I bet her courtroom was pure chaos.
She was only a probate judge - not a trial judge. She handled wills and estates. It's astounding that she could fuck that up so badly that they'd remove her ...but she's a black woman so here we are.
Here's the complaint against her:
https://www.gasupreme.us/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/S22Z0180-JQC-Amended-Formal-Charges.pdf
Some highlights:
- she posted on social media that she was attending an event titled, "Black and Educated" (because of course she has a gigantic ego) and she included her cash-app. So the implication is that you could send her money and get in her good graces.
- she opened the courthouse up on a weekend in order to let a friend use it for a wedding.
- she routinely back-dated official documents.
- she sent an email to another judge, and CCed other court and governmental officials, asking, “How are you even a Judge” accusing him of “harassment” and calling his actions “borderline racist” - what did this judge do?? Well, when she opened the courthouse for the wedding, he told her "no."
- she pushed the panic button in her office when the deputy who escorts her to her car was a few minutes late.
- she threw a woman in jail for "contempt of court" because the woman, who immigrated from Thailand, put her uncle's name on a marriage license (her biological father died when she was an infant and she was raised, in Thailand, by her uncle).
- some guy died without a will, but with a current and an ex-wife. The current wife filed a "year's support" petition to transfer the deceased's estate to her. Apparently
both Judge Peterson and her clerk, Ms. Fasick are incompetent. They turned that simple request into a 15 month ordeal including ex-parte communication (i.e. they communicated with the ex-wife off the record), missed deadlines, incorrect citations, and when the current wife finally got a lawyer and requested the case go to another judge, Peterson pulled a CLASSIC black lady play, denying the motion ...and then immediately transferring the case. If you close your eyes, you can hear her wagging her finger and saying "oh no you don't get to fire me! I quit!!" The judge that got the case next closed it out quickly and noted that Peterson had violated Georgia law.
- she gets a writ of mandamus (another court telling her to do her fucking job) and she back-dates an order to make it look like she had totes already done her job.
I suspect that much of the delay in getting shit done in her court is probably due to her clerks having to rewrite every fucking sentence she writes herself. On page 76 there are excerpts from a memo she had to send to the Judicial Discipline Commission when they started asking questions about WTF she was doing down there.
I asked at the training amongst all my peers. Melanie Bell was the instructor on the course on ethics in which I directed my question to. However, other Judges chipped in and agreed it was no issue.
"I asked at the training amongst all my peers."
That's a fragment, not a sentence.
"Melanie Bell was the instructor on the course on ethics in which I directed my question to."
You can say "instructor
of" or you can say "instructor
for" the course, but "instructor on" is incorrect. Also, "in which I directed my question to" is both ending a sentence with a preposition, and also sounds like the cops in Idiocracy when they try to use big words.
"agreed it was no issue" is awkward phrasing.
So basically, I think she's a standard 80 IQ black woman with an ego the size of a planet and her clerks are desperately trying to cover for her.
The competency crisis is real!
