The former chairman of Georgia’s judicial watchdog agency says that a visiting judge’s treatment of the media at a hearing over whether to dismiss a controversial indictment against a North Georgia publisher and his lawyer may run afoul of a formal opinion the agency issued in 2013 warning judges that their courtrooms must, except in rare circumstances, remain open to the public.
Attorney Lester Tate, who resigned in April as chairman of the state Judicial Qualifications Commission—which investigates and recommends disciplinary action against judges who have committed ethical infractions in violation of the state Code of Judicial Conduct—said that Senior Superior Court Judge Richard Winegarden’s directive to Fannin County deputies to corral the media in a basement holding area until after he had convened that hearing runs counter to the JQC’s Opinion 239 and the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Presley v. Georgia on which the opinion was based.
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