A DeKalb County judge fined and jailed an attorney overnight recently after the lawyer complained that she didn’t have time to act as a juror. In an email to the court, the woman said her service on the jury would force her to work nights to keep up with her own job and warned that she could not be impartial in the case.
State Court Judge Dax Lopez’ contempt order said attorney Wilma Beaty refused to take the oath required of all jurors and exhibited a pro-defense bias. He fined Beaty $500 and ordered her jailed between 8 p.m. Friday and 8 p.m. Saturday on the last weekend of March.
Beaty, identified as “Juror No. 1,” could not be reached for comment. The judge’s assistant said Lopez would have no comment. The episode, first reported by the Daily Report of Fulton County this week, came up at the opening of the trial of a personal injury lawsuit.
Lopez’ order said he scheduled a contempt hearing for Beaty on March 26 after she declined to take the oath required to serve on the jury. His order says he offered to postpone the hearing so Beaty could retain counsel. But she declined, according to the judge’s order.
In her email to the court, Beaty wrote that “I will now have to work in the evenings on break and at night to ‘catch up’ on my work … all of which I blame on the plaintiff. I am certain this case is important to the parties, but my client’s matters are important to me and I am simply unable to prioritize this case – which appears should have been settled.”
The judge said, “The court is astounded by the lack of remorse displayed by Ms. Beaty during the entirety of her proceeding, as well as by her general disdainful attitude toward the court and the trial process.”
The order also said, “While her conduct would be unconscionable regardless of her background, a highly credentialed attorney having graduated from Princeton and the University of Texas Law School, and a member of the bar since 1994 (admitted in Georgia since 2006), Ms. Beaty should have known better and the court is within its rights to hold her to a higher standard.”
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