A local attorney is insisting that Gov. Brian Kemp waited too long to tap Jesse C. Stone as the replacement for Augusta Judicial Superior Court Judge Michael Annis who retired last February.
Jack Long says that Stone’s appointment in invalid because Annis’s term expired Dec. 31, 2020. He argues in a letter to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger that because Annis’s term officially ended in December, the vacant seat should have been filled by voters in a special election.
“The governor has a window of time to appoint a judge who doesn’t complete their term,” Long explains, “but that appointment window expires when the term expires.”
Long says that he wrote the letter to Raffensperger because he is looking out for citizens who are entitled to vote for their judges.
“The question here is, is the governor usurping power from the voters by appointing someone to an already expired term,” he says. “That means they are not filling a vacant seat temporarily but getting an entire term.”
[adrotate banner=”13″]
Long believes that Gov. Kemp has violated the Georgia Constitution with the appointment of Stone, and the consequences could be severe should Stone take the bench and start making rulings. If a higher court deems the appointment invalid, Stone’s decisions from the bench could be ruled invalid. That would cause havoc in the Augusta Superior Court system, which already has a backlog of cases.
Should Stone’s appointment be ruled invalid, resolved custody cases he heard could wind up back in court along with resolved criminal cases. That would cost the taxpayers thousands of dollars, not to mention the emotional toll on everyone involved in those cases.
Long says he overnighted the letter to Raffensperger last Friday and has heard nothing back from him so far, but he is poised to file a “quo warranto” in court to prevent Stone from taking office until he is legitimately elected by the voters.
“I am being very conservative on this matter,” he says. “The Governor has appointment powers in certain instances, but (Kemp) missed his chance. Now, it needs to be up to the voters to decide.”
Scott Hudson is the Managing Editor of The Augusta Press. Reach him at scott@theaugustapress.com
[adrotate banner=”43″]
