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State v. Wooten

The Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit's system of allowing the district attorney to assign criminal cases to a specific courtroom at the beginning of the criminal trial week did not violate the child molestation defendant's right to due process.

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A jury in the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit convicted Kenneth R. Wooten in April 1997 of four counts of child molestation. The Court of Appeals for the State of Georgia reversed his conviction based on our decision in Cuzzort v. State1 that the system for assigning cases in that circuit violated state law.2 We granted the writ of certiorari to consider whether Wooten’s conviction should be reversed because the district attorney called the case for trial and assigned it to a judge. Because we hold that the case assignment system is not unconstitutional and it is highly improbable that it contributed to the jury’s verdict, we reverse the decision of the court of appeals.

1. Uniform Superior Court Rule 3.1 provides that the clerk of the superior court shall assign all cases in circuits with more than one judge, unless the judges adopt a different system by a majority vote. In 1981, the judges in the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit adopted a different case assignment system. Under its system, the judges are “designated and assigned to sit and preside on assigned days and weeks during the year in a designated county” to hear any civil or criminal matter that is called for trial before them. The judges establish their annual schedule and publish who will preside during each week of the grand jury, arraignments, criminal motions, pleas, and criminal jury trials in the circuit.

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