Governor makes appointments to family violence panel
4:24 pm, November 2nd, 2012
Governor Nathan Deal today appointed three lawyers and a judge as new members of the Georgia Commission on Family Violence, a statewide task force created by the Legislature in 1992
The new appointees are:
- Melissa Carter, law professor and director of the Barton Child Law and Policy Center at Emory University Law School;
- Judge Asha Jackson of DeKalb County Superior Court, who was appointed by Deal in February;
- Rachel Lazarus, director of the Gwinnett Pro Bono Project and a staff attorney with Atlanta Legal Aid Society;
- Judge Robert McBurney, whom Deal appointed to the Fulton County Superior Court in February following 10 years as a federal prosecutor.
Deal also reappointed three judges to the Commission: Clayton County Juvenile Court Judge Steven Teske, who is also a member of the governor’s criminal justice reform council; Brunswick Judicial Circuit Superior Court Judge Stephen Kelley, who previously was a district attorney; and Richmond County State Court Judge E. John Flythe, who previously was a prosecutor and a part-time municipal judge in Grovetown.
Earlier this year, the commission successfully pushed legislation through the General Assembly, sponsored by Rep. Edward Lindsey, R-Atlanta, that eliminated the spousal privilege not to testify in domestic violence cases and created a conditional privilege for shelter workers and other victims’ services providers.
Contributor: Kathleen Baydala Joyner in Juvenile justice and courts | subscribe to rss | 
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November 4th, 2012 at 10:15 am
As much as I support our new appointees, I don’t think that ability of the spouse not to testify should have been removed. I had a daughter who was once involved in a sexual assault. While I know these are two very different things, and that justice should be sought in most cases… sometimes people just don’t want to testify.