The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Judges from Georgia (the country) eye state judges
Foreign delegation visits as part of state, federal programs.
A whole mess of judges from Georgia came to vi sit Cobb County to see how the county runs its courtrooms, but these Georgians didn’t know anything about grits or sweet tea.
These Georgians were from the Republic of Georgia.
Five trial judges came as part of a program between several state and federal agencies.
“The program was developed as an initiative to promote the transparency and independence of the Republic of Georgia judicial system, to assist the Georgia judiciary in court and jury trial management, and to strengthen the rule of law in the Republic of Georgia,” according to a news release from the Cobb court system.
The Georgia judges came by last year, too. They’ve spent three weeks studying our judicial system in order to take lessons back to Georgia, which gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
Apparently, jury trials are a new way of doing things. They used to be reserved for cases of murder and public corruption.
“While our criminal justice system is not perfect, we do have almost 250 years of steadily working to improve the practice and procedure of jury trials in this country,”Cobb Superior Judge Ann Harris said.
“Ourhope is some of our experience — both good and bad — will be useful to the Georgian judiciary as they work to strengthen their own jury trial process.”