Flying under the Public’s Radar 

It is difficult to maintain a knowledge-base and keep abreast of the background of judicial candidates, even though the candidate is a sitting judge. These individuals fly beneath the general public’s radar screen. Their campaigns are cloaked with supposedly neutrality and declaring they can not answer questions about their stance on such issues as the death penalty, violating the very law they are sworn to uphold, or making jail a punishment instead of a retreat.

Concerning the death penalty, these candidates and/or sitting judges take the supposedly high road of neutrality, while some carry out their own agenda from the bench. How can justice be served when a judge who presides over death penalty cases is opposed to the death penalty? Are we, the public, to believe that judges are so pure that their personal convictions won’t affect their decisions? According to the article published in the Marietta Daily Journal on June 23, 2006, it appears that this is exactly what the new president of the State Bar of Georgia would have the public believe.

The judges campaigning for re-election will decry that they cannot rule on all motions in a given case within the allotted time of ninety days because they are so overloaded. Therefore, they are violating the very law they are sworn to uphold. If these candidates can’t handle the job then perhaps, they need to find another legal position. As my dear old Mother used the say; “If the kitchen is too hot then get out.”

When it comes to making jail a punishment instead of a retreat, these same candidates will hide behind the legislature. Their rhetorical redress will be; “The legislature makes the law not us.” Here they go again, washing their hands. It is certainly true that judges don’t make the law. However, these judges have a tremendous influence on the legislature. Ask any legislator, particularly those on the judiciary committee, who visits and/or calls them when a matter is under consideration that affects the court.

In Cobb County, we have judges that perform their job in a most professional and conscientious manner. These judges operate their court in a transparent manner, which is open to public scrutiny, as it should be. Then we have those that don’t appear to like the idea of transparency. To research the docket of a superior court judge, one just has to visit the superior court website. However, not all the superior court judges are listed. There seems to be one judge that is conspicuously missing. Could it be that this judge doesn’t care for transparency in their court? This particular judge took approximately 3½ years to bring a double murder case to trial in which the death penalty was sought. In a current double murder case where the death penalty is sought, this judge took approximately one year to hear the first motion made by the defense. Even though the accused was indicted in February 2004, this judge didn’t hear the first motion until January 2005. This judge seems to give new meaning to the term, “Criminal Friendly”. The last motions in this case were heard in September 2005. Here we are in July 2006 and this judge still hasn’t ruled on all the motions in this double murder case. What happened to operating by the rule of law such as the time limit for ruling on motions? It appears that this judge does not perform her job in a professional and conscientious manner.  Could it be that this judge is opposed to the death penalty and is pursuing her personal agenda by delaying the case? It is very obvious that delaying a death penalty case will decrease the probability of a murderer receiving the death penalty and the probability for a sentence of life in prison will increase. It appears that this Cobb County judge is a murderer’s best friend.

It is the responsibility of every citizen to vote and elect individuals that will perform their elected job in a professional and conscientious manner. However, when an individual is not performing his or her job in this manner, it is also the responsibility of every citizen to vote that person out of office.

Judges truly operate under the public’s radar. The general public knows very little about these individuals unless their lives have been touched by the legal system. Most of the public simply votes for the same person over and over again, even though that individual may be lazy, incompetent, following their personal agenda, and/or breaking the law. The cold truth is that most of this is never propagated to the public’s ear. Therefore, the general public simply thinks that if they’ve never heard anything bad about a judge, the judge must be doing a good job. We as the public must demand more from our judges. We need to know their position on issues. Hiding behind the curtain of neutrality is a copout.

If we the public continue to allow this, then we must expect the worst. 

Website for The Superior Court of Cobb County: http://www.cobbgasupctclk.com/scripts/Calen.dll/CRSearchByJudge

Article by Jay Cook, President of State Bar of Georgia:

http://www.mdjonline.com/articles/2006/06/23/94/10222570.txt