Lawyers to lay low over plan to ditch watchdog

Fearing retribution, the board that governs the legal profession in Georgia voted Friday not to make a public statement against a proposed constitutional amendment to dismantle the watchdog agency that investigates alleged judicial misconduct.

The proposed amendment on the Nov. 8 ballot asks voters if they want to scrap the Judicial Qualifications Commission as an independent agency that investigates judges, and replace it with a commission under the Legislature’s control.

The State Bar of Georgia voiced its opposition to the proposal earlier in the year, arguing that the change would politicize the JQC because judges could stop investigations by complaining to legislators.

But on Friday, after debating the issue for more than 90 minutes, the Board of Governors for the Bar concluded they’d risk retaliation from the Legislature if they took a public stand against the proposal lawmakers passed this year.

Not everyone endorsed caution.

“Are we going to sit on our hands and not express our opposition ... because of fear, fear of retaliation, fear of not having a seat at the table?” said Atlanta attorney Seth Kirschenbaum, who proposed that the Board of Governors approve a media campaign against the amendment. “This is a matter of principle. I think the amendment is a bad idea.”

Those who agreed with him noted that the legal community was blindsided when the proposed amendment was introduced this year. A common observation was the bar association wasn’t consulted about the JQC then, and so would not likely be consulted in the future.

But other bar association members said the group should stand down in hopes they will have a say in what happens going forward.

Ken Hodges, the former district attorney for Dougherty County, argued against taking on the Legislature.

“We need to be pragmatic about this,” Hodges said. “Joe Citizen doesn’t care about a resolution by the state Board of Governors, but the Legislature does. And we don’t need to (tick) them off.”

Atlanta attorney Dawn Jones agreed. “I don’t see anything good coming from it,” she said.

Kirschenbaum’s suggestion of a public campaign failed by a vote of 55-48. The Georgia First Amendment Foundation, the Southern Center for Human Rights, and the NAACP are among organizations that have come out against the proposal.

Since 2007, more than six dozen judges have been forced off the bench because of JQC investigations.

But that has brought the JQC political pressure.

One of the sponsors of the anti-JQC initiative is Rep. Johnnie Caldwell, R-Thomaston, a former Superior Court judge who resigned when the JQC began investigating him. Caldwell left the bench in the Griffin Judicial Circuit in 2010 amid allegations that he sexually harassed a female attorney during a University of Georgia tailgating party. He was elected to the Legislature in 2012.

Two other judges were indicted last year on criminal charges accusing them of lying to the JQC:

A case against Amanda Williams, once the chief judge of the Brunswick Judicial Circuit, is pending in Fulton County Superior Court. The JQC accused her of being a tyrant who allegedly locks up drug court defendants indefinitely with orders that they have no access to family or counsel.

Retired DeKalb County Judge Cynthia Becker was indicted last year, accused of lying to the JQC when questioned about her behavior during the sentencing of former DeKalb County School Superintendent Crawford Lewis. The charges were dropped four days later when she agreed never again to sit on the bench.

If the amendment is approved, the current seven-member JQC will be abolished at midnight on Dec. 31 and replaced by commission members appointed by elected officials — four of them named by the Legislature. The State Bar of Georgia, which now appoints three JQC members, would have no appointments.