DeKalb County’s district attorney cannot sue the county’s magistrate judges to resolve a long-running dispute involving hearings to determine if there are grounds to justify a suspect’s arrest and detention, the Georgia Supreme Court ruled Monday.
Chief Justice Carol Hunstein, writing for a unanimous court, said the district attorney’s lawsuit must be dismissed because the case is not an “actual controversy.” Magistrate judges are neutral decision-makers, not adversaries to the prosecution, the ruling said.
The dispute involves whether hearsay evidence alone can be enough to establish probable cause to justify criminal charges against a jailed defendant who has yet to be indicted by a grand jury. Hearsay evidence involves a police officer testifying what witnesses had said to him or her about an alleged crime. DeKalb’s magistrates have required prosecutors to present other evidence to corroborate hearsay testimony.
Without a judge’s finding of probable cause, a defendant must be released from custody.
Mableton attorney Ben Goldberg, who represents the magistrate judges, said, “We’re definitely satisfied and gratified.” The magistrates, he added, had already agreed to find probable cause based solely on hearsay testimony “so long as it is credible, reliable, probative and relevant.”
When then-DeKalb DA Gwen Keyes Fleming initially filed suit, she said magistrates can find probable cause through hearsay testimony alone. The judges’ requirements for additional evidence had required sexual assault victims to give unnecessary testimony at probable cause hearings, Fleming told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. In court filings, the county’s magistrate judges responded they did not want their court to be a “rubber stamp” for the district attorney’s office.
In a concurring opinion to Monday’s ruling, Justice David Nahmias said he agreed with the outcome but understood the prosecution’s frustrations. The county’s magistrates are “plainly wrong under the rules and precedents that are binding on those judges,” he said, suggesting the General Assembly could amend the law to allow prosecutors to appeal evidentiary rulings by magistrate judges.
In a statement issued Monday, DeKalb DA Robert James said he accepts and respects the state Supreme Court’s opinion.
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