Forsyth County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Bagley listened to arguments from prosecution and defense attorneys for two and a half hours Wednesday and then completed the sentence he started in 2006.
He sent Charles Steven Stringer back to prison -- to serve the remainder of a 12-year methamphetamine trafficking sentence.
Hearing the judge’s decision, Stringer's shoulders slumped when Bagley uttered the words “remanded to custody.” A deputy eased up behind him and clapped handcuffs on his wrists behind his back.
The obscure case became sensational after Bagley disclosed in open court last month that he had been contacted by another judge and politicians encouraging him not to put Stringer back behind bars. Misplaced paperwork, transferring Stringer from one jurisdiction to another, had made him a free man for the past two years. He now must serve 10 years in prison, providing he doesn't gain early release.
Stringer supposedly had turned his life around since his release from prison in 2008 after serving two years on Lumpkin County charges connected to his Forsyth County case. At least one politician and Lumpkin County Superior Court Judge Lynn Alderman told this to Bagley, who called the contacts “quite disturbing.”
Alderman later said she was not trying to influence Bagley or advocate for Stringer, which would be a violation of judicial canons. She was just trying, she said, to “alert Judge Bagley about the situation.”
The Judicial Qualifications Commission, which investigates judges and judicial proceedings in Georgia has declined to comment on whether it is investigating Alderman. JQC investigator Richard Hyde, however, was in the courtroom Wednesday.
Assistant District Attorney James Dunn attempted to portray Stringer in another light when he asked Georgia Department of Corrections probation officer Melodie Wood for Stringer’s response last December when told the discovery was made that he had not served his Forsyth sentence.
“He told me it has [his] understanding that it had all gone away,” Wood said. “He told me that the it was all for show.”
Stringer’s attorney, Rafe Banks, repeatedly questioned witnesses over how it was possible that the Department of Corrections didn’t know that Stringer had been sentenced to 12 years in Forsyth County.
He tried to plant the idea with Judge Bagley in his closing argument that maybe it wasn’t a mistake, rather an advised decision by the Board of Pardon and Paroles to release Stringer because he’d served enough time.
Bagley didn’t agree. He also deflected Banks' argument that Bagley had overstepped his authority in sending Stringer back to prison, arguing it was only a decision the Board of Pardons and Paroles can make.
“I do not adopt that argument,” Bagley said. “That’s not something that will carry the day for the defendant.”
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