Whitfield County, Ga., courthouse employees expect a magistrate to step down this week after her DUI arrest.
An attorney for Teresa Kaye Cope has submitted a draft of a resignation letter to Chief Magistrate Haynes Townsend, saying Cope expects to leave her post by the close of business Thursday. The letter has not been signed yet, though county officials believe Cope, 61, is merely waiting for Townsend to return to work by the end of the week.
"We have no record of her resignation [yet]," County Administrator Mark Gibson said. "But every indication is that she will leave on the 30th."
On Saturday, the Georgia State Patrol charged Cope with driving under the influence and failure to maintain lane. She was arrested after leaving the Whitfield County Jail, where she had been overseeing first-appearance hearings. Sheriff's office employees said her breath smelled like alcohol.
After she left, according to an incident report, Whitfield County Sheriff's Office Lt. Angie Lowery watched Cope veer her 2012 Honda CR-V out of her lane on North Thornton Avenue in Dalton around 3 p.m. Lowery said Cope tested positive for alcohol consumption on a breath test. She then called the Georgia State Patrol for backup.
A state patrol trooper said that Cope's breath had a light odor of alcohol, her speech was slurred and she said she drank Seagram's one or two hours earlier. She then underwent a field test.
Cope struggled to track movements with her eyes and had to put her hand on a fence for balance during the one-leg stand, according to the report. She also struggled with the alphabet. When asked to recite letters D through R without singing, she struggled at the letter N twice.
"She would recite letters in no particular order," the report reads.
The state patrol trooper brought Cope to Hamilton Medical Center, where her blood was drawn. The sample has been sent to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation Crime Lab for testing.
Cope was booked into the Whitfield County Jail on Saturday and left Monday on a bond of $2,140.
In the draft of her letter this week, Cope said she was retiring.
"It has been my great pleasure to serve the citizens of Whitfield County as a Magistrate for many, many years," she wrote, "and I will miss the camaraderie of working with so many wonderful Whitfield County and City of Dalton employees, as well as serving the public of this wonderful county.
"I look forward to my retirement and all the joys that I will have with the extra time to find other ways to serve my fellow man."
According to the Dalton Daily Citizen, Cope worked for 32 years in the probation office, the district attorney's office and the magistrate's office. Last year, Townsend filed a complaint with the Judicial Qualifications Commission, saying that Cope had been drunk at work.
Contact Tyler Jett at 423-757-6476 or at tjett@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @LetsJett.