ATLANTA – A Georgia judge has resigned after a judicial panel investigated a personal relationship between him and a woman who was a defendant in a matter pending before his court.
Mountain Judicial Circuit Superior Court Chief Judge Ernest Woods resigned effective Jan. 15 in a December letter to Gov. Sonny Perdue.
Prosecutors told The Daily Report that the Judicial Qualifications Committee had been investigating Woods’ Facebook messages with 35-year-old Tara Elizabeth Black.
Woods told the newspaper he is looking to move forward.
He said he “just got tired of living under a microscope” and is calling his departure from the bench a retirement.