A federal judge’s emergency order intended to “preserve the status quo” issued Friday night pre-empted Governor Nathan Deal’s decision today to replace six members of the DeKalb County Board of Education.

Judge Richard Story issued his order after Deal announced his intention to take action regarding a likely removal of the majority of the school board in order to salvage the DeKalb County school system’s endangered accreditation.

Story denied a request by lawyers representing the DeKalb County School District and school board chairman Eugene Walker to restrain the governor from suspending or removing any elected member of the school board prior to what had been a hearing on the matter scheduled for Tuesday. The other members of the school board are not listed as parties to the suit.

But Story halted the implementation of Deal’s decisions “to preserve the status quo until after this Court has held a hearing on the matter.”

“Thus, if Governor Deal decides to appoint any new member to the Board, that proposed member shall not be permitted to take office at this time,” Story ordered.  Story  also said in his order that if  the governor attempted to remove any school board member, “that member will remain in office, but shall not be permitted to act on behalf of of the board or take any other official action in his or her capacity as [a] board member.”

Story delayed Tuesday’s scheduled hearing until Friday at 2:30 p.m.

Last week, Story refused to grant an earlier emergency petition  from lawyers representing Walker and the school district. They had sought to bar the State Board of Education from convening a hearing  on whether board members should be removed in order to salvage the school district’s accreditation, which the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools has suspended based on what its representatives have said was threatening and abusive behavior by board members, coupled with chronic financial irresponsibility that has left the system deeply in debt.

DeKalb school board lawyers also sought to bar the state board from making any recommendation to suspend any member of the DeKalb board and prevent the governor from suspending board members or stripping them of their elected office.

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A federal judge in Albany has affirmed the constitutional principle that Georgia courts should be open to the public in a suit
challenging courtroom closures in the Cordele Judicial Circuit.

In a 27-page order, U.S. District Judge Louis Sands refused to dismiss a civil rights case against the circuit’s three judges – John Pridgen, Bobby Chasteen, and T. Christopher Hughes – brought by the Southern Center for Human Rights on behalf of a number of people who said they were barred from attending court hearings in the Ben Hill and Crisp County Law Enforcement Center courtrooms.

The suit claimed that the judges and county sheriffs, who were also named as defendants, systemically barred the public from attending court unless they were related to the defendants who appeared and those defendants were entering guilty pleas.

The judge rejected as “unpersuasive” the arguments put forth by the state attorney general, who is defending the judges. State lawyers argued that the judges were not closing the courts when they restricted access for reasons of space or security. Sands also rejected an argument that the public had no constitutional right to attend arraignments.

“Prohibiting the majority of the public from these proceedings often bars them from observing the entire justice system,” Sands wrote. “To deprive the public [of] the right to attend proceedings during which that process occurs could undermine the public’s faith in the modern criminal justice system.”

Southern Center Senior Counsel Gerald Weber called Sands’ ruling “a “public welcome’ sign for Georgia courtrooms that have presented citizens with untold hoops and hurdles to public access.”

Lauren Kane, a spokeswoman for Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens, said the office declined to comment because the matter was still ongoing.

The Daily Report will have a full story on its website late this afternoon.

Governor Nathan Deal this month promoted his deputy executive counsel, David Werner, to deputy chief of staff for legislative and external affairs.

Werner, an Emory University School of Law graduate who joined the State Bar of Georgia in 2009, will be Deal’s top liaison to federal, state and local officials, according to a statement from the governor’s office.

While deputy executive counsel, Werner was named co-chairman of the Special Council on Criminal Justice Reform in May after the governor extended the council’s mission. He also is co-chairman of the Legislative Affairs Committee of the State Bar of Georgia’s Young Lawyers Division and a member of the Federalist Society.

Werner replaces former deputy chief of staff Michael Shaffer, who became vice president of government relations and chief advocacy officer for Georgia Health Sciences University in May.

Deal has tapped Thomas Worthy to replace Werner as deputy executive counsel.

Worthy earned his law degree in 2010 from the University of Virginia. From 2005 until 2007, he was a staffer for late U.S Rep. Charlie Norwood.

Before joining Deal’s in-house legal staff as public safety policy advisor in September 2011, Worthy practiced law for a year in Birmingham, Ala.

While lawyers Werner and Worthy both served as public safety advisors, Deal tapped Lindsay Perdue, who is not a lawyer, to fill the job now. According to her LinkedIn account, she has worked in the governor’s office since January 2011 and previously was a fundraiser for Deal’s gubernatorial campaign.

While Werner will remain on the criminal justice reform council, he said Worthy will play “a larger role in facilitating the needs of the council,” and Perdue “will be assisting with policy analysis.”

A recent batch of state audits showed that while most judicial agencies came in under budget in fiscal year 2011, the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council is still trying to clear up whether it ran up a deficit of nearly $300,000.

The State Department of Audits and Accounts’ Budgetary Compliance Report for the PAC states that the district attorney group may have exceeded its allotted amount by a total of $258,929.95. But the report also cautioned that the figures may not be entirely accurate as the PAC “declined to sign the ‘Letter of Representation’ certifying the accuracy of the amounts.”

“As a result, we did not perform detailed testing of the underlying documentation supporting the amounts reported in the BCR [BudgetaryCompliance Report]. Accordingly, we were unable to determine the Council’s compliance with the requirements of the current Appropriations Act, as amended (Final Budget), and the Constitution of the State of Georgia,” the report stated.

PAC Executive Director N. Stanley Gunter,  former district attorney for the Enotah Judicial Circuit, said the murkiness is a result of poor bookkeeping by a previous accounting department employee and not the result of any misappropriation.

“I’ve come into a confusing mess,” said Gunter, who was appointed PAC executive director in July. “We’ve had a change in personnel. The person here before kind of did his own thing. We’ve had an independent auditor working with us and he’s assured us that there’s been nothing criminal, probably just negligence or incompetence.”

The PAC likely has money left over from previous budget years to cover any shortfall from fiscal year 2011 but the Council still is trying to reconcile its books to determine exactly how much was spent, Gunter said . That may take “a couple of budget cycles” to complete, he said.

Gunter also said the PAC has been upfront with legislators, who approve how much state agencies receive each fiscal year, about its budget problems and is working to assure the Appropriations Committees that the Council is gaining control of its financial records.

The  Department of Law, Judicial Council, Georgia Public Defender Standards Council, Court of Appeals, and Superior Courts all  spent less than their appropriations.

Gov. Nathan Deal’s Judicial Nominating Commission has released a list of six lawyers for the governor’s consideration in filling an upcoming vacancy on the state Court of Appeals:

• Michael P. Boggs, a Superior Court judge in the Waycross Judicial Circuit;
• Elizabeth L. “Lisa” Branch, a partner at Smith, Gambrell & Russell in Atlanta;
• Donald P. Geary, chief assistant district attorney in DeKalb County;
• John C. Pridgen, chief judge for the Cordele Judicial Circuit Superior Court;
• Mary E. Staley, Superior Court judge in Cobb County; and
• Benjamin W. Studdard III, chief judge of the Henry County State Court.

One of those six is to succeed Judge J.D. Smith, who in September announced plans to retire from the court at the end of this year.