A northwest Georgia judge has sued a fellow jurist over who should serve as chief of the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit, a position that carries administrative responsibilities for the courts in four counties, but without extra pay.
Judge Kristina Cook Graham, daughter of legendary attorney Bobby Lee Cook, demanded in a lawsuit Friday that Judge Ralph Van Pelt show what authority allows him to supersede her as chief judge since she has more years on the bench.
For decades, the practice in the Lookout Mountain Circuit has been that the most senior judge serve as chief. Graham was appointed to the bench in 1992, when the Legislature added a fourth judge to the circuit. Former Gov. Zell Miller appointed Van Pelt in 1996.
On Sept. 28, retiring Chief Judge Jon "Bo" Wood signed an order making Graham the circuit's administrator once he left the bench at the end of September.
But on Oct. 3, Van Pelt and Judge Brian House — who has been on the bench four years — signed an order countermanding Wood's order and naming Van Pelt chief judge. The spot for Graham's signature was blank.
The two said in a document filed in court that same day that they would revisit the issue of chief judge once Wood’s replacement was named. Judge Don Thompson was appointed to fill that vacancy on the court and was sworn in Thursday.
But Graham cited a state law that says the judge in the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit with the most years decides any issue if there is not unanimous support, regardless of the wishes of a majority of the judges in that circuit. And Graham disagreed with the other two judges as to who should be chief judge.
Graham’s lawsuit says the order appointing Van Pelt is “illegal, null and void, and Judge Van Pelt is holding the office of and exercising the powers of the chief judge of the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit illegally and without authority.”
“I think the petition clearly lays out what the law is and what the facts are, and that the senior judge is the chief judge unless there is agreement among all the judges that it would be someone else,” one of Graham’s lawyers, Lester Tate, said Monday.
He declined to comment further.
Van Pelt declined to comment.
Cobb County Senior Judge Grant Brantley, assigned to hear the Graham-Van Pelt case, has scheduled a hearing for Monday in Catoosa County.
The chief judge handles administrative duties such as the circuit’s budget and arranging for a visiting judge to preside when all the other judges have conflicts or an extra judge is needed to resolve large caseloads. Their salaries remain the same as other judges in the circuit despite the additional work.
Van Pelt wrote a memo to Graham the day before he and House filed their Oct. 3 order explaining his reasons for challenging her.
Van Pelt said Graham illegally lived in Tennessee, was abusive to witnesses and others in her court, rarely kept office hours and took years to rule in cases.
Van Pelt filed that memo in court.
Van Pelt observed that while Graham owned property in Cloudland in northwest Georgia, she actually living in a Chattanooga townhouse with her husband. “Every time you return to that home you lose your authority as a judge,” Van Pelt wrote.
Van Pelt also wrote he had been speaking with the Judicial Qualifications Commission — though not formally — about Graham's demeanor in and out of the courtroom since the JQC publicly reprimanded her in 2010 for how she spoke to and treated Georgia Bureau of Investigation agents and local law enforcement officers who testified in a case she was hearing.
While Graham did not respond last month to Van Pelt’s accusations, her father did. Joining the increasingly vitriolic dispute that dates back to the 1990s, Cook accused Van Pelt of incompetence, lies and misdeeds worthy of disbarment.
In a mocking 10-page letter responding to Van Pelt, Cook called the judge incompetent, insulting, inept, a "snitch," callous and rude. Cook wrote that Van Pelt opposed his daughter becoming chief judge because he "cannot countenance a strong woman."
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