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: August 23, 2022
S19Z1369. INQUIRY CONCERNING JUDGE TERRINEE
LYNETTE GUNDY.
PER CURIAM.
This judicial discipline matter is before the Court on the
agreement between the Director of the Judicial Qualifications
Commission (“JQC”) and City of Atlanta Municipal Court Judge
Terrinee Lynette Gundy. The agreement would resolve formal
charges against Judge Gundy, alleging excessive tardiness and
absenteeism, with a suspension of 30 to 90 days and a public
reprimand, pursuant to Rule 23 of the JQC’s Rules. As explained
below, we accept the agreement and order that Judge Gundy be
suspended without pay for 90 days and publicly reprimanded.
In 2017, the JQC initiated a preliminary investigation of Judge
Gundy, and after gathering some evidence, launched a full
investigation, which included Judge Gundy making at least one inperson statement before the Investigative Panel.1 The JQC filed
formal charges against Judge Gundy in June 2019. Amended formal
charges were filed with this Court in January 2022; the JQC
Director has explained that these were filed after review of the
evidence, extensive discussions with Judge Gundy’s counsel, and in
anticipation of reaching an agreement as to discipline. The amended
formal charges dropped certain counts alleging that Judge Gundy
took steps to conceal her tardiness and absenteeism and misled the
Investigative Panel. The JQC Director explained that further
investigation led him to conclude that those allegations could not be
proved by clear and convincing evidence.
According to the amended formal charges, Judge Gundy
violated the Code of Judicial Conduct by being habitually tardy and
1The discipline by consent agreement recites several reasons for the slow
resolution of this matter, including a change in JQC director, the COVID-19
pandemic and accompanying statewide judicial emergency, recusal by two
members of the JQC’s Hearing Panel, and the Hearing Panel’s decision to
grant a stay of these proceedings while matters relevant to the constitution of
the JQC were heard before other courts.
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excessively absent. Counts One through Three, the allegations of
which Judge Gundy admits are true and violations of the Code of
Judicial Conduct, allege that Judge Gundy violated the Code
through her habitual tardiness. These counts allege that from
September 2015 through February 2018, Judge Gundy regularly
arrived to work at the courthouse much later than the time that she
was scheduled to preside over court matters. Judge Gundy’s
tardiness was described by several witnesses and confirmed by
access-card records. These records showed that from September 1
through December 31, 2015, Judge Gundy arrived well after 9:00
a.m. for her 8:00 a.m. calendars on approximately 69 days, arriving
after 10 a.m., when her second calendar was scheduled to begin, on
approximately 62 of those days. Records showed that from January
1 through June 1, 2016, Judge Gundy arrived at the courthouse after
9:00 a.m. for her 8:00 a.m. calendars on approximately 80 days and,
on approximately 57 of those days, did not arrive at the courthouse
until after her second calendar was scheduled to begin. From July
10 to December 31, 2017, Judge Gundy arrived late on
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approximately 62 days, 33 days after 9:00 a.m. and four days after
her 10:00 a.m. calendar was scheduled to begin. And from January
1 through February 22, 2018, Judge Gundy arrived late on
approximately 18 days, five of those after 9:00 a.m. The amended
formal charges allege that, by this habitual tardiness, Judge Gundy
violated several rules of the Code of Judicial Conduct: Rule 1.2 (A)
(requiring judge to act all times in manner that promotes public
confidence in the independence, integrity, and impartiality of the
judiciary); Rule 2.1 (requiring that judicial duties take “precedence
over all other activities”); and Rule 2.2 (requiring that judges dispose
of all matters fairly, promptly, and efficiently).
Counts Four through Seven, the allegations of which Judge
Gundy also admits are true and violations of the Code of Judicial
Conduct, allege excessive absenteeism from January 2016 through
July 2018. According to the amended formal charges, Judge Gundy
was absent from work approximately 40 days in 2016, 63 days in
2017, and 19 days for the period of January 1 through July 17, 2018.
The amended formal charges note that Judge Gundy suffered from
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an illness in early 2017 that contributed to her absences, but allege
that she was absent on 33 days in 2017 after the resolution of that
illness. A significant number of Judge Gundy’s absences, including
those unrelated to her illness, resulted in the Municipal Court of
Atlanta expending resources to employ senior judges or judges pro
tem to cover for her. The amended formal charges allege that these
actions by Judge Gundy violated Rules 1.2 (A), 2.1 and 2.2 of the
Code of Judicial Conduct, as well as Rule 2.7 (requiring judges to
hear and decide all assigned matters except when disqualified).
Finally, the amended formal charges include charges, Counts
Eight through Twelve, related to allegations of a particular incident
in March 2017, in which Judge Gundy allegedly refused to afford at
least six defendants an opportunity to appear in court to which they
were entitled by law. According to the amended formal charges, at a
March 8, 2017, court session in which Judge Gundy was presiding
over her “in-custody” calendars, both the prosecutor and defense
counsel informed Judge Gundy that the law required that the
defendants be brought into the courtroom and seen that morning.
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But Judge Gundy refused, as she was attempting to hurry through
the calendar. As the defendants remained in custody for several
days, an attorney with the Public Defender’s Office for the City of
Atlanta filed an emergency petition for a writ of habeas corpus
seeking to compel the release of the defendants; a hearing in
Superior Court on the motion was set for March 16, 2017. Between
March 14 and 15, 2017, Judge Gundy issued signature bonds for
each of the defendants, effectively mooting the habeas petitions. As
a result of Judge Gundy’s actions, the amended formal charges
allege, the six defendants remained incarcerated days after they
would have been entitled to release. The amended formal charges
allege that by these actions Judge Gundy violated Rules 1.2 (A), 2.2
and 2.7 of the Code of Judicial Conduct, as well as Rules 1.1
(requiring judges to respect and comply with the law) and 2.6 (A)
(requiring judge to accord a right to be heard to all with a legal
interest in a proceeding). In the discipline by consent agreement,
Judge Gundy “admits that evidence exists with which the Director
could properly prove the facts and circumstances herein as they
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relate to Counts Eight through Twelve” and “admits that evidence
exists with which the Director could properly prove that she violated
the Code as alleged in Counts Eight through Twelve.”
The JQC Director and Judge Gundy in July 2022 asked the
Hearing Panel to approve their agreement to resolve the matter by
Judge Gundy receiving a public reprimand and a suspension of 30
to 90 days. In recommending that the Hearing Panel accept this
agreement, the Director cites in mitigation Judge Gundy’s apparent
cessation of the charged conduct; her expressions of remorse and
regret and vow to never engage in such conduct again; her insistence
that she has learned from her past conduct and the disciplinary
process; her retention by Atlanta voters twice since the inception of
the JQC’s investigation; her active involvement in numerous civic
and religious activities; and the fact that this matter represents the
only substantiated complaint that Judge Gundy has faced since
becoming a judge in 2013. Specifically as to the allegations at hand,
the Director says that two serious health issues are “relevant to
Judge’s Gundy’s absences from the beginning of November of 2016
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through the end of April 2017,” and that, “relevant to her tardiness,
the public defenders and assistant solicitors assigned to Judge
Gundy’s courtroom specifically requested that they be permitted to
engage in pretrial negotiations at the beginning of her 8:00 [a.m.]
in[-]custody calendars held five days a week before Judge Gundy
would take the bench and actually begin hearing cases.” The
Hearing Panel voted unanimously to accept the agreement, and on
July 25, 2022, filed it with this Court for approval.
This Court previously has imposed a public reprimand for
habitual tardiness and absenteeism by a judge. See Inquiry
Concerning Stokes, 304 Ga. 665 (821 SE2d 343) (2018). But, as
acknowledged by the JQC Director and Judge Gundy in their
agreement, the facts of this case are more egregious than that one.
Judge Gundy was absent approximately 40 days in 2016, 63 days in
2017, and 19 days in 2018 (through July 17, 2018), considerably
more than Judge Stokes. See Stokes, 304 Ga. at 665. Judge Gundy’s
tardiness appears greater than Judge Stokes’s; while Judge Stokes
often began court more than an hour late, and sometimes did not
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arrive at the courthouse until after the court’s scheduled starting
time, Judge Gundy often did not even arrive at the courthouse until
two or more hours after the scheduled start time. See id. Moreover,
Judge Gundy also agrees that the JQC could prove that she violated
the law by refusing, over objection, to allow scheduled appearances
of arrestees, resulting in six arrestees each staying in jail for
approximately an extra week. No such harm was at issue in Judge
Stokes’s case. See id. at 665-666.
Much of the misconduct at issue here has gone unexplained by
Judge Gundy. Although the agreement indicates that health issues
explain Judge Gundy’s absences from the beginning of November
2016 through the end of April 2017, that does not necessarily explain
all 40 of her absences in 2016 and leaves unexplained 33 absences
in 2017 and 19 absences in less than the first seven months of 2018.
Although the agreement suggests that Judge Gundy sometimes was
late for her 8:00 a.m. calendars because lawyers asked to engage in
negotiations before she took the bench, that does not explain why
Judge Gundy on many occasions arrived at the courthouse after 9:00
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a.m. or even 10:00 a.m., even when she had court. And the
agreement is silent on Judge Gundy’s response to the counts based
on the March 2017 incident that kept six defendants in jail days
beyond when they should have been released, except to suggest that
she does not concede that events transpired as alleged by the JQC
(although she agrees that the allegations could be proved). This last
incident is particularly concerning to us.
Nevertheless, the Court now accepts the agreement with Judge
Gundy approved by the Hearing Panel and filed with this Court on
July 25, 2022. We do so with some hesitation; the allegations, all of
which Judge Gundy either admits altogether or agrees that the JQC
could prove, are serious, especially the refusal to follow the law —
over objection by both the State and defendants — that led to six
defendants each spending an unnecessary week in jail. But this case
has been pending for over three years, both Judge Gundy and the
people she serves deserve a resolution (which would be delayed even
further if we reject this agreement), and a 90-day suspension is
among the most serious sanctions we have ever imposed short of
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removal from office.2 Accordingly, this Court orders that Judge
Terrinee Lynette Gundy be suspended without pay for 90 days and
receive a public reprimand, which shall be imposed on her in person
in open court by a judge designated by this Court. Upon issuance of
this opinion, all filings made in this Court in this matter shall be
unsealed. See JQC Rule 23 (D).
Discipline by consent accepted. Public reprimand and
suspension for 90 days. All the Justices concur, except Colvin, J.,
disqualified.
2 We are skeptical that retention by the voters is properly considered a
mitigating factor. And active involvement in numerous civic and religious
activities, while often mitigating in other circumstances, seems somewhat out
of place as a factor in mitigation for charges of not being sufficiently present at work. But even if we were to discount those factors entirely, we would arrive
at the same conclusion.
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