Camp bought cocaine, marijuana and other illegal drugs from a stripper with whom he was having an extramarital affair.

Yeah, this is so not yawn material! I gotta hang out in court rooms more often, some real action going on there.