Justice George Carley announced this morning that he will step down from the Supreme Court of Georgia next July, allowing Gov. Nathan Deal to choose his successor and precluding an election for his seat for which some lawyers around the state had been planning to run. 

Just last week, Atlanta attorney Scott Bonder announced that his campaign for the high court had already raised more than $85,000. In August, Bonder and divorce lawyer Tamela L. Adkins told the Daily Report that each planned to run for court seat expected to be vacated by Carley, who had said earlier he would serve out his term that ends in December 2012.

In the same August story, Presiding Judge Anne Elizabeth Barnes of the state Court of Appeals said she was considering joining the race.

Carley said Tuesday in a press release issued by the court, “I am announcing this now to notify potential candidates before the election cycle gets into full swing.”

In unrelated news that could nonetheless interest would-be candidates for the high court, the U.S. District Court is seeking to hire a new magistrate judge to replace Judge C. Christopher Hagy, who is stepping down next June. The deadline for applications is Oct. 21, according to this link.

The Daily Report will have a full report on Carley’s announcement in its next edition, which will be online late this afternoon.

The full text of Carley’s press release is below.

GEORGE CARLEY TO STEP DOWN JULY 2012

Atlanta, October 4, 2011 – Presiding Justice George H. Carley announced today that he will leave the Supreme Court of Georgia on July 17, 2012, after all cases from the January term of court have been decided.

That means that Governor Nathan Deal will have the opportunity next year to appoint a replacement to the state’s highest court. Whoever the governor appoints will then have to run for election in 2014.

 “I am announcing this now to notify potential candidates before the election cycle gets into full swing,” the Presiding Justice said. Carley, 73, announced earlier that he did not plan to run for re-election.

When he steps down, Carley will leave the high court as its Chief Justice. The court voted unanimously last month to have him serve as the leader of Georgia’s judicial system for two months before he leaves the court. He will become the first in Georgia history to have served as Chief Justice and Presiding Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court, as well as Chief Judge and Presiding Judge of the Georgia Court of Appeals.

The Presiding Justice said that although he is stepping down from the state Supreme Court, he intends to continue being involved in the legal field. “I have loved every minute I have served,” said Carley, who has been a judge for 32 years.

Today the Georgia attorney general’s office officially filed its challenge of a June 27 preliminary injunction against parts of the state’s recent immigration law in the 11^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The 86-page brief argues that opponents of House Bill 87, which allows law enforcement officers to check the immigration status of suspects and creates criminal penalties for harboring and transporting known illegal immigrants, did not properly show they would be irreparably injured by the parts of the law that were to go into effect on July 1. Read more »

In an interesting postscript to an 11^th Circuit sentencing decision recently reported by the Daily Report, Attorney General Eric Holder has reversed course on a controversial issue at the heart of the case.

The Justice Department previously told its prosecutors they should take the position that revised mandatory minimums designed to narrow the disparity between crack sentences and those for powder cocaine did not apply to defendants who committed their crimes before the effective date of the new law—Aug. 3, 2010—even if they hadn’t yet been sentenced by that time. That’s exactly the stance South Florida federal prosecutors took in the case of Carmelina Veras Rojas, who pleaded guilty to crack possession and distribution charges and was scheduled to be sentenced on the very day the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 was signed into law. Read more »

This afternoon the Court of Appeals of Georgia issued a 45-page decision upholding court victories for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in its defense of defamation claims brought by the estate of Richard Jewell, the security guard who discovered the bomb that exploded at the 1996 Olympics only to fall under suspicion that he planted the bomb himself.

Jewell was eventually cleared by federal authorities and honored for evacuating bystanders. But he claimed that the AJC, among others in the news media, defamed him in their reporting that he was suspected of planting the bomb. Read more »

In any given year, the Daily Report Opinions Department receives only about six cases involving issues of first impression. This past week, we received three in one day.

Of course it’s end of term for the Georgia Appellate Courts, but I can’t remember another time in all my years as the Daily Report Opinions Editor when I received more than one first impression case in the same week, much less the same day. Read more »

In an unusual move, the 11^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will make available for sale audio recordings of next month’s argument over the 2010 federal health care reform law.

The court revealed that decision this week in a memo on the closely-watched argument scheduled for Wednesday, June 8 in Atlanta. Among other details, the court announced that Chief Judge Joel F. Dubina and Judges Frank M. Hull and Stanley Marcus have been randomly selected to hear the case. Read more »

Former U.S. District Court Judge Jack T. Camp, who was scheduled to report for a 30-day prison sentence today in Oklahoma, might find a tiny bit of solace in a ruling from the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals that upheld his 2009 decision in a patent case.

The court this week affirmed Camp’s summary judgment decision favoring Epic Systems Corp., which had been sued by McKesson for infringing its patent on “an electronic method of communication between healthcare providers and patients involving personalized web pages for doctors and their patients,” according to a story by our affiliate, The National Law Journal. Read more »

The 11^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will not send a challenge to the constitutionality of the 2010 federal health care reform law straight to the full 10-judge court, per an order issued by the court on Thursday. The 26 states challenging the law had requested the court bypass the usual step of having a three-judge panel consider the matter, but Thursday’s order signed by Chief Judge Joel F. Dubina said a majority of the judges did not vote in favor of that approach.

The court is expediting the three-judge panel’s consideration of the matter by giving the case a relatively quick oral argument date. The case is set to be heard at 9:30 a.m. June 8 in the Atlanta courthouse. Each side will be given one hour to argue, instead of the usual 15 minutes. Read more »

As detailed in documents collected by SCOTUSblog, the 11^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has set an expedited briefing schedule for the case in which 26 states are challenging the constitutionality of the 2010 federal health care reform law.

Under the schedule set by the court on Friday, briefing will be completed by May 25. Read more »

The Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia had its turn Tuesday afternoon to plead with lawmakers  not to cut its budget further.

The council has closed three branch offices, decreased its staff  to 33 people, from a high of 49, delayed filling vacant positions and furloughed employees for a total of 24 days over the last three fiscal years because of cuts, J. David Miller, district attorney for the Southern Circuit, told the House Appropriations Public Safety Subcommittee. Read more »