A North Georgia judge who used drugs and engaged in volatile and erratic behavior should be removed immediately from the bench, the state judicial watchdog agency said Tuesday.
Catoosa County Magistrate Anthony Peters' misconduct "has brought disrepute upon himself and the entire judicial system," the Judicial Qualifications Commission said. The agency recommended Peters also be prohibited from ever again holding or seeking elected judicial office in Georgia.
The commission's report, which follows a rare two-day trial in April during which Peters sought to keep his job, goes to the Georgia Supreme Court, which will issue final judgment. Peters, 49, has 30 days to respond.
Peters, a former deputy sheriff, was first appointed to the bench in January 1997. Last summer, the judicial commission began receiving complaints about Peters' use of illegal drugs and irrational behavior.
At trial, Peters said he became addicted to prescription opiates after being seriously injured in a 2005 all-terrain vehicle accident. He admitted smoking marijuana from March through May of last year in an attempt to stay off the narcotics.
But in early 2009, Peters accompanied his sister-in-law to the home of her estranged husband and, identifying himself as a magistrate, forced himself into two bedrooms by kicking in two interior doors, according to testimony. A few months later, the report said, he walked into the county courthouse, pointed a firearm at himself and told a fellow magistrate, "I am not scared. Are you all scared?"
On June 21, 2010, appearing on a local cable television talk show, Peters held up the photo of an individual, identifying him by name and disclosing the person as a confidential informant for the sheriff's office. When the Catoosa sheriff appeared on the show the following evening, Peters called in and attempted to disguise his voice with various accents before disclosing who he was and calling the sheriff a "jelly spine."
Peters has been on paid administrative leave -- with his $63,000 annual salary -- since June 16, 2010, when he refused to work a new night-shift assignment.
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