EXCLUSIVE: Judicial watchdog clears Georgia judge who jailed journalist

The state agency that investigates judicial misconduct dismissed complaints Friday against a North Georgia judge accused last year of overstepping her authority.

Four complaints were filed against Appalachian Judicial Circuit Judge Brenda Weaver after she encouraged a local prosecutor to bring felony charges against a weekly newspaper publisher and his attorney.

The Judicial Qualifications Commission wrote it would not participate in a “thinly veiled attempt ... to harm” Weaver.

The complaints were filed after the judge — who was once chair of the JQC — persuaded District Attorney Alison Sosebee to bring felony charges against Mark Thomason, the publisher of the now-defunct Fanin Focus in Blue Ridge, and the weekly newspaper's attorney, Russell Stookey.

Codefendants Mark Thomason, right, and Russell Stookey, who is Thomason’s lawyer, at the Gilmer County courthouse last summer. They won a ruling of nolle prosequi, which means in effect that the district attorney does not intend to pursue the case further. (Rhonda Cook, rcook@ajc.com)

The charges focused on a request Thomason wrote asking for public documents relating to the local Superior Court, and Thomason's and Stookey's securing subpoenas for spending  records.

Thomason and Stookey spent a night in jail in the summer of 2016. Less than two weeks later, Sosebee dropped the charges against them.