TIFTON — A handful of state and local offices not subject to the two-party system venture into election-year qualifying this week, and a few new faces are guaranteed in several area races.
Ralph S. “Rusty” Simpson said he and other Tifton lawyers were truly “shocked” to learn at a Wednesday conference that three-term Superior Court Judge Gary McCorvey would not seek a fourth term, although Simpson and at least two other candidates already were eyeing the post.
In the Dougherty Circuit, two candidates — Municipal Judge Willie Weaver and Magistrate Judge Denise Marshall — already have announced they’ll seek the judgeship now held by Loring Gray, who stated his plans last year to resign and take senior judge status.
Qualifying for Lee County’s several nonpartisan posts, which include its chief magistrate, probate judge and three school board seats coming open, also begins Monday, as does qualifying for the nonpartisan state court judgeship in Worth County.
At least two candidates are seeking the Superior Court judgeship currently held by Rucker Smith in the Southwestern Judicial Circuit, which spans Lee, Sumter, Webster, Stewart, Schley and Macon counties.
They include Smith, who has held the position since 1992, and Albany lawyer Jimmie Brown, who announced his plans to seek it in February.
In Tifton, Simpson said he gained real-world experience as a circuit superior court judge when he held the post for 18 months, by appointment, after the May 2005 death of Judge Harvey Davis.
Superior Court Judges from the Tifton Circuit hold court in Tift, Worth, Turner and Irwin counties.
Until his defeat in the 2006 general election by Bill Reinhardt, Simpson, an experienced civil litigator, learned much while assigned to handle the circuit’s drug cases and lesser felonies, he said.
In 2005, Georgia’s Administrative Office of the Courts released a report critical of disorganization within the judicial circuit, and Simpson said he experienced it first- hand.
“Which is one of the reasons I decided to run,” he said. “We had a bad situation. I sort of saw it from the inside, that people’s business was not being tended to.”
Inheriting more than 600 open cases, some of which dated to 1984, Simpson said he went to work.
“In Worth County, for example, I resolved or managed 88 cases to conclusion,” he said.
Most of the backlogged cases were in Tift County, and in 2006, the court dismissed about 400 of them, he said.
“The biggest, most important thing a judge can do is listen very patiently to the legal arguments on both sides,” Simpson said. “You can’t run a court based on personal relationships. You’ve got to run a court based on the law and fairness.”
A Tifton Circuit Assistant District Attorney also is among those seeking McCorvey’s seat.
“It’s a little difficult to do because I have to work full- time and I’ve never run for office before,” said Ronnie Wheeler. “I’m in the process of lining everything up now.”
Neither Wheeler nor Simpson admitted knowing a group called “Citizens for Judicial Reform,” which detailed in an anonymous e-mail sent to The Albany Herald last week its plans to oust McCorvey.
Wheeler said he had a long- standing friendship with McCorvey, in spite of inevitable conflicts that do arise in the courtroom.
The Ocilla native has worked in district attorney offices of the Thompson, Alapaha and Cordele circuits, and most recently, for seven years in Tifton.
“I’ve been an attorney for 28 years, so I think I have ample experience,” Wheeler said. “I’ve tried literally hundreds of cases. I have a good deal of experience as a trial attorney; I know how a court ought to be run.”
His current boss, Tifton Circuit District Attorney Paul Bowden, has “been great” since Wheeler said he planned to run for judge.
“He’s been terrific and helpful and understanding, and I really appreciate that,” Wheeler said.
Superior courts, he said, are where the “nuts and bolts” of the justice system come together, and where laws formed by the legislature and through the opinions of higher courts are laid down.
“It is the job of the superior court to organize itself in a way to see to it that justice is done on a day-to-day basis,” Wheeler said.
Friday, State Senator Joseph Carter announced unexpectedly that he would vacate his attempt at re-election for the Senate to pursue a seat at the Tift bench.
“It gives me an opportunity to marry the two things that are extremely important to me, my love of the law and my committment to public service,” Carter said. “And it gives me the chance to stay closer to home and be closer to my family.”
A veteran of Tift County politics, Carter was a member of the Tift County School Board when he started his bid for state office in 2004 and says that his longterm plans did include a run at the bench, but that he had no idea that it would come sooner rather than later.
“It happened so quickly, we had no designs on doing it now. I thought it may happen eight years down the line,” Carter said. “But it’s one of those things you have jump at when you get the chance and I am.”
Carter’s decision will leave a vaccum in the state senate elections and is already causing confusion about how the situation will be resolved.
Guaranteed re-election to the state senate by virtue of running unopposed, Carter said a mechanism will have to be put in place that will either re-open qualifying or seek some other resolution.