DeKalb County Superior Court Judge Cynthia Becker on Monday acknowledged that she was the subject of a state judicial investigation but she also disputed allegations that she had met improperly with attorneys for a former school construction official and her ex-husband who were convicted of racketeering.
Becker has been at the center of a back-and-forth of rulings, orders and motions concerning her decisions in the misdemeanor case against former DeKalb School Superintendent Crawford Lewis and the felony cases against Pat Reid and architect Tony Pope, who prosecutors said manipulated school construction projects to enrich themselves. The State Court of Appeals has weighed in several times in response to orders Becker has issued and motions filed by District Attorney Robert James, who accused the judge of 14 years of improprieties.
It began when Becker refused to support a plea deal of 12 months probation in exchange for Lewis’ truthful testimony against Reid and Pope; Lewis struck the deal to avoid a possible felony racketeering case and decades in prison. Becker sentenced Lewis to jail, instead of probation, because she said she did not believe him, setting of the flurry of legal filings over the past year.
Last Friday, James wrote a filing with the Georgia Court of Appeals that Becker was biased and had tipped off defense lawyers before throwing out Reid’s and Pope’s convictions and ordering the two released from prison immediately. That would give Pope’s lawyers a chance to recall their notice of appeal and replace it with a motion for a new trial, which would keep the case under Becker’s control.
On Monday, in a statement emailed to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Becker responded to some of those criticisms.
Becker said there was nothing improper about contacting Reid’s and Pope’s attorneys because she was only asking for information about where they were serving their prison sentences so she would know where to send the order that they be released pending a new trial.
Becker overturned their convictions because she said they were based on testimony she thought was untruthful, but the state Court of Appeals followed up by saying her order should not be enforced until a hearing.
In her statement, Becker ticked off the allegations raised in the DA’s filing but she also acknowledged that the Judicial Qualifications Commission was investigating “the procedural actions in case.” But she learned of the JQC review weeks before the back-and-forth that started with the court of appeals last month. She did not elaborate on what issue was before the JQC and she declined to comment beyond what she had written.
“To my knowledge, prior to last week, no allegations of misconduct had been filed by anyone,” Becker said.
Becker wrote that the district attorney had filed a “written, supposedly confidential, complaint with the JQC” that the media reported. “The confidentiality of that process has been breached by others. I stand by my decisions and I will accept any lawful correction of any purported errors,” Becker wrote.
The Court of Appeals said Becker had to list the reasons she believed Lewis lied during his testimony, which she did in a subsequent order. The DA countered in another brief, saying she did not give specifics.
“I have, in each and every case before me, made findings of fact based on the evidence as I heard it,” Becker said. “I have then applied the law to those facts in making my decisions. I have never considered the position any individual held, who the lawyers were, the socio-economic status, political agendas or any inappropriate matter. I have made decisions based on the law, period.”
Becker then writes about conversations she had with Reid’s and Pope’s lawyers before she issued an order overturning their convictions and setting a new trial. Becker ruled that the two should be released from prison in the meanwhile. Reid was sentenced to 15 years and Pope was serving eight years. They were convicted of manipulating school contracts to benefit Pope and his firm.
“I called their attorneys to verify the exact locations of each defendant,” Becker wrote. “It was important that the orders (for their release) go directly to those prisons…. There was no need to involve the DA’s office in that procedural communications, just as there had been no need to involve the attorneys for Pope and Reid months earlier when the district attorneys and defendant Lewis’ attorneys met with me in my office with the proposed plea deal.
She wrote that while some had said this issue could end her judicial career, it has long been her plan to resign from the seat she has held 14 years because she is getting married next spring.
“I am happily exchanging the very public life of a judge for a very private life with my husband,” Becker wrote.
The judge said she will give the governor “my letter of resignation after closing out professional obligations later this year as planned.”
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