SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) – Amanda F. Williams was one of coastal Georgia’s most powerful judges when she resigned to settle noncriminal misconduct charges that she had jailed drug users for indefinite periods, heard cases in which her family served as attorneys, berated lawyers and otherwise acted with “tyrannical partiality.”
That was 3 ½ years ago. Since then, Williams resumed practicing law in the port city of Brunswick. Both her critics and supporters assumed she had closed her case by leaving the bench in January 2012 with a promise to never again seek judicial office.
That changed last week when a grand jury in Fulton County, 300 miles from the courthouse where Williams presided as a Superior Court judge, indicted her on criminal charges. Williams, now 68, faces prison and possible disbarment if convicted of lying to the state agency that investigated her for misconduct back in 2011.
“I had sort of figured, along with a lot of other people, that it was just going to go away,” said Doug Alexander, a Brunswick attorney who wrote a letter during Williams’ 2010 re-election campaign that questioned the judge’s ethics, ultimately leading to the misconduct investigation. “Why did it take so long is the big question.”
Williams spent 20 years on the bench and rose to chief judge of the Brunswick Judicial Circuit. She also oversaw Georgia’s largest drug court, designed to let some drug offenders avoid prison if they become clean.