Cobb courts hold implicit bias training for judges
In an effort to promote impartiality within its legal system, Cobb County conducted an implicit bias training program for judges at all levels of the Cobb Judicial Circuit.
Conducted by Dr. Brian T. Marks of the National Training Institute on Race and Equity, and with Chief Justice Harold Melton of the Georgia Supreme Court in attendance, the program was intended to curtail bias and prejudice in judicial decision making.
Cobb Superior Court Chief Judge Robert Leonard, who organized the training, said Cobb is the first county in Georgia to implement such training for all of its judges.
“I think (the training) will help with confidence from the community in our courts,” Leonard told the MDJ in January. “With all the racial justice issues percolating around, I felt it was important to get that kind of training on our agenda. There hasn’t been any training like that in the state of Georgia on a statewide level.”
Marks served as an adviser under President Barack Obama on multiple White House initiatives focused on race and education, and has conducted over 2,000 such trainings with police chiefs and executives, the news release said.
“It is important for us to begin to understand and address the historic race issues affecting justice in the court system and this training was a great first step,” said Superior Court Judge Angela Brown.
WASHINGTON — The Los Angeles Times has filed a federal lawsuit seeking to unseal the warrant that authorized federal authorities to search Sen. Richard M. Burr’s cellphone as part of the FBI investigation into stock trades just as the coronavirus pandemic began to surge across the country.
The lawsuit, which was filed
Feb. 24 but became public late Tuesday, seeks to have a federal judge make public the warrant, supporting affidavits and related materials connected to the search of the North Carolina senator’s phone.
The Times first reported on the search warrant, which was served May 13 on the Republican lawmaker at his home in Washington. The warrant represented an escalation in the federal investigation into whether Burr violated a law preventing members of Congress from trading on insider information they have gleaned from their official work.
Burr sold a significant portion of his stock portfolio in 33 separate transactions on Feb. 13, after the senator and his committee began receiving coronavirus briefings from U.S. public health officials and a week before the stock market declined sharply. Much of the stock Burr sold was invested in businesses that in subsequent weeks were hit hard by the plunging market.
The day after FBI agents obtained his phone, Burr stepped down as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, saying the investigation was a “distraction to the hard work of the committee and the members.” Burr has said he will not run for reelection in 2022.
Swedish police on Wednesday said they were investigating a stabbing rampage in southern Sweden where eight people were injured in a suspected terrorist attack.
“We are probing this (incident) as attempted murder but due to details in the investigation we are also investigating possible terrorist motives,” Malena Grann of the regional police force said during a press conference.
She said the Swedish security service Sapo were assisting the police.
Earlier, police said they shot and arrested a young man after he apparently stabbed eight people in central Vetlanda, a small town in southern Sweden.
He attacked the people in several locations, a few hundred yards apart.
Jonas Lindell of the local police told reporters that the suspected assailant had not been questioned and was in hospital but his injuries were not believed to be lifethreatening. He was thought to have acted alone.