ATLANTA (AP) – Georgia’s Supreme Court justices voted unanimously Thursday to select the high court’s next leader.
Presiding Justice David Nahmias is set to become chief justice when Chief Justice Harold Melton leaves the court on July 1. The justices also unanimously elected Justice Michael Boggs to succeed Nahmias as the next presiding justice.
Georgia chief justices serve one four-year term as the head of the state’s judicial branch. The chief justice is the spokesperson for the high court and for the rest of the state’s judiciary and presides over oral arguments and deliberation meetings. The chief justice also chairs the Georgia Judicial Council, which makes policy for the judicial branch.
The presiding justice steps in during absences by the chief justice and is vice chair of the Judicial Council.
Nahmias was appointed to the Supreme Court by then-Gov. Sonny Perdue in August 2009 and was reelected in 2010 and 2016. He previously worked as a federal prosecutor for nearly 15 years, worked in the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington and was a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.