And once justices secure incumbency status, they’re nearly untouchable. Every Georgia Supreme Court justice seeking reelection has won since 1922, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis.

That’s why it’s so unusual for sitting justices to even face a competitive race. Only one of four justices up for election last year drew a challenger, and only a handful of incumbents have faced serious opposition over the past 30 years.

Still, the timing of Boggs’ decision raised eyebrows. His March 31 departure comes just before the legislative session ends. Boggs, a former state legislator with decades of public experience, could be a potential 2026 candidate.

Boggs, who said in his announcement he was headed to private practice, was appointed to the court by then-Gov. Nathan Deal in December 2016 after his predecessor stepped down. He was reelected twice to six-year terms, most recently in May 2024.

Much is at stake. The court is often the final voice on the state’s most contentious issues, and major legal challenges involving abortion rights and capital punishment cases are among the many thorny issues now pending.

The lack of formidable competition is striking at a time when judicial elections are becoming increasingly politicized, even for seats that are officially nonpartisan. In Wisconsin alone, more than $30 million was spent on a 2023 race for a swing seat on the state’s high court.

Georgia, however, is one of just two states where Supreme Court justices routinely step down early, letting governors choose their replacements, said Richard Vining, a University of Georgia political scientist who studies judicial selection. The other is Minnesota.

For governors, he added, there’s an obvious political benefit to the unwritten arrangement. They tend to pick a justice with similar ideological leanings who tend to keep their seats for years — even decades.

“It runs counter to the public’s expectations that Georgia judges should normally be both chosen and retained in nonpartisan judicial elections,” Vining added.

“In reality, Georgia voters very seldom participate in the selection of their justices before they run for reelection as incumbents — and win.”

‘Troubling trend?’

The tradition has allowed Georgia governors from both parties to remake the state’s highest court.

Justice Robert Benham, the first Black jurist to serve on the state’s highest court, stepped down in March 2020 — nine months before his term ended. That derailed an ongoing four-candidate race to succeed him.

In February of that same year, Justice Keith Blackwell announced he would retire from the bench. But he delayed his resignation until November, giving Kemp another chance to fill a vacancy on the court and delaying a planned election for the seat.

That sparked a legal battle by two contenders — former state Rep. Beth Beskin, R-Atlanta, and former Democratic U.S. Rep. John Barrow — who both tried to force an election for the job. The Supreme Court issued a 6-2 ruling that allowed Kemp to appoint the successor.

Barrow instead ran against another Kemp appointee, Justice Andrew Pinson, in last year’s election, using the contest as a platform to support abortion rights. Pinson prevailed by a double-digit margin.

Pinson was the surprise pick for a seat on the bench in 2022 after then-Chief Justice David Nahmias resigned with a year remaining on his term. His resignation caught many in the state’s legal community off guard.

Credit: AJC

Credit: AJC

Nahmias was also at the center of one of the few truly competitive races in recent history. He was dragged into a stunning runoff by a little-known attorney in 2010 who didn’t mount a campaign. His easy victory led analysts to speculate his unusual last name factored into his earlier struggles.

All those retirements made Ellington’s election to an open seat an anomaly. He succeeded former Justice Carol Hunstein, who was first appointed in 1992 and chose to serve out her final term through 2018.

Hunstein, who won a bitter reelection campaign in 2006, has said she felt it was important to finish her term and allow an open election — just as she had first won a judgeship in 1984 when she was elected in DeKalb County.

“It was an opportunity for me because as a woman I don’t think I would have been appointed,” she said.

With Boggs’ resignation, Kemp will have tapped a majority of Georgia’s nine-member bench before he leaves office in January 2027. Former Gov. Nathan Deal pulled off the same feat and named a majority of the high court’s members during his two terms. Past Democratic governors have also benefited from the provision.

Eric Teusink, a well-known Democratic lawyer in Atlanta, called the wave of early retirements a “troubling trend”: surprise departures that allow the replacements to run as incumbents, win and later repeat the cycle.

“Georgia’s appellate courts have avoided the extreme politicization we have seen in states like Wisconsin and North Carolina, and I’d wager a significant majority of Georgia attorneys, both Democrat and Republican, believe this to be a good thing,” he said.

But he warned that “gaming the system in this manner needlessly risks bringing political blood sport” into the judicial arena.

“Courts which become politicized will inherently lose the faith of citizens. And a functioning democracy cannot exist without a belief among its citizens that the courts are fair and impartial to all, regardless of their political affiliation.”