NOTICE: This opinion is subject to modification resulting from motions for reconsideration under Supreme Court Rule 27, the Court’s reconsideration, and editorial revisions by the Reporter of Decisions. The version of the opinion published in the Advance Sheets for the Georgia Reports, designated as the “Final Copy,” will replace any prior version on the Court’s website and docket. A bound volume of the Georgia Reports will contain the final and official text of the opinion.
In the Supreme Court of Georgia
Decided: July 30, 2024
S23Z0337. INQUIRY CONCERNING JUDGE ROBERT REEVES.
PER CURIAM.
This judicial discipline matter is before this Court on the
agreement between the Director of the Judicial Qualifications
Commission (“JQC”) and the Chief Judge of the Middle Judicial
Circuit Superior Court, Robert Reeves. Pursuant to JQC Rule 23,
the Amended Discipline by Consent Agreement (“Consent
Agreement”) would resolve formal charges against Judge Reeves
with a 30-day unpaid suspension and a published public reprimand.
Further, under the terms of the Consent Agreement, Judge Reeves,
whose current term expires on December 31, 2026, has agreed that
he will not seek reelection to judicial office. As explained below, with
the understanding that Judge Reeves is serving his final term in
judicial office, we accept the Consent Agreement and order a 30-day
unpaid suspension followed by a public reprimand published in
Judge Reeves’s local legal organs and the Fulton County Daily
Report.
On November 16, 2022, the Director filed formal charges
against Judge Reeves. The formal charges included 58 counts, which
alleged numerous instances of misconduct inside and outside the
courtroom over a seven-year period.
In June 2024, the Director and Judge Reeves entered into an
initial consent agreement, under which Judge Reeves agreed to be
publicly reprimanded. But the Hearing Panel rejected the proposed
sanction as insufficient and gave guidance on the type of sanctions
the Hearing Panel would find more appropriate.
The Director and Judge Reeves then entered into the Consent
Agreement under consideration here, which adopted the Hearing
Panel’s recommended sanctions, proposing discipline in the form of
“a 30-day unpaid suspension followed by a public reprimand
published in [Judge Reeves’s] local legal organ and the Fulton
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[County] Daily Report.”1 Under the Consent Agreement, Judge
Reeves agreed to voluntarily recuse from any cases involving certain
of the lawyers named in the allegations of this case. The Consent
Agreement further provided that Judge Reeves’s current term in
office expires on December 31, 2026, and that “[h]e does not intend
to pursue election to another term in judicial office.” At a June 18,
2024 hearing, the Hearing Panel inquired into the meaning of this
statement, asking, “If we are distilling for the Supreme Court what
we understand the consent agreement to be, . . . would [it] be correct
to say . . . that one of the conditions is that Judge Reeves will not
seek reelection[?]”And Judge Reeves responded, “Correct.”
Under the Consent Agreement, Judge Reeves either admitted
the charge or admitted that “evidence exists with which the Director
could prove” the charge in 33 of the formal charges’ 58 counts. See
JQC Rule 23 (A) (providing for discipline by consent based on a
1 The Middle Judicial Circuit has several legal organs. Accordingly, the
agreement that Judge Reeves receive “a public reprimand published in [his]
local legal organ” requires publication of the public reprimand in each of the
Middle Judicial Circuit’s legal organs.
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“judge’s admission of some or all of the formal charges or the judge’s
admission that evidence exists with which the Director could
properly prove some or all of the formal charges”). And the Director
explained that she did not proceed on the remaining counts because,
as to some counts, Judge Reeves had admitted violating other
provisions of the Code of Judicial Conduct based on the same
conduct, and, as to other counts, there were conflicts in the evidence
or issues with a witness’s credibility.
As summarized by the Hearing Panel, the counts that Judge
Reeves admitted pursuant to the Consent Agreement
describe[d] fourteen incidents spanning seven years of
[Judge] Reeves’s seventeen years of service as a Superior
Court judge. Most of these episodes involved [Judge]
Reeves’s use of coarse, insensitive, demeaning, and/or
insulting language, particularly with women. One
involved a series of minor but nonetheless unwanted
physical contacts between [Judge] Reeves and a female
lawyer. The remaining incidents consisted of [Judge]
Reeves improperly seeking to influence the handling of
criminal prosecutions and misusing his title and office to
assist the fundraising efforts of a local charity.
The Hearing Panel found that Judge Reeves’s admissions pursuant
to the Consent Agreement proved by clear and convincing evidence
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that Judge Reeves committed the charged acts. And although Judge
Reeves had admitted that his conduct violated the Code of Judicial
Conduct, the Hearing Panel performed its own assessment of the
matter, concluding:
All of Judge Reeves’s offensive in-court and out-of-court
statements violated Rules 1.2 (A) (duty to promote public
confidence in the integrity of the judiciary) and 2.8 (B)
(duty to be dignified and courteous to all with whom
judges interact in their official capacity). Some of his
statements also were inconsistent with Rule 2.3 (B) (duty
not to engage in sexual harassment). His various
improper interactions with a municipal court judge and
state and superior court prosecutors concerning their
cases and investigations violated Rules 1.2 (A), 1.3 (duty
not to lend prestige of office to advance private interests
of others) and 2.9 (A) (duty to avoid ex parte
communications). Finally, his well-meaning but
prohibited fundraising efforts ran afoul of Rules 1.2 (A),
1.3, and 3.1 (C) (duty to abstain from extra-judicial
activities that cast doubt on judicial impartiality)[,] and
3.7 (A) (3) (duty to refrain from personally soliciting funds
for organizations).
(Footnote and emphasis omitted.) The Hearing Panel further
concluded that Judge Reeves had engaged in forms of judicial
misconduct for which the Georgia Constitution authorizes sanctions,
stating:
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[Judge] Reeves’s various acts of misconduct constitute[d]
willful misconduct in office (i.e., judicial acts taken in bad
faith), habitual intemperance (i.e., rude, abusive, or offcolor language or improper and unsolicited physical
contact), and/or conduct prejudicial to the administration
of justice which brings the judicial office into disrepute.
(Footnotes and emphasis omitted.)
Turning to the appropriate sanction, the Hearing Panel
weighed the gravity of some of the admitted misconduct against
certain mitigating factors. In particular, it highlighted the instances
of “unwanted physical contact” and “judicial interference in criminal
proceedings,” but noted that Judge Reeves’s offenses were “not
mean-spirited or self-serving” and that he had taken a “refreshing
and honest approach to the investigative process” and accepted
responsibility for his misconduct. The Hearing Panel concluded that,
under the circumstances, a public reprimand was an insufficient
sanction on its own and that removal from office would be too severe.
And although the Hearing Panel noted that “[t]here [were] no
published Georgia judicial discipline matters directly comparable to
Judge Reeves’s miscellaneous collection of violations,” it concluded
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that the sanctions proposed in the Consent Agreement were
generally consistent with existing precedent. Accordingly, based on
existing precedent, the contents of the Consent Agreement, and the
statements made by Judge Reeves and his counsel during the June
18, 2024 hearing, the Hearing Panel recommended that this Court
accept the Consent Agreement. More specifically, consistent with
the Consent Agreement, the Hearing Panel recommended that we
impose a “sanction of a 30-day unpaid suspension — with Judge
Reeves to remain away from the various courthouses of his Circuit
during his suspension” — and a majority of the Hearing Panel also
recommended that we impose a “sanction of a published public
reprimand.” (Emphasis omitted.)
We agree with the Hearing Panel’s analysis and the
recommended sanctions agreed to by a majority of the Hearing
Panel. Although we are likewise unaware of any directly comparable
judicial-discipline cases, the Consent Agreement’s proposed
sanctions generally comport with our precedent. In 14 instances
over a seven-year period, Judge Reeves violated seven rules by
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engaging in a wide variety of conduct. Thus, Judge Reeves’s
misconduct was more wide-ranging than conduct we have previously
found warranted only a public reprimand or a shorter suspension.
See, e.g., Inquiry Concerning Baker, 313 Ga. 359, 363 (2) (870 SE2d
356) (2022) (imposing “a public reprimand for [a judge’s] periodic
improper dismissal of cases presented to her for guilty pleas”);
Matter of Inquiry Concerning a Judge No. 481, 251 Ga. 524, 524-525
(307 SE2d 505) (1983) (imposing a 15-day suspension without pay
for judicial misconduct during a single trial in which the judge made
derogatory and flippant remarks, prevented an attorney from
perfecting the record regarding an evidentiary ruling, and held the
attorney in contempt when he persisted in doing so).
But although Judge Reeves’s violations were varied and
numerous, his underlying misconduct was less persistent and
injurious than the misconduct we concluded required a 90-day
unpaid suspension and a public reprimand in Inquiry Concerning
Gundy, 314 Ga. 430 (877 SE2d 612) (2022). By contrast with the
judge in that case — who effectively abandoned her job for
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significant periods of time while also wrongfully imprisoning a halfdozen defendants for a week, see id. at 431-432, 434 — there is no
allegation that Judge Reeves failed to perform his judicial duties or
that his misconduct resulted in such severe consequences to the
affected parties.
Falling somewhere between these poles, Judge Reeves’s
misconduct was most similar to the conduct at issue in cases where
we have imposed a 30-day unpaid suspension with or without a
public reprimand. See, e.g., In re Broome, 245 Ga. 227, 227-229 (264
SE2d 656) (1980) (ordering that a judge “be suspended from office
without pay for a period of thirty (30) days and that during said
period he physically remain away from his chambers,” where the
judge presided over several cases in which he was disqualified, due
to a conflict of interest, and had used derogatory, vulgar, and
obscene language toward another judge). See also Inquiry
Concerning Hays, 313 Ga. 148, 149-150 (868 SE2d 792) (2022)
(approving a discipline-by-consent agreement and ordering that the
judge “be suspended without pay for 30 days and receive a public
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reprimand upon his return to the bench,” where the judge admitted
engaging in an improper verbal altercation with a defendant and
then grabbing him and pushing him against a wall). And our
concerns that a 30-day unpaid suspension and a public reprimand
may be insufficient sanctions under the circumstances are mitigated
to some degree by the fact that Judge Reeves has accepted
responsibility for his actions and agreed, pursuant to the Consent
Agreement, not to seek reelection to judicial office.
Accordingly, this Court now accepts the Consent Agreement
with Judge Reeves approved by the Hearing Panel and filed with
this Court on July 18, 2024. We order that Judge Reeves be
suspended without pay for 30 days, during which time he shall
remain away from the various courthouses of his Judicial Circuit.
See JQC Rule 6 (B) (2). The suspension shall start no later than
September 1, 2024. And we further order that, following Judge
Reeves’s return to the bench, a public reprimand be published in the
Middle Judicial Circuit’s legal organs and the Fulton County Daily
Report. See JQC Rule 6 (B) (5). Upon issuance of this opinion, all
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filings made in this Court in this matter shall be unsealed. See JQC
Rule 23 (D).
Discipline by consent accepted. Published public reprimand
and suspension for 30 days. All the Justices concur.
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