Atlanta Municipal Court Judge JaDawnya Baker is to receive a public reprimand for improperly dismissing cases that were presented to her for guilty pleas, the Georgia Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.
The court’s unanimous opinion noted that Baker periodically dismissed cases without the legal authority to do so. She also acknowledged her errors and entered into a consent agreement with the state Judicial Qualifications Commission to receive the public reprimand, the decision said.
Baker, a former Fulton County prosecutor, was sworn in as a Municipal Court judge in March 2015. A past president of the Georgia Association of Black Women Lawyers, she currently is a member of the State Bar of Georgia’s board of governors and is vice president of the Council of Municipal Court Judges of Georgia.
Two years ago, the JQC’s investigative panel filed a number of ethics charges against Baker and amended those allegations this past December.
The charges accused Baker of using court staff to run her personal errands. This included having a security officer pick up alcoholic beverages from a store in May 2015 and take them to an event celebrating her appointment to the bench by then-Mayor Kasim Reed. She also had a security officer pick up a chair and deliver it to her home, the complaint said.
In its opinion, the Supreme Court said it was hesitant to conclude Baker violated the code of judicial conduct by having staff run her personal errands because the consent agreement did not state whether this occurred during work hours. The agreement also failed to say whether the staff members voluntarily helped Baker or instead felt compelled to do so to keep their jobs, the opinion said.
Just the same, Baker failed to respect and comply with the law and competently perform her judicial duties when she improperly dismissed cases before her, the court found.
The opinion listed one example, in February 2020, when an assistant city solicitor presented a negotiated guilty plea for someone who had been driving with an expired tag. The solicitor told Baker when and where the offense occurred and the make and model of the driver’s car. But when the solicitor said she did not know when the tag had expired, Baker dismissed the case over the prosecutor’s objection.
In her consent agreement, Baker acknowledged she dismissed such cases on a periodic basis and agreed the proper solution was to simply reject the guilty pleas. She also admitted her failure to do this “violated clearly established law,” the Supreme Court opinion said.
For this reason, Baker is to receive a reprimand by a judge appointed to do so by the Supreme Court, the decision said.
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