Gov. Nathan Deal closed out December with a string of appointments to vacant judicial and prosecutorial posts across Georgia.

The appointments include the first African-American woman to hold the post of Rockdale Judicial Circuit district attorney, two new solicitors general in Bacon and Miller counties; four superior court judges in the Clayton, Flint, Oconee and Pataula judicial circuits; and a Clayton County state court judge.

The new appointments include:

• Alisha Adams Johnson, senior assistant DA in the Rockdale circuit, as Rockdale DA. Johnson is only the third person, and the second woman, to hold the post. In predecessor Richard Read's retirement letter to Deal, he recommended Johnson for the job, according to the Rockdale Citizen.
• Jennifer Carver, a solo practitioner who serves as the county attorney as Bacon County solicitor general;
• Robert Thomas, a solo practitioner in Colquitt, as the Miller County solicitor general;
• Kathryn Powers, a Clayton County State Court judge and former executive assistant DA, as a Clayton County Superior Court judge;
• John “Trea” Pipkin III, Henry County's solicitor general, as a Flint Judicial Circuit Superior Court judge;
• Howard Kaufold Jr., a partner at Kaufold & Everett in Vidalia, to the Oconee Judicial Circuit Superior Court;
• Craig Earnest, the Pataula Circuit district attorney, to the Pataula Superior Court;
• Shalonda Jones-Parker, Clayton County deputy chief assistant solicitor as a Clayton State Court judge.

Deal also named Blue Ridge attorney Clint Bearden, his former intern and a lawyer in the law offices of Georgia House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, to the Northeastern Judicial Circuit Superior Court. Deal appointed Bearden, who also serves as a part-time county magistrate judge, despite protests from VOTERGA, a nonpartisan voter rights organization that had called into question Bearden's qualifications for the bench because of his role in the arrest and prosecution of citizen journalist Nydia Tisdale over her filming of a Republican political rally.