DEL.ICIO.USUpdated: 5:03 p.m. February 13, 2009
Deputies can’t find judge in their own building
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Fulton County sheriff’s deputies contend they failed to serve a lawsuit against a judge because they can’t find him, even though he works in the same building they do.
For George Anderson, the failure suggests that Sheriff Ted Jackson — at the very least — may need to retrain his staff in performing basic job responsibilities.
“It is annoying to me that they can’t serve papers on the judge who is in the same building where I filed the a paperwork against him,” said Anderson, who is a serial filer of ethics complaints — 390 by his own count — against officials he suspects of misusing their positions.
“I think my case must be in limbo.”
On Dec. 12, Anderson filed court papers asking that Superior Court Judge T. Jackson Bedford be stopped from fining people who violate his order to turn off their cellphones in the courtroom and directing those fines be contributed to charity.
The contributions concerning Anderson the most are those made to the Brandon Foundation, a small charity run by Bedford’s family to help children who have cancer.
Normally, a filing such as Anderson’s — known as a demand for a temporary restraining order — is acted on quickly so a judge can determine if it has merit.
As of Friday afternoon, though, deputies still had not served Bedford with the order to appear in court — even though Anderson listed the judge’s office address on his filing to assist deputies in finding him.
“I figured the courthouse would be the best place to serve him,” Anderson said
Instead, according to the case file, a deputy went on Jan. 8 to the address of Bedford’s campaign headquarters — a rented mailbox at a UPS Store in Atlanta, where the deputy reported the judge couldn’t be found.
Jackson was unavailable to explain why his deputies cannot find Bedford. His spokeswoman, Tracy Flanagan, blamed the mix-up on Anderson, who she said filled out the request for service with the UPS mailbox address.
“Deputies take their work very seriously,” Flanagan said Friday. “They are trained to deliver the paperwork to addresses given by citizens.”
She said deputies would not serve the judge until Anderson provided a proper address for Bedford’s chambers in the courthouse on the official sheriff’s paperwork.
Anderson noted the lawsuit has the judge’s work address, but Flanagan said that would not suffice — a response that further baffled Anderson.
“It sounds like the sheriff’s office doesn’t want to go the extra mile,” he said Friday.
Bedford said Anderson’s targeting of the contributions to the Brandon Foundation was mean, illegitimate and deeply offensive in that it taints the charity. “I have done nothing unethical,” he said.
Bedford said he seizes cellphones when they ring in court but instead of issuing an official contempt-of-court citation — which would send the fine to the Circuit Clerk’s office — he returns the phone when the offender shows he made a contribution to charity.
“If we sent the money to the clerk’s office, it would just go down a dark hole,” he said. “I thought we were turning something into a positive.”
Bedford said he never pushes people to send money to the Brandon Foundation over another legitimate charity. He said only a few hundred dollars of cellphone-related contributions flow to it each year.
His daughter, Shannon Dorsey, who oversees the foundation, said it generally raises less than $2,000 annually since being established in 1999 in the name of her son, who died of cancer. She said nearly all the money goes to help families with expenses related to transporting children with cancer to treatment centers.
Anderson said people have complained to him about Bedford’s practice — which he said was a clear misuse of the judge’s office regardless of the amount of money raised or the goodness of the cause.
“That’s an abuse of one’s power,” he said. “Helping kids is great, but I don’t think it’s appropriate to use his office to do it.”
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