The decisions supporting how a governor’s appointment overrode Judge Tommy Smith’s election—Perdue v. Palmour, 278 Ga. 217 (2004), Heiskell v. Roberts, 295 Ga. 795 (2014) and Barrow v. Raffensperger (2020)—completely bastardize and render useless the state Constitution.

Interpreting a statute that applies to judges only, and to no other elected office, the Supreme Court in these three decisions completely eliminated terms for judges. Under the rulings as they now stand, the same judge may resign within six months of her/his term and be appointed to fill her/his own vacancy, ad infinitum, thereby completely removing the right of the public to have a say in who should be their judge.

This content has been archived. It is available through our partners, LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law.

To view this content, please continue to their sites.

Not a Lexis Subscriber?
Subscribe Now

Not a Bloomberg Law Subscriber?
Subscribe Now

Why am I seeing this?

LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law are third party online distributors of the broad collection of current and archived versions of ALM's legal news publications. LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law customers are able to access and use ALM's content, including content from the National Law Journal, The American Lawyer, Legaltech News, The New York Law Journal, and Corporate Counsel, as well as other sources of legal information.

For questions call 1-877-256-2472 or contact us at [email protected]