After exchanging salvos with the state Supreme Court about who was acting in a "bizarre" fashion, Fulton County's district attorney dropped a type of appeal that the justices suggested was wasting everyone's time.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp.

But Fulton DA Paul Howard Jr. embarked on a campaign he said was backed by many other prosecutors to push Gov. Brian Kemp for legislation that would curb trial judges' power to act as a "13th juror" and undo jury verdicts.

Two days before oral arguments, Howard withdrew the state's appeal of a Fulton County judge's decision to grant a new trial to convicted murderer Terron "Red" Clark. At issue was the "13th juror" power based on a state law allowing judges to overturn jury verdicts they find "contrary to evidence and the principles of justice and equity."

In a separate case last week, the high court unanimously upheld a Fulton County judge's decision to overturn a murder conviction based on her view that the prosecution's evidence was "weak" and full of "conflicting evidence and credibility concerns."

Justice Sarah H. Warren, Georgia Supreme Court.

In that ruling, Justice Sarah H. Warren wrote for the court that the state's argument—the guilty verdict was demanded by the "great physical laws of the universe"—was "bizarre."

Presiding Justice David Nahmias, joined by Warren and five other justices, added separately that prosecutors' appeals of judges' "13th juror" decisions based on the credibility determinations have "no realistic chance to prevail."

Nahmias warned prosecutors to "think hard" whether an appeal on that basis would be "a waste of the limited resources of the State, the publicly funded lawyers who represent most of the defendants in these cases, and this Court."