Judge Mack Crawford, Pike County Superior Court (Photo: John Disney/ ALM)

A suspended judge is challenging the state judicial watchdog's recommendation to remove him from the bench.

But the Supreme Court of Georgia, which will make the final call on whether to strip Superior Court Judge Robert “Mack” Crawford of his judicial post, has suggested it might hold off until an appeal calling into question the Judicial Qualification Commission's legitimacy is resolved.

The JQC suspended Crawford last year after he was indicted by a Pike County grand jury on felony charges of theft and violating his oath of office. Crawford has pleaded not guilty and is free on a signature bond.

The JQC's three-person judicial panel recommended Crawford's removal for ethics violations tied to the criminal charges in April after a two-day ethics hearing. The commission accused Crawford of violating the state Judicial Code of Ethics by stealing $15,675 in unclaimed funds from the Pike County court registry that belonged to former clients.

Crawford directed the Pike County court clerk to cut him a check for the unclaimed money in December 2017, which had sat in the registry for 15 years. Crawford then cashed the check, depositing more than $10,000 into his overdrawn personal bank account and pocketing the rest in cash, according to the ethics charges and Crawford's own testimony before the JQC panel.

Crawford told the JQC at his ethics hearing that, even though taking the money was “a big mistake,” he wanted to keep his job and had done nothing wrong.

Crawford's attorney, former Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes, filed a formal exception to the JQC's removal recommendation in May.

In it, Barnes again claimed that JQC members are holding office illegally because of the Georgia General Assembly's alleged failure to present JQC appointments to the state Senate for confirmation in the required time frame.

A Cobb County Superior Court judge affirmed the legality of the JQC appointments in March and refused to invalidate the commission's actions, including the charges against Crawford and his suspension.

Crawford appealed. The case is pending before the Georgia Court of Appeals.

The state Supreme Court has given Crawford and the JQC 20 days to present written arguments on whether to postpone a decision to remove Crawford from the bench until after his appeal is decided.

In addition to challenging the legitimacy of the JQC and their actions, Barnes challenged the JQC's decision to suspend Crawford, claiming the suspension “unduly prejudged the facts of the case.”

Barnes also contended that Crawford never issued a court order to the clerk to write him a check for $15,676 that she intended to send to the state as unclaimed funds. Instead, Crawford handed the clerk a penciled note to give him the money and directed that she not placed the note in the closed case file.

Barnes also said the judicial panel was wrong to decide that Crawford had no claim to the money. Crawford has repeatedly insisted the money was owed to him by former clients as unpaid legal fees.

Testifying at his ethics hearing, the judge acknowledged that he never had a retainer agreement with the clients—one of whom died in 2004—and that he had no records of hours or duties he undertook on their behalf beginning in 2002. Another judge closed the case in 2009 and ordered the money in the registry be returned to Crawford's clients or their heirs.

Barnes also argued the JQC judicial panel was wrong to find that the judge Crawford's apparent financial distress in December 2017 was a motive.

Crawford has given different explanations to the Georgia Bureau of Investigations and the JQC about why he made no claim on the registry funds until shortly before Christmas in 2017 when his personal bank account was overdrawn by more than $2,000. Crawford has claimed he forgot the money was owed to him, that he never was able to locate former client Dan Mike Clark's companion and co-plaintiff after Clark died in 2004, that Clark's family refused the money when it was offered and that Crawford intended to deposit the money for safe-keeping in his personal bank account until either co-plaintiff Bobbie Jo Whalen or a relative of Clark's or Whalen's stepped forward.

Barnes also claimed that Crawford returned the money to the state last year at the suggestion of JQC director Ben Easterlin.

In response questions from Easterlin at the ethics hearing, Crawford testified that he thought he “had an agreement” that he would remain on the bench, if he gave back the money.

“You scared the hell out of me and asked me to give [the money] back,” Crawford said to Easterlin, who prosecuted the ethics charges for the JQC. “I thought we had an agreement that, if I paid it back, … this wouldn't go anywhere.”