Governor Nathan Deal’s Judicial Nominating Commission has released the names it has received since asking the public for nominees a couple of weeks ago. The JNC is taking nominations through May 25, although anyone interested in the position must also complete the JNC’s application packet by that date to move forward in the process.

Our story in Tuesday’s paper (online now) says that the JNC received several brief emails nominating Boortz for the opening. Boortz, who is listed in the Georgia State Bar directory as an inactive member, told the Daily Report he would complete the JNC’s application.

Daily Report subscribers (or those who want to sign up for a free 30-day trial subscription) can find the full story here.

The Grady team placed 13^th nationally in 2000, 16^th in 2005, 8^th in 2009,  3^rd in 2010 and 4^th last year.

The mock trial team from Albuquerque Academy in New Mexico won the 2012 national title. The competition included 46 championship teams from 42 states as well as Guam, the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands and South Korea.

Grady’s team included high school seniors Kenny Cochran, Atiana Johnson, Nally Kinnane, Shaun Kleber and Elizabeth McGlamry.  The team also included Grady juniors Ciena Leshley and Troy Kleber and Sophomore Archer Kinnane.

In mock trial competitions, team members play the roles of attorneys and witnesses in a mock criminal court case. Judges and lawyers from across the country made up the national competition judging panel. Teams were evaluated on their ability to make a logical, cohesive and persuasive presentation, according to the Mock Trial office here.

The JNC interviewed 15 applicants and released its short list on Thursday, which includes three lawyers, a judge and a city manager.

The candidates are:

• Raymond E. George – Sole Practitioner, Raymond E. George, Attorney at Law
• N. Stanley Gunter – Executive Director, Prosecuting Attorneys Council of Georgia
• Stanley R. Lawson – Sole Practitioner, Stanley R. Lawson, Attorney at Law, P.C.
• Joy R. Parks – Chief Magistrate Judge, White County; Sole Practitioner, Joy R. Parks, Attorney, P.C.
• Richard H. Stancil – Hiawassee City Manager

The two vacancies arose in March after two judges, David Barrett and Lynn Akeley-Alderman, resigned in the wake of investigations by theJudicial Qualifications Commission for alleged misconduct.

The seminar, set for May 24-25 at the federal courthouse in Savannah, will cover the city’s legal history. Presented by the Georgia Legal History Foundation, sessions will include reflections on the early life of Justice Clarence Thomas from his boyhood friends and remarks on the legacy of Eleventh Circuit Judge Phyllis Kravitch and her lawyer father, the late Aaron Kravitch. Old war stories as well as more recent controversies, such as the Troy Davis death penalty case, are on the agenda.

The seminar carries 9.5 hours of CLE credit—including an ethics credit. Those interested can use this registration form.

“It is a humbling honor to be a part of such a great organization that consistently serves its clients with an unparalleled passion for civil justice,” Sadd said in a statement released by GTLA. “I am looking forward to perpetuating the tradition of excellence at GTLA by getting more members involved in every aspect of our organization. Protecting the rights of all people in Georgia requires assembling a team of lawyers, and I intend to make it known that we need every member, everywhere, all the time, to help us see to it that all Georgians have access to the court system when they need it most.”

Sadd will serve as GTLA President until May 2013, according to the statement, which said the group was founded in 1956 and has 2,000 members.

“Jay is a remarkable leader with a deep commitment to the cause of justice. I am excited to see where Jay’s talent, passion, and leadership skills take GTLA,” Geoffrey  Pope of Pope & Howard, outgoing president, said in the statement.

Sadd was lead counsel for 37 injured victims of the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing, the statement noted. Sadd is a member of the State Bar of Georgia, Atlanta Bar Association, Lawyers’ Club of Atlanta, American Association for Justice, West Virginia Bar Association, Sandy Springs Bar Association, and the DeKalb Bar Association. He was born and raised in West Virginia. He holds a J. D. from the Walter F. George School of Law at Mercer University.

GTLA also announced other new officers for the  year: President-Elect Brian “Buck” Rogers of Fried Rogers Goldberg; Executive Vice President Linley Jones of Linley Jones; Secretary Darren Penn of Harris Penn Lowry & Del Campo; Treasurer Pope Langdale of Langdale Vollotton; and Parliamentarian Frank Burns of J. Franklin Burns.

With Legal Department of the Year we seek to honor the state’s best in-house legal departments. Fill out a Legal Department of the Year online nomination form here. Deadline is Friday, June 8.

On the Rise awards will spotlight up-and-coming, young Georgia lawyers – those under 40. The deadline for nominations is also Friday, June 8, and the On the Rise nominating form is here.

Pannell said that by then he will have served 13 years as a federal judge.  At that time,  Pannell’s age and years of service on the federal bench will total 80 — qualifying him for senior status, making him eligible for a reduced case load and opening up his slot for a new federal appointment.

Pannell said that federal judges are generally requested to give a year’s notice before they step down.

Pannell was appointed to the federal bench in 1999 by President Bill Clinton. A graduate of the University of Georgia School of Law, Pannell served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney from 1971 to 1972. He left the U.S. Attorney’s office for private practice with Pittman and Kinney in Dalton. In 1976, he was elected district attorney of the Conasauga Circuit, which includes Whitfield and Murray counties.  In 1979 he became a Superior Court judge for the circuit, a post he held for 20 years.

Right now, the Northern District has two judicial vacancies. The White House had nominated U.S. Magistrate Judge Linda Walker and Natasha Perdew Silas, an attorney with the Federal Defender Program in Atlanta, to fill the posts but withdrew both nominations at the end of last year after Georgia’s U.S. senators refused to lend their support to Silas.

The White House has not nominated their replacements.

But Garland got a different reaction in Governor Nathan Deal’s hometown when he suggested another way to cut prison costs and crowding. “Garland blamed an overloaded court system on what he described as overzealous laws on drugs,” the Times report said. “There were some uncomfortable looks and antsy shifts in chairs from some attendants during a portion of his speech when Garland suggested loosening those laws to repair the system.”

The Times quoted Garland saying, “If we decriminalized and regulated the distribution of drugs, people wouldn’t go and break into your homes or break in to kill to get drugs to feed their habits.”

The occasion was the Gainesville-Northeastern Circuit Bar Association’s Law Day banquet at the Gainesville Civic Center, the Times reported. The theme: “No courts, no justice, no freedom.” Honored: Sam Harben Jr. of Harben, Hartley & Hawkins, Judge A.R. Kenyon Award; Mark Ruis, Hall County Pretrial Services Division, Liberty Bell Award; Carla Walker, Whelchel, Dunlap, Jarrard and Walker, Leadership Award.

Kevon Kerr, 36, of Atlanta – who was originally charged in an 42-count indictment that included three other metro Atlanta defendants – pleaded guilty to one count of theft of public money and one count of aggravated identity theft, U.S. Attorney Sally Yates said in her announcement.

According to federal prosecutors and court records, Kerr stole recruits’ identities while he was assigned to an in-processing center for new and prospective recruits at Fort Gillem in Forest Park where he was entrusted with Navy personnel files.

Kerr would photocopy recruits’ driver’s licenses and Social Security cards and then provide copies to his three accomplices, including  fellow sailor Tyrone Boyd, 33, of Decatur, federal prosecutors said. Boyd and a second accomplice then provided the stolen identities to a Riverdale woman who filed the fraudulent tax returns, using the stolen names, birth dates and Social Security numbers, prosecutors said.

Last year, Boyd—who was indicted along with Kerr—was sentenced to two years and nine months in prison for his role in the thefts, according to court records.

The prosecutions of Kerr and Boyd were part of a larger investigation involving the filing of hundreds of fraudulent federal and state tax returns, federal prosecutors said.

“Kerr exploited his position in the Navy for his own selfish ends,” Yates said. “In stealing the identities of fellow sailors from their personnel files, he damaged the mutual trust and peace of mind of Service members deployed around the world in defense of their country and betrayed core values on which the good order and discipline of our Armed Forces depend.

“Kerr’s violation of law and his oath,” Yates concluded, “was compounded in this case because the stolen identities were used to perpetrate another theft from the public treasury.”

Women from village of Maijanjaré.

CARE’s general counsel, Kent Alexander, tells the Daily Report in a story today about his first trip to a crisis zone. He journeyed through Niger, where severe drought has caused a food crisis, and saw at first hand the relief agency’s work in the West African country.

Alexander chronicled his journey for CARE’s blog in an entry called “The Real Hunger Games,” which gives a more detailed account of his impressions, plus photos.

The grand jury on May 1 indicted former Capt. Jasen Minter, 41, of Fayetteville and Louis Nock, 45, of Orlando – who served as  a senior non-commissioned Sergeant First Class with Minter in Saudi Arabia, U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said.

Nock was arraigned Monday and Minter was arraigned today in federal court in Atlanta.   Both defendants are currently free on bond, according to federal prosecutors.

According to court records and federal prosecutors, Minter and Nock were finance officers assigned to the U.S. Military Training Mission in Saudi Arabia in 2006  when they allegedly embezzled funds intended to finance the Training Mission’s finance office – which provided banking services to U.S. military personnel living in Saudi Arabia.

The indictment alleges that the two Army officers withdrew the funds but never delivered them to the finance office, shipping the money instead back to the U.S. to fund what federal prosecutors said were luxurious lifestyles for themselves and their families.

“Military officers carry heightened responsibilities to their fellow servicemen as well as the public, including the duty to be diligent and honest with every taxpayer dollar,”  Yates said in announcing the indictment.  “The Army’s mission in Iraq is simply too important for its own officers to steal critical resources from their fellow servicemen and, as alleged in this case, line their own pockets with cash.”

The two men face a maximum sentence of five years in prison on the charge of theft conspiracy and ten years in prison for each theft count as well as a fine of as much as $250,000 on each of the criminal counts.

Attorneys for Minter and Nock could not be located.

Changes to the state’s Open Records Act in House Bill 397, which was signed by the governor last month, still allow litigants to seek government records that may be used in a lawsuit. But they also require the litigant to notify government lawyers at the same time as making the request.

An earlier version of the bill prohibited litigants from using the Open Records Act as a way to circumvent discovery, but the Georgia Trial Lawyers Association successfully lobbied against the ban, arguing that it would infringe on a citizen’s right to access public documents.

GTLA, local government attorneys and Olens forged a compromise that they said prevented a litigant from using evidence obtained through an open records request without the prior knowledge of a government agency or its lawyers.

“I wasn’t concerned about stopping people from getting records against governments,” Olens told the Atlanta Press Club this morning during a briefing on the new law. “I was concerned about knowing about it.”

Olens also said he will continue pushing a legislative agenda from his office, despite a lack of precedent from previous attorneys general.

“Nationally, it’s the norm. It may not be the norm here, but it’s the norm,” he said.

During the 2012 session of the General Assembly, Olens secured passage of not only the open meetings and records acts rewrites but also legislation giving his office foreclosure fraud jurisdiction.

Top on his priority list for the next session is legislation that would mandate state licensing and regulation of pain management clinics, thus curbing the operation of “pill mills,” he said.

The Law Department also will continue to help legislators revise their bills to strengthen their constitutionality, Olens said.

The husband of a state health department attorney who was shot multiple times on April 20  outside her Sandy Springs apartment has been arrested in  Texas.

The lawyers are Stephen Bright of the Southern Center for Human Rights; former State Bar president Jeff Bramlett, a partner at Bondurant, Mixson & Elmore; David Dreyer of Chamberlain Hrdlicka; and Neil Kinkopf, a law professor at Georgia State University. They will be joined by the Rev. Timothy McDonald, who is the president of Concerned Black Clergy.

The five Atlantans are among 150 supporters from 27 states whom the president has called to Washington for a strategy session with administration officials on pushing more of Obama’s nominees through the Republican logjam in the Senate.

The group will urge the Senate to hold up-or-down votes on all pending nominees, according to a statement from the American Constitution Society. Dreyer is on the executive committee of ACS’s Georgia chapter, and Bramlett is on the liberal legal group’s judicial nominations task force.

A deal between Senate Republicans and Democrats that will expire May 7 allows confirmation votes on nominees who’ve cleared the Judiciary Committee and then had their confirmations stalled. After the White House meeting, the delegation will meet with key senators, including Georgia Sens. Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss, to urge them to resolve the confirmation delays.

There are 79 judicial vacancies in the federal courts and there have been more than 80 for almost three years—a vacancy rate of almost 10 percent for the federal judiciary, according to the Constitutional Accountability Center. That compares to 59 judicial vacancies at this point in Bill Clinton’s first term and 48 at this point in George Bush’s first term. In 37 cases, the courts have declared emergencies because of the length of vacancy and backlog of cases.

More information can be found here.

Governor Nathan Deal on Wednesday signed into law Senate Bill 431, which closes loopholes in Georgia’s gambling statutes used by phone card and Internet café businesses to offer games including slots and roulette. Deal ordered a crackdown on these stores last August when he called on the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to target them with existing anti-gambling statutes.

The new law’s constitutionality may soon be challenged in court. Attorney Ed Garland, who is representing the owner of a phone card
company who was indicted in DeKalb County in March, has said the measure violates equal protection rights because it carves out an exception for publicly traded companies, such as McDonald’s, that have total assets of more than $100 million.

Businesses that ran the games claimed they were legitimate under Georgia laws allowing for promotional sweepstakes, similar to McDonald’s Monopoly game. These businesses provided gaming credits to customers who bought calling cards or Internet time, and those credits could be used to win cash prizes through computerized versions of Las Vegas-style games.

According to the new law, promotions that use computers, mechanical devices or electronic devices are considered unlawful lotteries.