A judge who is part of a legal dynasty in northwest Georgia will be chief of the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit, according to a court ruling made Monday.
Cobb County Senior Judge Grant Brantley, assigned to hear the matter, ruled in favor of Judge Kristina Cook Graham after a brief hearing on her lawsuit challenging a move by two colleagues to supersede her as chief judge and name Ralph Van Pelt the position.
Graham, daughter to legendary attorney Bobby Lee Cook, said in a suit filed a week ago that the order Van Pelt and Judge Brian House signed making Van Pelt the senior judge was "null and void" because that position customarily went to the judge with the most seniority.
The Lookout Mountain chief judge, as in all the judicial circuits in Georgia, handles administrative issues like budgeting and requesting visiting judges to hear cases in which others in the area have a conflict or are unavailable.
“Judge Brantley ruled on the issue as he saw the law. I certainly accept the court’s ruling,” Van Pelt said after the hour-long hearing.
Lester Tate, one of Graham’s lawyers, said he hoped the ruling will put to rest the decades-long animosities between the judges and between Van Pelt and Cook. Animosities between the combatants go back to the 1990s and have been nurtured ever since.
“Judge Graham wants to get on with the business of being a judge,” Tate said.
The intra-circuit dispute began on Sept. 28 when retiring Chief Judge Jon "Bo" Wood signed an order making Graham the circuit's administrator once he left the bench at the end of September.
But on Oct. 3, Van Pelt and House — a judge for four years — signed an order countermanding Wood’s order and naming Van Pelt chief judge. The spot for Graham’s signature was blank.
At the time, there were only three judges in the four-judge circuit because Wood’s vacancy had not been filled. Judge Don Thompson, appointed to fill the vacancy, was was sworn in on Nov. 3.
One of the orders Van Pelt and House signed said they were abandoning the practice of the chief judge’s position going to the member of the bench who had been there the longest.
But Graham said in her lawsuit that state law that says the judge in the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit with the most years decides any issue if there is not unanimous support, regardless of the wishes of a majority in that circuit. And Graham disagreed with the other two judges as to who should be chief judge in the circuit that includes Walker, Dade, Catoosa and Chattooga Counties.
Graham was appointed in 1992 when the Legislature added a fourth judge to the circuit. Former Gov. Zell Miller appointed Van Pelt in 1996
Graham’s lawsuit said the order appointing Van Pelt wa s “illegal, null and void, and Judge Van Pelt is holding the office of and exercising the powers of the chief judge of the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit illegally and without authority.”
In court filings earlier this month, Van Pelt listed several reasons he and House did not want Graham to be chief judge: Graham rarely kept office hours, took years to rule in cases and "verbally abused" the other judge in the circuit and court workers.
Graham's father, Cook, responded to that accusation with a mocking, 10-page letter in which he accused Van Pelt of sexism, incompetence, lying and committing misdeeds worthy of disbarment.
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