Alyson Palmer, Daily Report
October 14, 2015
Gov. Nathan Deal is expected to interview 11 candidates
for three new positions on the state Court of Appeals next week.
The finalists, picked by his Judicial Nominating
Commission, include veteran trial court judges as well as 30-something upstarts
with sterling résumés. The short list allows Deal to select someone well known
by the state's lawyers—or somebody better known by him.
The state Legislature this year created the three new
judgeships, effective Jan. 1. The expansion of the court from 12 to 15 is
supposed to ease the caseload of the court, which has fewer judges than
intermediate appellate courts of states with similar population sizes. Deal
also has named a commission to study shifting jurisdiction over certain types
of cases from the Supreme Court to the Court of Appeals and expressed interest
in adding two members to the seven-justice Supreme Court.
According to his executive counsel, Deal plans to
interview the finalists on Oct. 22 and will announce his appointments by
mid-November.
In remarks earlier this year, Deal hinted that his
appointees to the new Court of Appeals positions may be young. By far, the
youngest of the 11 are Georgia Solicitor General Britt Grant, Appalachian
Circuit Superior Court Judge Amanda Mercier, the Georgia university system's
top lawyer, Nels Peterson, and Mountain Circuit District Attorney Brian
Rickman. Those four are 40 or younger, while the other finalists are in their
50s or 60s.
Deal also has an unabashed penchant for the
"two-fer": promoting a trial court judge so that he can pick that
judge's successor. The list includes six judges in addition to Mercier: Joe
Bishop of the Patula Circuit, Stephen Kelley of the Brunswick Circuit, Lawton
Stephens of the Western Circuit and Ural Glanville, Eric Richardson and Gail
Tusan of Fulton County.
Deal has been scrutinized for his record on diversity in
judicial appointments, and the three Fulton judges are all black. The lone
private practitioner on the short list is Charles "Buck" Ruffin, a
former State Bar of Georgia president.
As part of the vetting process, would-be judges must
complete an application form for the JNC, which asks for biographical
information and practice highlights. Here is a closer look at the finalists,
with much of the information drawn from their applications:
Joe Bishop, 58, is the chief Superior Court
judge for the Pataula Circuit in southwest Georgia.
Bishop was born in Stewart County and grew up in the
Albany area. He attended Valdosta State University, where he was president of
the Student Government Association. He received his law degree from the
University of Georgia.
Prior to joining the bench, Bishop practiced law in a
small firm in Dawson. He also has served as a county juvenile court judge. Gov.
Zell Miller appointed him to the Superior Court in 1991.
As a judge, Bishop has handled capital and noncapital
habeas cases, given that his circuit includes a state prison. He has presided
over one death penalty trial, a prosecution for the killing of the longtime
local NAACP president, which resulted in a life sentence from the jury. He also
has presided over a multiweek asbestos products liability case; the judge
dismissed some defendants from the case, and the jury returned a defense
verdict as to the others.
Bishop chaired the Council of Superior Court Judges'
accountability courts committee and has been named to the initial executive
committee of the Council of Accountability Court Judges. He worked to establish
the circuit's felony drug court and an accountability court designed to aid
parents who are obligated to pay child support. (The governor is a proponent of
accountability courts.)
He is an Eagle Scout and was part of the delegation that
delivered the Boy Scouts' annual report to President Gerald Ford in the Oval
Office in 1976. As a teenager, he won two national speech contests.
Ural Glanville, 53, has continued his military
service even after his election to the Fulton Superior Court bench in 2004.
The Ohio native received both his undergraduate and law
degrees from UGA. He practiced on his own and with Arrington & Hollowell,
and he prosecuted in Fulton and DeKalb counties. He become a Fulton magistrate
in 1995.
A longtime Army lawyer who currently carries the rank of
brigadier general, Glanville has in recent years served in Kuwait and
Afghanistan. Last year, he presented to the state's two appellate courts
American flags that flew in Kabul while he was serving there.
Last year, Glanville presided over a jury trial in a
whistleblower suit brought against the state ethics commission by its former
executive director, Stacey Kalberman. She successfully claimed that she had
been fired in retaliation for continuing to probe Deal's campaign spending
after being warned off by commissioners. Glanville quashed a subpoena for
Deal's appearance, but after trial the judge sanctioned Kalberman's successor
and the attorney general's office $10,000 each for alleged withholding of
evidence.
Britt Grant, 37, is an Atlanta native who spent time in
the corridors of power in Washington before coming home to make her mark.
After college at Wake Forest University, Grant began her
career as an aide to then-Congressman Deal. She then took on jobs in the
administration of President George W. Bush, working in the White House at the
time of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
She traveled across the country to attend law school at
Stanford University, but kept her foot in politics. She was president of her
school's chapter of the Federalist Society and, through an externship with the
Department of Justice, researched legal issues related to the confirmation of
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.
She clerked for Judge Brett Kavanaugh of the U.S. Court
of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit—a young, conservative star. For about four
years, she was an associate at Kirkland & Ellis in Washington.
In 2012, Attorney General Sam Olens hired Grant to
replace Nels Peterson as his counsel for legal policy, when Olens promoted
Peterson to solicitor general. Olens has credited Grant with shepherding
regulations of pain management clinics through the General Assembly, as well as
settling lawsuits that would have stood in the way of the deepening of the
Savannah port and helping to set up a new Medicaid Fraud Control Unit in his
office.
At the beginning of this year, when Peterson moved to the
university system, Olens made Grant solicitor general, giving her supervisory
authority over all of the state's appellate litigation. Not long after that
promotion, she handled the state's successful oral argument defending the state
agriculture commissioner's authority to mandate a "pack date" for
Vidalia onions. She also is supervising the state's interstate litigation over
the waters of the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin, managing
outside counsel.
Stephen Kelley, 54, was the district attorney
for the Brunswick Judicial Circuit for 13 years before being appointed to the
Superior Court by Gov. Sonny Perdue at the end of 2009.
The Alabama native received his undergraduate degree in
theology from Southern Adventist University in Tennessee before obtaining his
law degree from UGA. He began practice as an assistant DA in the Brunswick
Circuit.
As DA, Kelley brought a forfeiture action under the
state's racketeering law against a businessman, Fairley Cisco, accused of
cheating customers at the gas pump. In 2009, the Georgia Supreme Court declared
the statutory provision used by Kelley to be unconstitutional because it
allowed what was essentially a criminal proceeding without the usual
constitutional safeguards of criminal cases. The Georgia Supreme Court later
upheld a felony murder conviction obtained by Kelley's office against a doctor
who was charged with overprescribing narcotics to a patient.
Kelley spent several years lobbying at the Capitol on
behalf of the District Attorneys' Association. In 2009, he was named the Glynn
County Republican Party's Man of the Year.
As a judge, he chairs the Supreme Court's statewide
electronic filing steering committee. He also has presided over his circuit's
drug courts.
Amanda Mercier, 40, practiced with state House
of Representatives Speaker David Ralston before becoming a judge in North
Georgia.
Born just over the border in Cleveland, Tennessee,
Mercier is the granddaughter of Adele and Bill Mercier, who established the
Mercier apple orchards in Blue Ridge. She attended college at the University of
Georgia but went away to Syracuse University for law school.
Shortly after graduation, she joined Ralston's firm in
Blue Ridge, later becoming his law partner. She represented clients in both
criminal and civil cases, including domestic matters. In addition to her
private practice, she prosecuted traffic offenses for the city of Elijay.
Gov. Sonny Perdue appointed her to the Appalachian
Judicial Circuit Superior Court in 2010. Mercier is the presiding judge for the
circuit's Mental Health Court. As recounted in local media reports, she is
currently presiding over a high-profile sexual battery prosecution stemming
from a high school after-prom party.
Mercier is a member of the Georgia Commission on Family
Violence and was in Leadership Georgia's class of 2014.
Nels Peterson, 37, is—like Britt Grant—a big
firm alum and former federal law clerk who has secured influential positions in
government at a young age.
The San Francisco native was student government president
at Kennesaw State University before getting his law degree at Harvard
University. There he was executive vice president of the school's Federalist
Society. Peterson credits his father, who served a stint as president of
Georgia Right to Life, with cultivating his interest in politics and the law.
Peterson clerked for Judge William Pryor Jr. of the
Eleventh Circuit before spending about three years as an associate at King
& Spalding in Atlanta.
In 2008, Gov. Sonny Perdue tapped Peterson to be his
deputy executive counsel, and Peterson took over as executive counsel in 2009.
In the governor's office, Peterson took a lead role working on Georgia's water
disputes with Alabama and Florida, and he says he also was involved with
matters related to the loss of accreditation of the Clayton County School
District and the Atlanta Public Schools cheating investigation.
After Olens was elected attorney general, he brought on
Peterson to be his counsel for legal policy, then named him the state's first
solicitor general. His work there included Georgia's participation in a
challenge to the Affordable Care Act and an environmental case that led the
state Supreme Court to expand the reach of the state's sovereign immunity.
In January, Peterson left the AG's office to be the chief
legal officer for the state's university system.
Eric Richardson, 51, was appointed by Deal to
the Fulton State Court in 2013.
A native of Syracuse, New York, Richardson attended
college at the University of Rochester and law school at Cornell University. In
between, he worked as a social worker assistant for the Syracuse City School
District and owned a bookstore called Adventure Comics.
Richardson began his legal career at Latham & Watkins
in New York but has said he was drawn to Atlanta, where his wife had family
ties, by the prospect of a better quality of life. Richardson spent 11 years at
Troutman Sanders, including seven as a litigation partner. His work there
included defending a class action lawsuit against the state over the
constitutionality of the foster care system in Fulton and DeKalb counties.
Interested in becoming a judge, he landed a job in the
Atlanta city attorney's office. He was promoted to deputy city attorney for
litigation, meaning he oversaw all of the litigation for the city, managing
in-house and outside attorneys and developing the litigation budget. He credits
his wife, former Johns Creek City Council member Karen Richardson, with helping
forge his community relationships.
Richardson is a board member of Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers
Foundation and Revved Up Kids, which promotes safety and self-defense for
children and teens.
Brian Rickman, 38, has turned his prosecutorial
skills on sitting judges.
Now the Mountain Judicial Circuit district attorney, the
Athens native attended the Northeast Georgia Police Academy, then became an
investigator for the Banks County DA while still in college at Piedmont
College. After law school at UGA, he took a series of ADA jobs in northeast
Georgia. He was in private practice for three years before Gov. Sonny Perdue
appointed him to replace the retiring Mountain Circuit DA.
Rickman has assisted the state Judicial Qualifications
Commission on investigations of judges and handled some of its prosecutions. He
worked with former Attorney General Michael Bowers to prosecute Grady County
State Court Judge J. William Bass Sr., who midway through his ethics trial on
various charges agreed to a 60-day suspension and a pledge not to seek
re-election. That deal was made over the objections of Bowers and Rickman, who
said he should be removed. Olens appointed Rickman to investigate a probate
judge-elect in Camden County, Shirley Wise, who agreed to resign office and
plead guilty to taking money from vital records funds.
In recent years, Rickman has tried murder cases as lead
counsel. He also notes that in 2014 he tried a two-week trial in which the
director of the Boggs Mountain Humane Shelter was convicted of stealing
donations and lying to donors about animal sponsorships.
Earlier this year, the Georgia Supreme Court said a
murder defendant should get a new trial because his lawyer should have objected
to Rickman's comments to jurors that the defendant failed to call police to
report that he'd shot a man. Rickman said he had been trying to question why
the defendant, who claimed self-defense, hadn't called 911 prior to the
shooting.
Charles "Buck" Ruffin, 61, is an
eminent domain and real estate litigator who was president of the State Bar of
Georgia from 2013 to 2014.
Born in Savannah, Ruffin grew up in Vidalia and earned a
business degree at Auburn University. Ruffin was president of the Student
Government Association and interned for Republican Georgia Congressman Ben
Blackburn. While working for Blackburn in Washington, Ruffin connected with
Wendell Willard, now a Sandy Springs attorney and chairman of the state House
Judiciary Committee.
After law school at Emory University and a brief tenure
at the Atlanta firm Troutman, Sanders, Lockerman & Ashmore, Ruffin clerked
for Chief U.S. District Court Judge Robert Varner in Montgomery, Alabama.
Ruffin then joined Jones, Cork & Miller in Macon, where he became a
partner. He opened his own practice in 1994, joining Gambrell & Stolz in
2003. That firm merged into Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz,
where Ruffin is now a shareholder.
Ruffin's tenure as bar president included a symposium to
observe the 225th anniversary of the U.S. Constitution, featuring speakers such
as U.S. Justice Antonin Scalia. Ruffin also had to find a replacement for
longtime bar executive director Cliff Brashier, who died in the middle of
Ruffin's term. After some criticism of a lack of racial diversity on the search
committee, Ruffin expanded the panel, which settled on Jeff Davis, then the
director of the Judicial Qualifications Commission.
Lawton Stephens, 61, has been a Superior Court judge in
Athens for more than two decades.
The Athens native went to college at the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill, then completed his law degree at UGA. He
practiced at various firms in Athens, including Fortson, Bentley & Griffin
and Nicholson, DePascale, Harris & McArthur, and was a part-time assistant
solicitor, prosecuting cases in state court. He is the son the late U.S. Rep.
Robert Stephens Jr., who also was an attorney.
Before becoming a judge, Stephens served in the state
Legislature as a Democrat. Gov. Zell Miller appointed him to the Superior Court
bench in 1991.
Stephens has presided over his circuit's felony drug
court since 2011. He sat on the Chief Justice's Commission on Indigent Defense
from 2000 to 2004 and chaired the Statewide Jury Task Force under an
appointment by Gov. Sonny Perdue.
Gail Tusan, 59, is the chief judge of the Fulton
Superior Court, having been a full-time judge since she was appointed to the
Atlanta City Court in 1990.
Tusan received her undergraduate degree from UCLA and her
law degree from George Washington University. In private practice, she worked
at Kilpatrick & Cody; Asbill, Porter, Churchill & Nellis; and the Joyner
Law Offices. She was president of the Georgia Association of Black Women
Attorneys in 1983.
After lower court appointments by Atlanta mayors and
other judges, Tusan was named to the Fulton State Court by Gov. Zell Miller,
who also gave Tusan her Superior Court post. In 1999, President Bill Clinton
nominated Tusan to an opening on the Northern District of Georgia bench. But
Tusan removed her name from consideration a few months later, complaining that
political infighting would delay a vote on her nomination until after the
deadline to qualify to run for re-election.
When a family court was created in Fulton in the late
1990s as part of a pilot project, Tusan served on the steering committee and
was one of the charter judges. The state Supreme Court recently affirmed her
ruling in a financial dispute over two Ferrari race cars.
Having grown up in Southern California, Tusan has an
interest in the arts, noting she enjoys performing with a dance troupe. She
also has authored two legal novels.
