Former judge says ethics officials blindsided her with questions and secretly recorded the meeting
A former Georgia judge says ethics officials blindsided her with questions about a sentencing decision and secretly recorded her answers during a meeting that had been billed as an informal personal conference.
Former DeKalb County Judge Cynthia Becker, who resigned on March 1, said in response to an ethics complaint that she had been told the September 2014 meeting would address a complaint by a pro se defendant. Instead officials with the state Judicial Qualifications Commission questioned her about a sentencing decision in a school corruption case. The Daily Report (sub. req.) covered Becker’s response.
Becker says ethics officials wanted to know about her decision to sentence former DeKalb County school superintendent Crawford Lewis to one year in jail rather than probation, as called for in a plea deal in which he agreed to testify in the corruption case.
Becker said a judicial ethics charge can’t be based on failure to abide by the plea agreement. “The Supreme Court has made it clear that mere erroneous exercise of discretionary power, or mere errors of law, may not be sufficient to support disciplinary proceedings,” the response said.
Ethics officials also wanted to know why Becker didn’t set bond for Lewis after sentencing him to jail. Becker said Georgia law barred her from setting bond until Lewis filed notice of appeal or a motion for a new trial.
Becker said the “surreptitiously recorded” meeting became the basis for allegations that she made false statements to the commission. State law allows secret recordings as long as one person is aware the conversation is being recorded, the Daily Report says.
A transcript of the meeting was contained in the ethics charges against Becker. “I am a darn good judge,” Becker told ethics officials, according to prior coverage by the Daily Report (sub. req.). “And I don’t deserve this.”
The Judicial Qualifications Commission has accused Becker of violating ethics rules by sending Lewis to jail, making false statements to the commission, engaging in ex parte communications with lawyers for two other defendants in the case, and with making public comments about the case while it was on appeal. The complaint is here (PDF).
The other defendants in the school corruption case, former schools COO Patricia Reid and her ex-husband, Anthony Pope, were found guilty of manipulating school construction contracts. Becker reversed the conviction last year, saying they had been based on allegedly false testimony by Lewis, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports in earlier coverage of the case.
In March, the Georgia Court of Appeals reversed Becker’s order granting new trials to Reid and Pope, according to another story by the Daily Report (sub. req.).
