Presiding Justice George H. Carley has made official what he announced in October: he will retire from the state Supreme Court on July 17.

Carley’s resignation letter, delivered to Gov. Nathan Deal on Tuesday, urged Deal to have an appointee ready to be sworn in “immediately” after his resignation—promising the governor he would have his office cleaned out. Judicial Nominating Commission Co-Chair Pete Robinson of Troutman Sanders Strategies said Friday that the JNC would put out a formal call for nominations in April, with an eye to giving Deal a short list of candidates in early June.

Carley’s letter explained that he selected the precise date of July 17 because that’s the day after the deadline for resolving all of the court’s January term cases. Carley also requested that he be appointed a senior judge so that he can vote on motions for reconsideration filed after his retirement date in cases in which he had participated as an active justice.  Carley said he also hopes to serve as a designated judge in other courts during his retirement. In a Wednesday letter to Carley accepting his resignation, Deal said he would grant Carley senior appellate court judge status effective July 18.

Carley had at one point said that he planned to serve out his six-year term that ends at the close of 2012, thereby creating an open seat to be filled by election. But last fall he announced that he would leave the court early so that he could serve a two-month term as chief justice that would coincide with this year’s State Bar meeting—scheduled for May 31 through June 3 in Savannah and retire as the court’s chief.

The Supreme Court of Georgia will no longer accept the filing of a case without the required fee.

Under a rule change announced Monday and effective March 1, the court’s clerk is prohibited from receiving or filing an application, petition for certiorari  or appellant’s brief in a direct appeal until the party submitting the document pays the required costs or provides sufficient evidence of indigency. Prior to the revisions, the court’s rules said costs had to be paid at the time of filing—and noted attorneys could be sanctioned for failure to pay—but did not specifically forbid the clerk’s office from accepting a filing without payment.

The required fees are $300 in most civil cases and $80 in criminal and most habeas corpus cases. Costs are not required for certified questions, disciplinary cases, or State Bar or Office of Bar Admissions matters.

Under the rule, there are four ways of proving indigency. The revised rule allows the filing of an affidavit of indigency with the Supreme Court, while the prior version required indigent status to be granted by the trial court.

Citing procedural grounds, the Georgia Supreme Court today declined to hear an appeal by the city of Atlanta challenging a lower court order halting approval of a contract for a currency exchange company at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.

On Jan. 4, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Cynthia Wright ordered the city not to approve a contract with the winning bidder until an unsuccessful competitor, Travelex Currency Services Inc., had been provided documents sought under the state Open Records Act and had been afforded time to challenge the award.

The city filed an emergency motion with the high court challenging Wright’s order but, in a 6-to-1 decision, the court declined to hear the appeal, ruling that the city “failed to follow correct appellate procedure by filing a direct appeal rather than an application to appeal,” according to a summary of the decision released by the court. “In other words, the City is not entitled to an automatic appeal, but it is up to the high court’s discretion whether to review the case.”

The court said that all the justices concurred except Justice David E. Nahmias, who dissented.

While the world at large remembers today as the 70^th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, it is also the 65^th anniversary of the fire at Atlanta’s Winecoff Hotel in which 119 people perished.

A search for the words “Winecoff” and “fire” on Lexis shows that the 1946 disaster prompted a flurry of litigation over insurance coverage, the appointment of a receiver for the hotel and negligence claims. Many of the cases were decided in 1947 and 1948—suggesting how fast litigation moved in those days.

Two other cases in the database show that Fulton County prosecutors ran into a tough Supreme Court of Georgia when pursuing criminal charges against the operators of the 15-story hotel (which was refurbished as The Ellis Hotel not long ago.) Read more »

The Supreme Court of Georgia today issued the following release.

GEORGIA SUPREME COURT AMENDS FILING RULES

Atlanta, November 21, 2011 – Chief Justice Carol Hunstein announced
today that the Supreme Court of Georgia has amended two of its court rules. The
changes affect the deadlines for when documents sent by mail or commercial
carrier are considered officially filed and when “motions for reconsideration”
must be received. Read more »

The Florida Times-Union has this preview of the state Supreme Court’s Monday appearance on the Georgia coast.

In keeping with their practice of occasional sittings outside the state Judicial Building in Atlanta, the justices are set to hear three cases in McIntosh County.

The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer reports today that new DNA tests on the stocking strangler case found no link to Carlton Gary, the death row inmate convicted of three of the seven killings.

Gary’s defense attorney, Jack Martin, suggested the evidence will now go to Bode Technology Group lab in Lorton, Va., for further testing. At the moment, the court is left with conflicting DNA evidence that matches Gary to one strangling case but not the other.

Gary was arrested in 1984, convicted in 1986 and came within hours of execution in 2009, until the Georgia Supreme Court issued a stay and ordered a hearing on DNA testing in Muscogee County Superior Court.

Although Gary was only charged with three murders, police based their case on the theory that he committed all of the series of brutal rapes and killings of elderly women that terrorized Columbus in the late 1970s.

Planned maintenance on the state government’s electrical systems, which will take down the Supreme Court’s web operations over the weekend, has forced the Office of Bar Admissions to issue the list of who passed the July bar exam four hours earlier than usual.

The list is now available on the bar admissions site until 5pm. Traditionally the list goes up at 4 p.m., said Sally Lockwood, the office’s director. That rule goes back years, she said, because officials want applicants who don’t pass to have a weekend to process the disappointment “before they come here” to seek some kind of reprieve of having to take the test over again.

Lockwood said she learned last week that the state’s maintenance plan for “all things electrical” would shut down the Supreme Court’s site by 5 p.m., meaning the pass list would be up for only one hour until the following Monday. She said she asked the Supreme Court for permission to release the pass list early this year, and her request was granted.

Bar pass watchers, however, “should not get used to it,” she added, as the next bar pass list will likely go up again at 4 p.m.

The bar admissions office announcement about the time change is below: Read more »

 The state Supreme Court has voted 4-3 to revisit whether a Savannah-area golf club and homeowners association may be liable for damage inflicted by alligators that live in a system of lagoons on the property.

The lawsuit before the court was brought by the heirs of 83-year-old Gwyneth Williams, whose mangled body was found floating in one of the lagoons at a gated community near Savannah in October 2007. The plaintiffs contend the club and association didn’t do enough to monitor the lagoons and remove large alligators.

An alligator trapper killed an 8-foot long, 130-pound alligator that had parts of Williams’ body in its stomach, but there is some dispute over whether the alligator killed Williams. Although the county medical examiner said an 8-foot alligator was to blame for Willilams’ death, the club and association have argued that Williams, who was in poor health, may have died from a heart attack before encountering the alligator, which would have discovered the body and dragged it into the lagoon.

In March, a divided state Court of Appeals ruled the case could go forward. The majority said case law that generally immunizes landowners from liability for wild animals doesn’t preclude recovery against the defendants in Williams’ case, because the defendants knew alligators were common in the lagoon system. A dissent said it was unreasonable to expect the defendants to continually patrol the coastal community to identify and remove large alligators.

Chief Justice Carol W. Hunstein, Presiding Judge George H. Carley and Justice Robert Benham dissented from today’s decision to grant the defendants’ petitions for certiorari.

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.