Clayton County Georgia Superior Courthouse. (Photo: Google Maps)

In a defeat for a gubernatorial appointee, Clayton County voters ousted Superior Court Judge Kathryn "Katie" Powers Tuesday, choosing opponent Jewel Scott, the county's onetime district attorney, to replace her.

With 100% of the vote counted, Scott tallied 23,224 ballots, or nearly  60% of the total. Powers, who was appointed to the bench by Gov. Nathan Deal in 2018, got 15,626 votes. Deal appointed her to the state court bench in 2017 before elevating her to the superior court.

Scott served one term as Clayton County district attorney before being voted out of office in 2008. She narrowly lost a race for the superior court in 2016. 

Scott was born in Manchester, Jamaica, and got her Bachelor of Laws from the University of the West Indies in Barbados. She earned her J.D. at Mercer University's Walter F. George School of Law and joined the State Bar of Georgia in 2001.

She is currently a partner at Scott & Turner Law Group, a criminal defense and family law boutique in Jonesboro. 

Clayton County State Court Chief Judge Linda Cowen barely hung onto her seat, edging out Forest Park Solicitor Leslie Miller-Terry with 50.4% of the vote, garnering 19,203 to Miller-Terry's 18,854 votes.

Cowen has been on the state court bench since her appointment by Gov. Zell Miller in 1995, and is a former president of the Council of State Court Judges.

In another upset, incumbent Chief Magistrate Wanda Dallas was handily defeated by Keisha Wright Hill in the Democratic primary. 

Dallas, who won the 2016 primary and ran unopposed in the general election that year, got 15,921 votes for 45.3% of the total, to Hill's 19,228, or 54.7%.

Hill runs a solo practice in Jonesboro specializing in family and immigration law.