Outgoing justice says she won’t jail Perdue over budget demands

Georgia Supreme Court Justice Leah Sears was “stumped” Tuesday on the issue of gay marriage.

Asked whether the U.S. Constitution would require Georgians to recognize the marriages of gay Iowans if they moved to the state, she first deferred to a lesser document: The state constitution banned gay marriage in 2004.

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Elissa Eubanks/eeubanks@ajc.com

Georgia’s retiring Supreme Court Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears mingles before speaking to the Atlanta Press Club’s Newsmaker Luncheon.

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Pressed on whether the federal parchment — which says states will accept public acts, records and judicial proceedings from other states — would nullify the Georgia amendment, the justice found refuge in ambiguity.

“I’m not sure,” said Sears, who said she hadn’t mulled the issue that promises a political firestorm when gay couples from Iowa and Massachusetts demand other states recognize their unions.

Sears, who retires this month after 17 years on the bench, spoke to the Atlanta Press Club at the Commerce Club on Tuesday.

She dismissed a question of whether she would run for governor. Her interests are joining a New York think tank that seeks to promote values such as thrift and marriage, teaching a class on family law at the University of Georgia and being a partner at the Atlanta branch of Schiff Hardin, a 400-member law firm based in Chicago, she said.

She also pledged she would not jail the current governor to resolve a power struggle over his demand that the judiciary cut its budget. “Never,” she said. “We’re friends.”

Sears, 53, contended that Gov. Sonny Perdue’s demand that the judiciary cut its budget by 25 percent for the month of June — to be in line with cuts he ordered for state agencies — is unlawful because he has no authority over the judiciary, a separate constitutional branch of government. The Council of Superior Court Judges on Tuesday asked Sears to call for a meeting of Georgia judges this Friday to decide whether to file a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Perdue’s demand.

She acknowledges that Perdue had the power to veto items in the judiciary budget but only the Legislature can authorize funds.

The dispute is thorny because the Supreme Court decides constitutional issues, such as alleged power grabs by the governor. Sears predicted the three branches would hash out a compromise.

She said after joining the bench in 1992 that she quickly grasped that judicial power required persuasion. While judges from inferior courts are suppose to be impartial referees, relying on statutory and case law, the justices’ votes on cases make the case law.

“I felt less like a judge and more like an advocate,” she said of the debates to resolve legal issues. “I had to make a case for my position. … If you can’t pull together a consensus, you will sit on the sidelines, writing dissents all the time and you won’t have any power on the court.”