(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this column of those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Augusta Press.)
Please permit this telling of a personal episode.
When I was a young lawyer, early in my practice in Augusta, I received a call from a well-respected lawyer and judge from my hometown of McDonough, Ga. The caller was Judge Alex Crumley. Alex had been a few years ahead of me in high school, and all of us looked up to him as he finished Georgia Law School, went into practice and became a Superior Court Judge.
The reason for Alex’s call that day was to tell me that he had qualified to run for the Georgia Supreme Court and asked for my help. It was exciting to hear that a respected friend like Alex was seeking this important position. I asked him if he was running for an open seat or was challenging an incumbent. It turned out that he was challenging a sitting justice, someone I did not know at that time. I asked Alex what the deficiency was with the sitting justice that made Alex want to run against him. He said there was none. I followed up by asking, so why then was he challenging this justice. The answer was that Alex thought that he, himself, would make a good justice.
It was with a heavy heart that I told Alex that I would not be able to support him. If the sitting justice was doing a good job for the people of our state, I did not think Alex had a sufficient reason to run against him.
I could not then and cannot now support a challenger just because a challenger would like to have the job of a sitting judge. That has remained my view the last 35 years, and it applies to the challenges to our sitting Augusta Superior Court judges—Judge Ashley Wright and Judge Jesse Stone and Chief Magistrate Judge Carletta Sims Brown. All three have proven themselves to be hard-working, extremely competent, and fair to all who appear before them.
Let’s not take a chance on someone new when we have judges who serve our citizens so very well.
David Hudson, a partner at Hull Barrett Attorneys, practices in the area of general civil litigation with an emphasis on business and commercial disputes, media law and construction law. He has been a trial lawyer since 1974, and has represented clients at the trial court level in Georgia, South Carolina, Texas, and New York.
