A north Georgia judge has resigned as the chair of a judicial oversight agency.
Brenda Weaver emailed members of Georgia’s Judicial Qualifications Commission at 2:30 today to announce she is leaving her post. Weaver, a superior court judge in the Appalachian Judicial Circuit, has been criticized by first amendment groups for her role in the arrest of a newspaper publisher.
In June, Weaver asked her local district attorney to indict Mark Thomason, the publisher of the Fannin Focus. Thomason had issued a subpoena for Weaver’s publicly funded bank account as part of a civil trial that didn’t involve Weaver. She believed he needed to give her notice before filing the subpoena with a bank.
Thomason had also made a records request for checks flowing from Pickens County’s general fund to Weaver’s operating account, which he said he believed were cashed illegally. Weaver said Thomason knew this was a lie. Thomason disagreed.
As the arrest drew national media attention, Weaver requested that Thomason’s charges be dropped. The district attorney complied. But Thomason filed a complaint against Weaver with the JQC, even though Weaver happened to be the chair of that agency.