Faux Process And Rubber-Stamped Orders

In 2019, I represented a mother in Muskogee County fighting for custody of her 5-year-old son. The mother had primary custody at the time and an intermittent hearing was held to potentially appoint a Guardian Ad Litem to the case. That hearing was not regarding the change of custody and the Muskogee County Superior Court did not change custody that day. The judge asked the father’s attorney to draft an order appointing the Guardian Ad Litem. The opposing counsel drafted the “proposed” order for the judge to review. In the proposed order, however, the opposing attorney inserted a clause that changed full custody from the mother to the father. The judge signed the order without scrutiny and, without notice or a hearing on the matter, the mother lost primary custody of her son. It took over a year for the mother to get primary custody of her son back.

So what happened here? How could a judge simply sign parental rights away at the drop of a hat, without notice or a hearing? This is what I call “faux process” (contra to “due process”) and what many attorneys refer to as a “rubber-stamped” order. The formula for this injustice is as follows:

(1) A judge sets a hearing on a specific matter.
(2) Then at the hearing, the judge makes an oral ruling in open court and tells the attorney for the "prevailing party" to draft a proposed order for the judge to sign.
(3) The prevailing party's attorney drafts the order and inserts wording awarding additional remedies that were not within the scope of the judge's oral ruling.
(4) The judge then signs the order without scrutiny, thus awarding the drafting party the remedies improperly inserted into the proposed order by the prevailing party's attorney.

Obviously, the Muscogee County judge described above erred by signing an order that he did not read. But why does this happen? A summary list of potential causes sheds some light on the phenomenon. In Cobb County, State Court judges are paid around $180,000 per year and they keep their office position unless they retire or fail to be re-elected. Theoretically, they can be removed from office through a disqualification process executed by the Judicial Qualifications Commission ("JQC"). However, the JQC will generally not scrutinize a judge's signed order so long as a hearing was conducted and the written order on its face does not show clear impropriety. That being said, the "rubber-stamped" order flies under the radar and the rubber-stamping judge remains free of JQC prosecution. Moreover, judges are subject to many outside influences that are not reflected on a court's record. For example, judges are allowed to accept campaign donations from local attorneys and, under the current ethics code applicable in Georgia, the judges are not required to disclose their donations to the parties in court. Another not so commonly advertised influence over a judge's decision is caused by the judge's own staff members. These individuals have unfettered direct access to communications with the judge for whom they work, and the staff attorneys are tasked with, among other things, drafting and reviewing orders. It reasonably follows that some judges simply rely on their staff attorney's word regarding the interpretation of the applicable law and the validity of an order. While the judge is responsible for his or her own signature, the role and influence of a judge's staff attorney cannot be overlooked.

That case in Muscogee County was not the first time I witnessed a party fall victim to a rubber-stamped order nor was it the last. In fact, my first recollection of such injustice occurred at the hands of Judge Carl W. Bowers, and my most recent experience was at the hands of Judge G. Grant Brantley. While I sincerely want to believe that these were honest mistakes, rare flukes caused by the coincidental alignment of the planets, mere cursory research into the personal backgrounds and experience of these two judges shows otherwise.

The Brantley-Bowers Dynamic Duo

Early in Judge Bowers' career, he served as Judge Brantley's staff attorney--a job likely handed to Bowers in light of his family's longtime relationship with Judge Brantley. Specifically, former Georgia Attorney General Mike Bowers was Judge Brantley's supervising officer in the military.

In 2022, Judge Carl Bowers publicly praised Brantley stating: "He's given me great advice many, many times over the years when I worked with him," and "I learned so much from him that I use today in the courtroom in state court." Bowers went on to say that "

Conclusion

Our broken judiciary is not the result of a bunch of evil judges sitting around a conference table plotting against the well-being of society and the Cobb County community. No, our maimed “justice” system is the result of flawed philosophies and the misalignment of incentives. In other words, our judicial officers have more to gain personally by not doing their job than by actually doing their job. Imagine losing your house or, worse, your child simply because a judge was too lazy to read what he or she was signing. Judges are acting like cogs in a wheel, simple machines "rubber-stamping" their signatures on paper without scrutinizing the contents because, frankly, they just don’t have time for this right We the People call due process.

Matthew D. McMaster, Esq.

Candidate for Cobb County State Court Judge