Bryant CochranROME, Ga. -- Attorneys vetted potential jurors this morning in the criminal case against a former Murray County judge.
Bryant Cochran faces charges of conspiring against rights, depriving someone of their civil rights, conspiring to distribute a controlled substance and intimidating a witness. The charges stem from a 2012 episode, when Cochran was a magistrate in Murray County.
A citizen named Angela Garmley said that she asked Cochran in April 2012 to take out warrants against three people. In his office, she said, Cochran asked her to become his mistress and send him lewd photos. Garmley filed an ethics complaint against him later that year.
Though he denied Garmley's allegations, he still resigned from office after investigators with the Georgia Judicial Qualifications Commission learned that Cochran was signing warrants before police officers even told him what evidence they had against defendants.
The day before Cochran resigned, members of the Murray County Sheriff's Office arrested Garmley after finding a metal tin full of methamphetamine in the wheel well of her car. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation dropped charges against Garmley after their agents learned that someone planted the drugs on her car.
The arresting officers, Murray County Capt. Michael Henderson and Deputy Josh Greeson, were later fired and pleaded guilty to obstruction charges. Clifford Joyce, a tenant of Cochran's, pleaded guilty to conspiring to distribute a controlled substance. He confessed to planting the drugs on Garmley's car.
In U.S. District Court this morning, attorneys for Cochran and the state asked a group of potential jurors a series of questions, determining who they believed could be impartial when hearing the evidence in this week's trial.
That process will continue when the prospective jurors return to court today at 1:45 p.m.