On what should have been a day of celebration, Mountain Judicial Circuit District Attorney Brian Rickman finds his legal career in limbo. Rickman and two others were to have been sworn in as state appellate court judges today but a legal challenge has at least temporarily halted their swearing-in ceremony.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge John Goger yesterday heard arguments in a lawsuit challenging the governor’s authority to appoint the three new judges to the Georgia Court of Appeals. The lawsuit claims the appointments are unconstitutional.
READ: Rickman Appointed to Court of Appeals
According to the Daily Report, Fayetteville Attorney Wayne Kendall argued the Georgia Constitution requires newly created seats on the Court of Appeals to be filled by elections, not by gubernatorial appointment. Governor Nathan Deal appointed Rickman, Amanda Mercier and Nels Peterson to the appellate court in November. All three are named as defendants in the lawsuit along with Gov. Deal.
Attorneys for the State argued sovereign immunity and challenged the petitioners’ standing to sue the state.
Kendall, who represents a half-dozen petitioners demanding that the judgeships be filled by elections, told the Daily Report he speaks for more than 6 million Georgia voters “who have had the right to vote taken away from them.” He said the governor’s lack of diversity in judicial appointments helped prompt the legal challenge. Rickman and the two other appointees are white.
The judgeships were created by the Georgia General Assembly earlier this year to ease backlogs on the court of appeals. Rickman, Mercier and Peterson are slated to assume office January 1st pending Judge Goger’s ruling.
