An Atlanta judge, who was recently arrested for allegedly hitting a police officer outside an Atlanta nightclub, should be removed from office after an ongoing investigation into separate ethics charges, the Georgia Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday.
Douglas County Probate Judge Christina Peterson, 38, was removed from the bench effective Tuesday. The Georgia Supreme Court ruling comes after the Judicial Qualifications Commission found Peterson guilty of “systemic incompetence” and recommended her removal in April.
In one misconduct case, the court was troubled by Peterson’s decision to jail a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in Thailand after the woman sought to amend her marriage license with the name of her real father.
Peterson ruled the woman was trying to defraud the court and sentenced her to a maximum of 20 days in jail, which could be reduced to two days if the woman paid a $500 fine. The woman paid the fine and was released after two days.
The panel, however, found that the woman was “in good faith trying to correct” what appeared to be “an innocent mistake borne out of ignorance rather than ill-intent,” according to the court documents.
The court found that Peterson made “untruthful” testimony to the panel about the case, saying that “underscores her conscious wrongdoing” in finding the woman guilty of criminal contempt.
