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| | So, how exactly does this Project Orca ''devour'' cases at such a rapid pace? What exactly is the secret? Cobb County attorney, Matthew D. McMaster, shared his opinion: "The court's due diligence is our due process. And due diligence takes time. If time is being reduced, so is due diligence and, in turn, due process. It's as simple as that." |
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| | | When asked whether he has evidence to show that due process rights were being sacrificed at the hand of Project Orca, McMaster responded: "Absolutely. The numbers don't lie." |
| On April 18, 2023, Senior Judge, J. Stephen Schuster, was presiding over a child support hearing in Cobb County when he inserted what could reasonably be interpreted as a subtle dig on a local attorney who was not even present at the time nor part of the case Schuster was presiding over. The attorney was Marietta’s Matthew D. McMaster. Schuster was presiding in place of Judge Robert D. Leonard II at the time. Present at the hearing was attorney Rebecca McLaws who was representing a friend of McMaster's, Tameka Brown. According to an affidavit filed by McLaws, Judge Schuster referred to McMaster as part of Ms. Brown's "entourage" and went on to state that Senior Judge Adele Grubbs had “tangled it up" with Mr. McMaster in Fulton County.<ref>[https://thewikilaw.org/wiki/images/f/ff/Affidavit_RM.pdf Affidavit of Rebecca McLaws]</ref> However, upon reviewing the first draft rendition of the transcript, "the phrase 'tangled it up' did not appear in the transcript whatsoever," according to attorney McLaws. McMaster, on notice of the dialogue about him, has filed a request for the audio recording of the transcript from the hearing.<ref>[https://thewikilaw.org/wiki/images/2/24/Rule_21_Motion_for_Audio.pdf Nonparty Motion for Court Records]</ref>
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| ===When a 'Senior Judge' May Be Used===
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| ''An active judge may call upon a senior judge to serve in an emergency or when the volume of cases or other unusual circumstances cause such service to be necessary in order to provide for the speedy and efficient disposition of the business of the circuit.'' [https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/2022/title-15/chapter-1/section-15-1-9-2/ O.C.G.A. § 15-1-9.2(c)].
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| So who cares that Senior Judge Schuster decided to voice his opinion about a case pending in another county? Why does it matter? McMaster weighed in: "Schuster's comment in Cobb was made in the same hearing he ruled to arrest my friend, Tameka. And it was roughly an hour before Judge Grubbs' Fulton order was made publicly available. So he appears to have alluded to Judge Grubbs' agenda before I could have known about it. The fact that the transcript deviates from what I was originally told by Ms. McLaws is concerning. I'll know more once that audio is available."
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| When asked whether McMaster's view changes if Ms. McLaws was mistaken about the actual words used by Judge Schuster, McMaster responded: "Not at all. [Judge Schuster] shouldn't even open that door from the bench. If his gossip has a place at all, it's not in the courtroom."
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| ==An Axe to Grind== | | ==An Axe to Grind== |