An influential South Georgia judge accused of locking up defendants indefinitely and cutting off their access to relatives and lawyers will step down from the bench and avoid a potentially explosive trial.
In a letter delivered Tuesday to Gov. Nathan Deal, Judge Amanda Williams of Brunswick said she intends to retire from the bench on Jan. 2. She also signed a consent order agreeing to never again seek or hold judicial office.
In November, the state Judicial Qualifications Commission filed a dozen ethics charges against Williams. It accused her of jailing participants in her drug court for indefinite terms, giving false statements when asked about it, behaving in a tyrannical manner on the bench and allowing family members who were attorneys appear in cases before her.
Last week, the commission filed more charges, alleging that Williams gave special treatment to a man facing family violence charges by letting him enter drug court. She was also accused of allowing a lawyer defending her before the judicial commission to represent clients with cases before her.
Williams did not return phone calls seeking comment.
The seven-member commission was to consider Williams’ case during a trial expected early next year. Former Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears and former state Attorney General Mike Bowers had signed on to prosecute the case against Williams.
“It’s the best resolution I could have hoped for,” Sears said Tuesday, referring to Williams’ decision to step down. “This is what needed to happen. I’m just sorry that her judicial circuit and the state had to go through all of this to get to this point.”
Williams, chief judge of the five-county Brunswick Judicial Circuit, first won election to the Superior Court bench in 1990. She has presided over Glynn County’s drug court for more than a dozen years and the operation was expanded to include participants from Camden and Wayne counties, making it the largest drug court in the state.
Williams came under intense scrutiny early this year when the public radio show, “This American Life,” broadcast “Very Tough Love,” a segment that gave a harsh review of her drug court.
According to the commission’s charges, Williams jailed a drug court participant, who had previously been flagged for having suicidal tendencies, for an open-ended term of detention and ordered her to be placed on “total restriction,” meaning no access to her family or her lawyer. Two months later, the woman attempted suicide in the Glynn County jail, the charges said.
The complaint also said Williams “summarily jailed” a drug court participant because he used the term “baby momma” when he asked to be excused from a Saturday session to attend a family function. Last year, when a group of juvenile probationers appeared in her drug court, Williams began screaming at one girl because she was chuckling in court. When the girl began to sob, Williams ordered her removed and placed in handcuffs, the complaint said.
Superior Court Judge Anthony Harrison of Brunswick said Tuesday the drug court will remain in operation and the circuit’s judges will meet next week to decide how to proceed. As for Williams’ decision, Harrison said, “I am sad to see her career end the way it did.”
Attorney Mary Helen Moses, who strongly criticized Williams during an unsuccessful campaign last year to unseat her from the bench, said she was gratified the commission’s charges were filed and have now been resolved.
“I hope it means we’ll see some positive reforms in the drug court,” she said. “This provides an opportunity for the Brunswick Judicial Circuit to move forward and do better.”
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