Council of Magistrate Court Judges newsletter, Aug. 2007

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Council of

Magistrate CourtJudges

Nwshtter

Volume 14, Issue 23

August 2007

1 President's Message

well if the SYmmea Magisme

bers so please contact the Chair of the committee you are interested in joining and also let our Executive

program in Fufton County which often blocks the emails from heal people, therefore I have created

Council Meeting and Director, Sharon Reiss know

another email address,

social events were

andlor plan on attending the

GCMCJ@mindspring.com which

an indication of how Committee meeting in October.

will give you an ernail message

the year is going to go; it should

A committee that needs a great

that you must seek permission.

be a great year. Look for pic-

deal of members is the Domestic

Once in, you're in forever, Feel

tures further on in the newsletter.

Violence Committee, aka as the

free to notify me of the things you

1 think the best part was the time

Violence Against Georgia

don't like and I would like positive

spent with other judges and family. Committee. In the February

feed back too. Also feel free to

The Skeet Shmt was a success Newsletter, Wen Freeman, the

contact our Executive Director.

with my familq: other than my

Program Manager for AOC had an Sharon Reiss at 404463-4 171,

niece who misunderstood and shot article discussing the grant we

fax: 404-65 2- W 9and email

the blind itself and knocked off the received for a Domestic Violence

address: reisss@paaoc.tls.

number "'4" clearly missing the

Manual, We were only one of

I look Toward to seeing every-

clay pigeon. My nephew and

three states that received this

one in Savannah in Octokr. I

daughter have discovered a new

grant. so it is an honor, but with

know that Sharon Reiss along with

hobby. T don't remember having

that honor comes work, There i s

our Site and Planning Committee.

such good food at a Low Country

an article regarding this further on

primarily Jeff Davis and Richard

Boil, ever, and topped with pear

in the newsletter on page 11.

Alexander have planned more fun

and/or peach cobbler. Friday night

A new committee is the

things f ~ trhis meeting too.

with the sponsors providing: the

Disability Access Committee

food and drink was a success too.

which will deal with any of the

At the Spring Meeting I asked

issues facing our courts with

for Committee Chairs to let me know if they wanted to retain their seats and for those that wanted to

regard to mental and physical disabilities as well as any situation that will lead to emergency plan-

COLA Raise Approved for FY08

help. The Committee Chairs reflecttheresponse. (seepage 6). All judges are welcome to join the cornmifiees. except the Internal Affairs Committee. That Committee membership is limited by our By-Laws. We plan on creating a directory listing the mem-

ning such as KeIly McQueen has written about on page 14.
Finally if you ever need to reach me my telephone number is 404-730-5396, fax is 404-8936853 and email is kim.warden@co.fult~n~g~h~ouws.cvcr, we have such a serious spam

he general salary adjustment for Fiscal Year 2a38, which runs July 1, 2007 through June 3 0 , 2 0 8 is 3%. T h i s information may be found
in Section 53 (H.B.95) of the
Fiscal Year 2W7 State Apprnpriations Act.

Page 2

Magistrate Court Judges Newsletter

From the Immediate Past President

To the Magistrates of Georgia,
First, let me say thank you for allowing me to serve this last year as President of our Council.
It has been an honor and privilege to serve in this capacity and to represent you, before the public, at the Capital, and on the Judicial Council of Georgia. More people in the state see a magistrate judge in their time of need than any other type of judge in the judicial system.
We must be diligent in our continuing efforts to upgrade and improve our training and the education of our Council, in order to provide our citizens with the best magistrate's court possible. I look at the other classes of our courts and feel thankful that so many of you are willing to give your spare time and weekends to accomplish these goals.
I would like to thank all of you that have helped this year in our efforts and most especially "my team" Kim Warden and Connie Holt. They have done a great job in helping to set and accomplish our goals this year. All of the Committee Chairs have done an outstanding job as we have experimented with some new formats and venues for our quarterly meetings. I believe that we have made our meetings more "family friendly" with outings put on by our site and training committee and hospitality committee. For those of you that missed the last meeting in Forsyth you missed a great time at the shooting range and the low country boil. Many thanks to

Jeff Davis and his crew. I especially want to thank our
Executive Director, Sharon Reiss for the great job she has done in coordinating these events with the site and training committee and the work she continues to do in helping us to reorganize the bylaws and structure of our official and private organizations. I know that our paperwork and documentation has improved this year.
I would also like to thank the Administrative Office of the Courts for all their help this year in the transition with our

Executive Director. Chris Patterson, Lashawn Murphy and many others have helped this year and I am grateful.
As we start this new year, I look forward to the future with Kim Warden as our President and Connie Holt as First Vice President.
Let's give them our support. Thank you once again for your support for our Council.
Sincerely,
Tommy Bobbitt Q

Editor's Message

Iam hopeful the June meeting in Forsyth, Georgia was well received. I want to thank Jeff Davis for his hard work on organizing this training session and for the support of my other committee member Baxter Howell for helping Jeff carry my load for the June meeting. In addition, a big "Thank You" to our speakers for the extra effort and time they committed to preparing materials, traveling and speaking.
As all of you know, my oldest daughter was married on June 30, 2007, and I was unable to attend the June meeting and training session. I greatly appreciate everyone voting for me to serve this year as Second Vice-President. My first concern is to support the work of our new president and the work of the Council. I am open to discuss with everyone the activities of the Council and sincerely

hope all Magistrate Court Judges will participate to continue to make this a state wide organization serving the needs of all Magistrate Court Judges.
Please remember we need your input and participation in the Council and with the Council's Newsletter. If you have news to share, a district meeting to publish or would like to submit an article about a particular area of the law, please send your articles to me. My e-mail address is below. I know that we all get busy with our schedules but the newsletter is a great way to share information and receive input from other judges. Thanks for your support and I look forward to serving the Council this year.
Richard
a rta@actriallawyers.com

Magistrate Court Judges Newsletter

Page 3

Summary of Minutes Executive Committee Meeting
April 27,2007

The meeting was called to order at 5:07 p.m. by President Tommy Bobbitt. The first order of business was to approve the minutes from the previous meeting. They were approved unanimously.
Financial Reports The Treasurer, Judge Dowling
submitted a revised report for the Council's private funds at the meeting. The report showed the total funds available was approximately $17,500 including $10,000 in a CD. The Committee had already voted to recommend raising dues at the February meeting so the entire Council could vote on an increase to $100 at the business meeting on April 22, 2007.
The state funds report submitted by staff showed that the Council would have a surplus of funds. Ms. Reiss made several recommendations to the Committee about ways to utilize this surplus. The Committee voted to accept staff's recommendations which were to offer 25 Westlaw subscriptions to the membership, offer any Executive Committee member travel and registration costs for an out of state training, purchase an evidence book and landlord tenant book for each county for the judge to use, purchase new equipment such as a laptop and projector for training rather than renting them at hotels, and purchase pins or folios for the membership.

President's Report Judge Bobbitt reported that
this legislative session was fairly quiet but since the budget was not finalized we still are not through this year. He stated that at the Officer's meeting we discussed the budget surplus and he would let staff more fully discuss that at the appropriate time.
Staff Reports Mr. Patterson reiterated that
the Westlaw subscriptions were going to be made available to the first 25 members who contacted him. He stated he would be sending out an email the following week.
Ms. Reiss reported that she had been able to hire a temp in March to help with administrative duties. She had set up and attended a Rules Committee conference call, a Budget Committee conference call, and met with Rich Reaves and Chris Patterson regarding the mentor program suggested changes. In addition, she attended several legislative committee meetings, finished drafting the revisions to the bylaws for review by the Council, sent the nominations letters and awards letters for those committee chairs. She stated that if you had an awards nomination, please see Judge Freeman before the end of this weekend. Finally, she had drafted a new committee directory and brought one copy for the Committee to edit. Hopefully, it would be available online soon.

Report from MCTC Judge Holt reported that this
committee had gotten reviews of the training and the firearms course was extremely well received. The committee members also voted to continue a contract with Judge Purdom for the benchbook and increase his compensation to $7500. They also voted to increase the compensation to his daughter to $1500 for completion of the index. The mentor committee had been working diligently since the last quarterly meeting and made several recommendations about how to increase meaningful participation and reporting. The committee accepted the mentoring subcommittee's recommendations.
Oral Committee Reports
Benchbook: Judge Wood shared a number of cases to be included in the Benchbook and stated that if anyone had any new or relevant cases to please forward them to him as the committee was going to be gathering information for the updates soon.
DV: Judge Walker reported that she had met with staff, ICJE and the President regarding the new DV benchbook her committee was drafting. As a result she contacted a recommended consultant and drafted three budgets for her committee to review and approve. Additionally, at this
continued pg 4

Page 4

Magistrate Court Judges Newsletter

Executive Committee Minutes cont.

meeting Judge Walker and Judge Warden discussed getting Executive Committee approval since any updates for this book would need to be ongoing and would require commitment by the Council.
At the DV committee meeting, Judge Walker explained that using the recommended consultant would be at least $80k for her fee and the committee decided against that version of the budget. The proposed budget that the DV committee recommended the Executive accept was to use judges, law professors and interns for the legal research and pay for clerk typists, proofreaders and subject indexers for around $3000. The publishing was covered by already existing grant money given by the AOC, so that' $8700 would not need to be covered by this council. Any additional expenses including committee meetings and postage was estimated at approximately $1000, so the entire project would cost around $12900 to initially complete. However, Ms. Reiss was going to draft a grant to cover the extra $5000 so that the entire project would be covered by grant funds.
Judge Walker moved that this proposal be accepted by the Committee and Judge Kidwell

seconded it. It passed unanimously.
IA: Judge Howell reported that the IA committee was involved in one case this quarter and the JQC was handling it. Judge Walker also announced that the judge in her county accused of gambling had resigned.
Legislative: Judge Bobbitt reported for the
legislative committee that the Good Behavior Bond bill had passed though not signed by the Governor. For 2008, some of the issues the committee wanted to pursue were preventing mergers of the probate and magistrate judges by local legislation. Judge Bobbitt recommended that the President and President Elect approach the President of the Probate Judges at the Judicial Council to see if the two groups could work together on an initiative. Judge Horne made the motion to accept that recommendation, Judge Kidwell seconded it and it passed unanimously.
Also, the Coroner's Association had approached him about coming to our July meeting to see if we have any common legislative issues.
The Council still needs to look at drafting legislation about

defining full-time as 40 hours. Additionally, the members may want to look at the qualifications such as being a legal resident.
Judge Thurman suggested looking at the legislation regarding the fact that Magistrates can't issue warrants against officers and school teachers and officials.
Retirement: Judge Bobbitt reported that the COLA raise for this next year will be 3%.
Announcements Judge Willis stated that as
membership chair, he still has a ton of pins left. Judge Taylor suggested that we look into having a 25th anniversary pin made since this year will be the 25th Anniversary of the Council. Judge Warden announced that any person interested in serving or continuing to serve as a chair next year to please contact her before July as she wants to have her selections complete and announced then.
Next Meeting The next meeting will be June
29-30, and July 1 in Forsyth. This meeting adjourned at
6:17 p.m. Q
Respectfully submitted by: Sharon Reiss, Executive Director

Magistrate Court Judges Newsletter
Election Results

Election Results are in and these are the new officers, representatives and members at large:

OFFICERS

PRESIDENT FIRST VICE PRESIDENT: SECOND VICE PRESIDENT: SECRETARY TREASURER: IMMEDIATE PAST PRESENT:

Judge Kimberly Warden Judge Connie Holt Judge Richard Alexander Judge Alec Glenn Dorsey Judge Glenda Dowling Judge Thomas Bobbitt, I11

Page 5

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
Judicial District One Judge Angie Rogers Judge Mary Kathryn Moss
Judicial District Two Judge Linda Freeman Judge Annie R. Steedley
Judicial District Three Judge William C. Randall Judge Jim Thurman
Judicial District Four Judge Clarence R. Horne, Jr. Judge David C. Wood

Judicial District Five Judge Stephanie C. Davis Judge Sterling Eaves
Judicial District Six Judge Jeff Davis Judge Betsy Kidwell Judicial District Seven Judge Philip Taylor Judge Thomas W. Reed
Judicial District Eight Judge David Brown Judge Angela Nelson

Judicial District Nine Judge George Hutchinson Judge Gene F. Cantrell
Judicial District Ten , Judge Selma Cheely Judge Deborah L. Davis
Members-at-Large : Judge Romelle Green, Jr. Judge A1 Willis

Information Verification

Judges:
During the next few months we will be making some changes to the website. We are cleaning up the database and need to verify information for the judge's directories. Please take a moment to verify your contact information

on both the public and private directories and contact me with any corrections. My phone: 404463-4 171 or email: reisss@gaaoc.us.
Thanks Sharon Q