By: Randy Evans
As the last two years of President Barack Obama’s second term expire, many will focus on the legacy he leaves. While presidents leave legacies through the policies and appointments they make, so do governors. There is probably no better example of this than one legacy left by Georgia’s first Republican governor in over a century.
Notably, by the end of his second term, Gov. Sonny Perdue’s disdain for attorneys (not really all attorneys, but most) and the State Bar of Georgia was pretty well known. Indeed, when the Georgia Legislature passed a long-overdue judicial pay raise, Gov. Perdue used his line item veto to kill it while leaving the rest of the budget largely intact.
As a result, there was some understandable trepidation in legal circles when he made appointments to Georgia’s appellate courts.
In his first term, Perdue appointed to the Georgia Supreme Court the one attorney he did trust, his own in-house attorney, then Executive Counsel Harold Melton. Then, very late in his second term, he made another appointment to the Georgia Supreme Court and two appointees to Georgia’s second-highest court – the Georgia Court of Appeals.
On Aug. 13, 2009, Gov. Perdue appointed David E. Nahmias to the Georgia Supreme Court. Then, on Nov. 1, 2010, one day before term-limited Gov. Perdue’s replacement was elected, he selected two more attorneys to serve on the Georgia Court of Appeals – Stephen Louis A. Dillard from Bibb County; and Keith R. Blackwell from Cherokee County.
Often, appointments to Georgia’s higher courts come from judges serving on Georgia’s trial courts. First, experienced trial judges have a track record which permits governors to know what they are getting when they appoint judges to the appellate courts.
Second, by appointing a trial judge, a governor gets a second appointment (and possibly third appointment depending how it is done). The governor then gets to appoint the vacancy created by the elevation of the trial judge to the appellate court.
Notwithstanding the precedent, Gov. Perdue departed from this de facto tradition with both his two appointments to the Georgia Supreme Court and the two appointments to the Court of Appeals. None had ever served as a judge before their appointment.
With Melton, Gov. Perdue went with an attorney he knew and trusted. With Nahmias, Blackwell, and Dillard, he selected attorneys he did not know. But they were proven conservatives with outstanding intellectual prowess and solid pedigrees for excellence in the profession.
Nahmias, Blackwell, and Dillard served as clerks to conservative judges on the U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals with Nahmias clerking for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
Blackwell and Dillard both served as members of the board of advisors for the Atlanta chapter of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. All of Gov. Perdue’s appointees are recognized as articulate, well-read scholars of the law, writing opinions that resolve cases today but establish broader principles for the law for tomorrow.
On the Georgia Court of Appeals, Judge Dillard has already established himself as a coalescing force as the 12-judge Court continues its transition. Republican governors have now selected six of the 12 members of the Court of Appeals. The next selection will make a majority. Judge Dillard is the most senior of all of them.
Certainly it is possible that Judge Dillard might follow his colleague Justice Blackwell to the Georgia Supreme Court. (Gov. Nathan Deal elevated Justice Blackwell to the Georgia Supreme Court on June 25, 2012.)
Due to mandatory retirement laws, it appears that Gov. Deal will select at least two Justices on the Georgia Supreme Court during his second term, replacing Chief Justice Hugh Thompson and Presiding Justice Harris Hines. Judge Dillard would certainly be a frontrunner for either of those seats on the high court.
Yet, by all accounts, Judge Dillard is perfectly content to become a reliable stalwart on the Court of Appeals–shaping its make-up, transitioning it into the 21st Century and providing direction for the future of Georgia. As one of his colleagues put it, “Judge Dillard loves the Court of Appeals.” With each successive appointment on the Court of Appeals, his influence and stature grows and his imprint on the Court of Appeals becomes indelible.
Eventually, he will progress through the chairs and become Presiding Judge of the Court of Appeals. By then, he will have had more impact on Georgia’s future than all but a few elected officials in Georgia.
And, on the Supreme Court, Justice Melton is in line to become Presiding Justice in the not-too-distant future, to be followed by Justice Nahmias and then Justice Blackwell. During Gov. Deal’s term, Republican appointees will grow from three of seven to five of seven on the Georgia Supreme Court. Needless to say, it will change the balance of power with 4-3 decisions today often going the other way tomorrow.
While much will be written over the coming weeks about the leaders in the Georgia Legislature and the Governor’s rearranged staff, there are few people in Georgia who will have more impact on the future of Georgia than Gov. Perdue’s appointments bolstered by Gov. Deal’s appointments.
Gov. Perdue left the future of Georgia with a definite legacy. In the next few years, as the balance of the appellate courts continues to shift, its full impact will be realized.