321 S.E.2d 743 | Ga. | 1984
The Judicial Qualifications Commission instituted formal proceedings against Judge C. Winfred Smith, of the State Court of Hall County, charging him with several violations of the Code of Judicial Conduct (251 Ga. 897).
The violations consisted of: (1) Improperly and without just cause nolle prossing, dismissing or modifying the charges in a number of DUI and other criminal cases pending before the respondent, and reinstating and imposing sentences in certain of them after the July 1983 term of the Hall County Grand Jury recommended their reinstatement; (2) Reinstatement of four cases involving defendant Dennis Fay Wallis and imposing sentences therein although three years had elapsed since the respondent had nolle prossed these cases; and (3) Improperly threatening to hold one Fred Whitmire in contempt of court if he wrote further letters critical of the respondent to The Times, a Gainesville, Georgia, newspaper.
At the call of the hearing before the Commission, the respondent,
The recommendation of the Commission is approved, and the respondent is ordered suspended without pay for thirty days, beginning December 1, 1984, during which time he shall neither occupy nor use his office in the Hall County Courthouse.