In Georgia, when a judge does something particularly unjudgelike, there’s a good chance the citizens over whom they preside will hear about it. Like the county judge in Southeast Georgia who once helped himself to another man’s vegetables, then had harsh words for the landowner when confronted.
A decade earlier, a Catoosa County magistrate judge spent several months regularly consuming marijuana, during which time he called both the county’s sheriff and chief magistrate judge “spineless” on a local cable access talk show called “Night Talk.” The judge, Anthony Peters, tried multiple foreign accents to disguise himself as a caller on the show, saying the sheriff was a “spineless jelly spine.” He was removed from the bench for that incident and other questionable moments.
More recently, in Northeast Georgia, the chief magistrate judge of Habersham County resigned amid an investigation by the state’s judicial conduct authority, which recommended his removal from office. Law enforcement said that during a drunken fight with his wife at their home, the judge had pointed a loaded rifle at a sheriff’s deputy who knocked on their front door in response to neighbors’ calls about the judge repeatedly firing the weapon in his backyard.
Since its inception in 1972, the Georgia Judicial Qualifications Commission has been holding a mirror to the state’s judges and reporting bad behavior to the Georgia Supreme Court along with recommended sanctions. Based on the work of the commission, commonly known as the JQC, the court decides if a judge should be punished and how.
“It is an incredibly important institution,” said Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who served as the presiding member of the commission’s hearing panel from 2017 to 2024.
McBurney was involved in recommending that Christian Coomer be kicked off the Georgia Court of Appeals after the JQC’s investigative panel charged Coomer with taking advantage of an elderly client. He’d borrowed nearly $370,000 from the client and drafted the man’s will, making himself and his wife beneficiaries. Coomer, a former state lawmaker, was also accused of mishandling campaign funding. He was ousted from the bench in 2023 and had his law license temporarily suspended in November 2024.
Credit: Natrice Miller/AJC
Credit: Natrice Miller/AJC
The JQC’s hearing panel recently recommended the removal of Christina Peterson as Douglas County’s probate judge for multiple violations of the Georgia Code of Judicial Conduct. Peterson had faced misconduct allegations since winning the election to office in 2020. In June 2024, after she lost reelection, she was arrested outside a Buckhead nightclub and charged with hitting a police officer. Five days later, the state Supreme Court ended her job.
In early 2025, the chief magistrate judges of Haralson and Heard counties in West Georgia and the chief judge of Clinch County’s probate and magistrate courts in Southeast Georgia resigned to end JQC investigations of alleged wrongdoing. In May 2025, Danielle McRae resigned as Upson County’s probate judge while under investigation by the JQC and GBI.
The rather thankless task of prosecuting judges
Georgia’s judicial watchdog isn’t solely dedicated to investigating and prosecuting ethical wrongdoing by the state’s roughly 1,600 judges, though that is what it is predominantly known for. Its complementary role as an educator of state judges, to whom it provides guidance and training, tends to be forgotten.
“The JQC will always be humorously stereotyped as the Gestapo or the secret police out to get judges,” McBurney said.
A mix of Georgia attorneys, citizens and judges form the commission, which has half a dozen staff. Its seven investigative panel members and three hearing panel members are volunteers. The agency’s annual budget recently increased beyond $1 million.
Director Courtney Veal said Georgia is one of 11 states with a judicial conduct commission that both educates and investigates judges.
Complaints to the agency are on the rise, surpassing 1,700 in 2024. Each year, the bulk of complaints about judges are dismissed by the commission’s investigative team, often as either being outside the JQC’s jurisdiction or unfounded. Serious cases result in formal charges being filed by the commission and weighed by its hearing panel.
State lawmakers tear the agency apart
In 2016, the structure of the commission was challenged by state politicians who wanted more of a say in the appointment of its members. Opponents of the change accused the state of politicizing the agency, whose members at that time were predominantly appointed by the state Supreme Court and State Bar of Georgia.
Attorney Lester Tate, a state bar appointee to the commission in 2011, ended his two-year reign as JQC chair in protest of the legislative measure, which he wasn’t alone in publicly criticizing.
Former Gov. Roy Barnes, an attorney who has represented many Georgia judges in ethical misconduct cases, said the amendments sought to improperly politicize the JQC. “I just don’t think that allowing political folks to appoint members of the JQC is a good thing,” he said. “There’s a chilling effect on independence.”
State voters approved the restructuring through a constitutional amendment, with 62.5% in favor.
Tate, an attorney who’s also often helping judges defend ethics allegations, said the new investigation and discipline process is “too political, too cumbersome and too slow.”
Richard Hyde, a longtime JQC investigator and panel member, told legislators in 2016 that the agency was in the midst of a “perfect storm of dysfunction.” Hyde is the commission’s longest-serving official, having held various roles since 2004.
Prosecution and judicial powers are separated
The legislature’s splitting of the commission’s authority to prosecute and decide misconduct cases was a necessary improvement, says McBurney and other advocates of that change. Previously, the same agency members “decided who to charge, what to charge and then presided over their trial,” McBurney said.
“This system is a marked improvement on the previous,” he said. “No system is perfect.”
Former commission chairman Robert Ingram, who stepped down in 2014 to focus on his Cobb County law practice, said having separate investigative and hearing panels “makes sense.” But, like Tate, he said the commission’s new structure hampers its ability to handle cases efficiently.
“When I was on the JQC, in I think a two- or three-year period, we had 68 judges resign or be removed,” Ingram said. “Many times, we would informally resolve the dispute by having our investigator or our director go sit down with the judge. You were able to do it efficiently, and you were able to spare the dignity of the judge.”
Tate, who has represented dozens of judges in JQC cases, said it now takes years and layers of bureaucracy to get to a ruling by the state Supreme Court.
“Judges that need to be removed stay on the bench and collect a paycheck,” he said. “Judges who are innocent are left to face the electorate with unproven charges hanging over their heads. There are simply too many cooks in the kitchen.”
Complaints filed with the commission are reviewed by its investigative team, including Veal. Only complaints that properly allege violations of the Georgia Code of Judicial Conduct move forward for further investigation. The commission can also investigate other information it receives about judicial misconduct.
Credit: Ben Gray for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Credit: Ben Gray for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Veal said it’s often informal tips that lead to the most serious cases. She said many people whose work takes place around judges are hesitant to file formal complaints for fear of retribution.
“There’s risk there,” she said. “This is people’s livelihoods, and judges are powerful.”
In cases where charges are publicly filed, Veal leads the prosecution of the judge, who has the opportunity to defend himself or herself before the hearing panel. Some cases progress to a nonjury trial in which the hearing panel considers witness testimony and other evidence before providing the state Supreme Court with a report, including discipline recommendations.
The court ultimately publishes its decision on its website, alongside other case filings.
Many judges choose to resign while under investigation, ending the commission probe.
An educated commission finds its feet
After some growing pains, the JQC is working well with its new structure, said attorney Chuck Boring, who served as its director from late 2019 to early 2023.
“I think a lot of the kinks have been worked out,” he said. “Hopefully, the guinea pig years are over now.”
Credit: Ben Hendren
Credit: Ben Hendren
The agency benefited from detailed guidance by the state Supreme Court in the two biggest JQC cases since the legislative restructuring. In the Coomer and Peterson cases, the court wrote lengthy opinions outlining the limits of the JQC’s prosecutorial power and explaining which judicial conduct warrants discipline.
Previous decisions by the court in JQC cases didn’t include as much analysis on the applicable rules, Boring said.
“We were kind of making it up as we went along and doing our best to read the tea leaves as to how (the court) would interpret things,” he said. “Sometimes we got it right, sometimes we got it wrong. And they told us when we were wrong.”
The commission has two pending cases involving formal charges against judges.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Shermela Williams is accused in part of favoring a sorority sister in a child custody case and ignoring calls to decide other cases that she’d let languish for over a year.
Chatham County Probate Judge Thomas Bordeaux is accused of sitting on several cases without a ruling for as many as seven years. Bordeaux, a former state representative who chaired the House Judiciary Committee, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution he was embarrassed by the case delays, which he blamed in part on limited support staff.
Veal said the JQC is “just able to keep up” with its caseload while complaints about judges continue to increase. She said she’s grateful for support from state lawmakers, who have consistently increased the commission’s annual budget.
The JQC might not be done changing just yet
A long-term goal of Veal’s is to make the commission’s dual roles of prosecutor and educator more separate, with different staff dedicated to each.
More judges are reaching out to the JQC for guidance and advice each year, Veal said, adding that it is “encouraging.” She said commission staff are also being asked to participate in more judicial conferences.
There could also be changes in how the agency deals with certain issues, as debate continues about the appropriateness of commonly used forms of judicial discipline and whether judges can be suspended without pay.
Hyde, the citizen member of the JQC’s hearing panel since 2020, has said in case filings that an unpaid suspension seems an appropriate sanction for certain misconduct but doesn’t appear to be authorized under state law. And he’s taken aim at Georgia’s use of public reprimands, which he says have been “more akin to a high school pep rally or a political campaign event.”
Credit: Ben Gray for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Credit: Ben Gray for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The JQC rules allow for different methods of discipline. But Georgia has shown little inclination for using novel sanctions in judicial misconduct cases, Hyde has said, suggesting the introduction of monetary penalties like those used in other states.
McBurney said the JQC doesn’t pose a threat to judges who follow the rules. He said seeking guidance from the commission is “the best antidote to making a mistake you’re going to regret.”
“It’s not hard to stay out of trouble as a judge,” he said. “It really isn’t.”
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