Faux Process And Rubber-Stamped Orders

In 2019, I represented a mother in Muscogee County in a custody battle for 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. 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 the mother lost primary custody of her son without notice or a hearing on the matter. 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) The judge picks a prevailing party 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.

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. The rubber-stamped order is perhaps the most dangerous weapon used by judges in civil cases to successfully circumvent due process.

Passing The Buck

In 2017, Judge Bowers presided over a hearing regarding one very specific issue in the case. I represented the defendant in the case. Judge Bowers made an oral ruling in favor of the plaintiff and told the plaintiff's attorney to draft a "proposed order" for the judge to sign. In his proposed order, the plaintiff's attorney inserted a clause that resolved an additional issue to the case and cited inapplicable law to justify the bogus ruling. Judge Bowers signed (or "rubber-stamped") the proposed order, which created additional, unnecessary litigation to simply undue Judge Bowers' improperly signed order. That was the first time I ever dealt with a rubber-stamped order. While it was disheartening to witness a fellow attorney attempt such an underhanded maneuver, it was far more terrifying to see the tactic succeed at the hands of a judge. Another Cobb State judge corrected Judge Bowers' order at a subsequent hearing, and I moved on with my career believing that this was simply an honest mistake by a busy judge; I never expected that rubber-stamping was this judge's modus operandi for managing his caseload. Time proved otherwise.

In 2022, I was hired to defend a civil matter in Fulton County that should have been dismissed and closed with a 5-minute hearing by a competent judge. However, the Fulton judge presiding over the matter had her own agenda and was not interested in making decisions based on the facts and the law. After multiple unsuccessful motions to recuse the presiding judge, the Fulton County judiciary recruited Judge Grant Brantley from Cobb County to take over the case. With Judge Brantley now assigned to the case, I had high hopes that my client would finally get a fair shake and the case would be dismissed as it should have been over two years ago. That was not the case. Rather, Judge Brantley took the baton from the previous judge, executed the "rubber-stamp" process with impunity in favor of the opposing party. That case is still pending. To an experienced lawyer or judge, it would appear that Judge Brantley knew absolutely nothing about the applicable law and didn't care to either. Again, the case should have been dismissed in 5-minutes and closed over two years ago.

The Georgia Code of Judicial Ethics bars the mere appearance of impropriety. As to the practices and habits implemented by Judge Brantley, it "appears" that recklessly rushed rulings and "rubber-stamped orders" are regularly used for closing cases. He's simply not preparing for cases over which he presides and blitzes to the conclusion he wants without properly verifying the law or facts to his cases. And to justify these practices, Brantley asserts that "If the losing party doesn't like it, they can deal with it on appeal." This way of rapidly closing cases is severely flawed as it often times unnecessarily expands litigation; and many people cannot afford the long-drawn-out appellate process while, in the meantime, their rights and liberties can be trampled with no recourse pending appeal. Further, appellate judges have their own backlog of cases and to "pass the buck" onto the Court of Appeals is an irresponsible use of State resources.

While I sincerely want to believe that these errors by Judge Bowers and Judge Brantley were honest mistakes, rare flukes caused by the coincidental alignment of the planets, cursory research into the personal backgrounds and experience of those two judges shows otherwise.

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 maimed “justice” system is the result of flawed philosophies and the misalignment of incentives. Imagine losing your house, your job 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.

Lives are unjustly ruined daily at the hands of our judicial leaders, but it doesn't have to be that way. Calling all voters: Cobb County needs your help.

Matthew D. McMaster, Esq.

Candidate for Cobb County State Court Judge