Fulton Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee told the Sandy Springs Rotary Club on Monday that keeping up with and clearing court dockets requires good time management skills.
McAfee is presiding over a high-profile case involving former President Donald Trump over alleged 2020 election interference brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
McAfee couldn’t discuss cases on his docket, but he did elaborate on what its like to be working inside a courtroom.
He said the “bread and butter” for Fulton Superior Court is felony offenses. Those are charges for which a person found guilty could go to prison for a year or more, raning from from shoplifting to murder.
Fulton Superior Court had 8,117 felony cases filed and 8,773 civil cases filed in 2023, the judge said. Domestic cases, another area handled in Superior Court, had 10,224 cases filed. He said 20 judges are assigned to preside over these cases, but believes its time to add another member too the judicial circuit.
The court system is using technology to help move cases forward, including Zoom hearings.
“It’s going to help, but it’s not going to be the silver bullet,” McAfee said, “because ultimately it relies on people and relies on really setting deadlines in case management. And that’s nothing technology can solve.”
Trials can’t be held over Zoom because you have a constitutional right of confrontation as you get to look your accuser in the eye, he said.
McAfee said an accountability commission that would provide oversight for the state’s district attorney is similar to the Judicial Qualifications Committee that oversees judges. As a concept it’s important, but he said it’s too early to tell how effective the oversight of district attorneys will be. The General Assembly is rewriting guidelines for the committee after the original ones were rejected by the Georgia Supreme Cour.t
In response to another question from the Rotarians, McAfee said a problem he saw as a federal prosecutor was that sending people to prison for life does not mean that the judicial system is done with them. With the number of contraband cellphones brought into prisons – usually by guards – they can continue their criminal activities from jail.
Much of McAfee’s presentation to the Rotarians at the Hilton Atlanta Perimeter Suites on Peachtree Dunwoody Road was devoted to a history of the development of the justice system, starting with the Old Bailey in London, England, where much of the current justice system in the United States has its roots.
He added historical references in Atlanta about the judicial circuit’s development and its courthouses, leading to today’s judicial annex that houses 30 courtrooms. The court system struggled with the pandemic and continues to deal with the aftermath of a cyber-attack on Fulton County’s computer systems, he said.
Before being appointed as a judge for a vacant Fulton Superior Court, McAfee had served as Georgia’s inspector general, an assistant U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, a senior assistant district attorney in Fulton County for the Atlanta Judicial Circuit, and an assistant district attorney in Bartow County for the Piedmont Judicial Circuit.