Difference between revisions of "Georgia Governor repeats mistake of former governor Roy Barnes, but did Kemp have a choice?"

One of Flournoy's most notorious rulings came in 2011 in what may very well be the largest white-collar scandal in Cobb County history. According to an AJC article authored by Margaret Newkirk, Judge Flournoy threw out a 31-count racketeering and theft indictment against former Cobb EMC CEO, Dwight Brown.<ref>https://www.ajc.com/news/local/judge-throws-out-cobb-emc-indictment-citing-courtroom-accessibility/dEdeHrvTkoBAAnS10xiEQI/ Margaret Newkirk, Judge throws out Cobb EMC indictment, citing courtroom accessibility]</ref> Brown at the time was represented by the Barnes Law Group, founded by former governor Roy Barnes who appointed Flournoy to the Cobb County Superior Court bench in 2000. Flournoy based his ruling on testimony that the indictment was not returned in a place open to the public as required under Georgia law.<ref>See Sampson v. State, 124 Ga. 776 (1906); Sellars v. State, 113 Ga.App. 510 (1966).</ref>

Flournoy's decision was upheld on appeal by the Supreme Court of Georgia<ref>State v. Brown, 293 Ga. 493, 748 S.E.2d 376 (Ga. 2013)</ref> based on the testimony of another Cobb County Superior Court Judge, George H. Kreeger, and the following three witnesses with close ties to Judge Flournoy and former governor Barnes:

Despite his personal relationships with Roy Barnes and Tyler Browning, Flournoy did not recuse himself from that case. Judge Flournoy, Judge Kreeger and Tom Browning would years later collectively play a much more sinister roll in what one could reasonably perceive as a form of "[https://thewikilaw.org/wiki/index.php?title=The_Lion%27s_Den child trafficking]" enabled by the Cobb County Judiciary. That case is known to some as "The Lion's Den."