I’ve always enjoyed a good cat fight — especially when the cats are dressed up like judges.
At first glance, that seems to be the case in the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit in Northwest Georgia, where a longtime judge has taken part in something of a coup d’etat against a longer-time judge, one who he paints as a dyspeptic tyrant.
But in fairness to Superior Court Judge Ralph Van Pelt, who fired the shot, Superior Court Judge Kristina Cook Graham, has a well-publicized track record that says she’s pretty much as he describes. Van Pelt and another judge last week voted Cook Graham out as chief judge and put Van Pelt in.
The case is unusual, bordering on bizarre, because judges rarely air their dirty robes in public. But Van Pelt was offended when a retiring chief judge appointed Cook Graham to succeed him and Van Pelt worried she could hold sway over him and the circuit.
Van Pelt, in a letter to Cook Graham, one that he made public, admitted he has for several years been feeding information to the Judicial Qualifications Committee, a state investigative body, about Cook Graham. Van Pelt said he has reported Cook Graham for "verbal abuse" of lawyers, court officials and even another judge. The JQC, he says, has tape recordings of her tirades. This is notable, because six years ago, Cook Graham was publicly spanked by the JQC for her angry diatribes against GBI agents.
Van Pelt added she doesn’t knock herself out working too hard and that she, “for all practical purposes,” lives in Chattanooga, not in the four-county Georgia circuit. Cook Graham did not respond to a call to her office.
Cook Graham is the daughter of legendary defense attorney Bobby Lee Cook, the model for Matlock of TV fame, and that has resulted in some political muscle for her through the years. But Bobby Lee is now pushing 90, and old Democrats don't have the juice they once did.
Cook, however, retains much of his bite and is not one to take a public flogging of his daughter lying down.
His letter to Van Pelt — which is also public — is a classic in which he portrays himself as a Southern gentleman fighting back against the "discourteous" actions of a cad.
He called Van Pelt a “snitch,” dishonest, a lousy lawyer and even a man who’s afraid of strong women.
“Have you forgotten that I was the only one that personally asked my dear friend Governor Zell Miller to appoint you?” Cook wrote. “That was my mistake for which I will be eternally sorry.”
Bobby Lee hinted at going after Van Pelt in the next election. “There is nothing so interesting as a Northwest Georgia election where politics for generations has been a blood sport,” Cook wrote. He implied Van Pelt should be disbarred and advised him to “get you a good lawyer.”
Cook then wished Van Pelt to “have a nice weekend,” although I don’t really think he meant it.
Late last month, the circuit’s retiring chief judge named Cook Graham as his replacement, a largely honorary title traditionally given to the judge with most seniority. Chief judges can line up calenders and appoint senior judges. Many court circuits have modernized the assignment of cases, although Lookout Mountain hasn’t, Van Pelt said, and he believes Cook Graham wasn’t going to make the necessary changes.
But mostly, Van Pelt’s public onslaught was because he thinks Cook Graham doesn’t have the temperament to run the circuit. He pointed to a 2009 case where Cook Graham was publicly reprimanded by the JQC for screaming and swearing at GBI agents, calling one of them “scum.” Their boss, longtime GBI Director Vernon Keenan then brought forward the complaint to the JQC.
In 2010, a judge from another circuit, Daniel Craig, read a strongly worded reprimand to Cook Graham in open court, which was packed with her father and their supporters and became a pro-Cook Graham rally.
Judge Craig then told Cook Graham that “any repetition of such conduct can, and likely will, result in punishment of the severest possible nature.”
Van Pelt told me she was on her best behavior for a year or two but slipped back into her mean old self. So Van Pelt said he’s been talking to the JQC for nearly five years.
Lester Tate, a lawyer and former JQC board chairman, has been hired by Bobby Lee and said that Van Pelt has broken the JQC confidentiality agreement, which says any complaints against judges will remain quiet until if and when there is a finding against the judge. Van Pelt argues he made no written complaint, so he has violated no code.
But, as the old sage Bobby Lee advised, getting a good lawyer might not be a bad idea — for everyone. And since this case is thick with them, I suspect this is not the end of it.
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