By L. Cramer
It’s just another day at the Cobb County Superior Court. Files are opening, cases are being heard and Chief Judge A. Gregory Poole issued an extension of his August 7, Judicial Emergency because Connie Taylor’s Cobb County Superior Court Clerk’s office still hasn’t gotten its act together.
“While the situation in the Clerk’s Office regarding document availability has improved, a significant backlog remains,” the press release says. “Some documents dating as far back as November 2023 remain unindexed. The Superior Court Clerk’s Office also continues to experience many of the issues listed in the Initial Notice. Specifically, issues regarding noticing, scheduling, and calendaring remain.”
Additionally, the notice says that the court staff is confused about a new procedural change, which is not exactly helping matters. The complete destruction of Cobb County’s Superior Court system, a once fine-tuned and well-oiled machine, has created extra work and pure chaos; so much so that the original filing pretty much says that.
“The nature of the emergency is that the Clerk of Superior Court continues to have a backlog of unindexed cases that has so disrupted the functioning of the Court as to have substantially endangered or infringed upon the normal functioning of the judicial system, the ability of persons to avail themselves of the judicial system, and the ability of litigants or others to have access to the courts or to meet schedules or time deadlines imposed by court order or rule, statute, or administrative rule or regulation,” the filing states.
This insanity is negatively impacting anyone who comes into contact with Cobb County’s Court System; people like Kevin Rodgers, a 40-year court veteran, former Marine, and award-winning Criminal Defense Attorney, has been dealing with the disaster of the Clerk’s office for a long time, and his clients are suffering for it.
Rodgers was recently named the top Indigent Defense Lawyer in the state by Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and Southern Center for Human Rights; two thirds of his clients cannot afford an attorney, so he works hard on their behalf.
Rodgers, in his efforts to help his clients, has been raising a stink over one man in particular who has been sitting in jail 4-6 weeks longer than he needs to. Due to the filing issues in the Superior Court Clerk’s office, the client has one case on the calendar that has already been dismissed but the paperwork has not been filed and sent to the Sheriff. When Rodgers tried to find the paperwork to take to the Sheriff, the Cobb County Superior Court Clerk’s office charged him $7.00 to get it, when it is usually free.
Another issue, Rodgers notes, is that the Superior Court Clerk’s office is supposed to send notices based on court calendars. The notices go out to lawyers and defendants so that they know when to appear before a judge. However, this job has not been getting done, as we noted in our last article, and instead the Superior Court Judges are providing their own calendars to lawyers and then telling them to inform their clients of court dates.
“It’s the clerk’s constitutional responsibility to send those notices to defendants and to the lawyers to notify us of the court dates,” Rodgers said.
Recently, Rodgers had a client call to ask him if he knew she had a court case coming up on September 3 – he had no idea. When he asked her how she found out she said it was her bondsman who told her.
“She hasn’t gotten a clerk’s notice and I haven’t gotten a clerk’s notice but the bondsman checks the calendars,” Rodgers said.
When speaking about the Superior Court staff, Rodger’s explained that they are competent and do their best to get their job done but he blames lack of leadership and bad management style for the reason that the Clerk’s office has failed so spectacularly. Many former employees of the County Clerk’s office have taken jobs in other government agencies after Connie Taylor was elected which, Rodgers believes, is because of a poor management style.
Today’s notice from Chief Judge Poole stated that “based on the timelines provided by the Clerk, an independently elected constitutional officer, the Chief Judge hopes that all backlogged documents will be available before the Emergency expires on October 6, 2024,” which would only help the residents of Cobb County.
As the notice mentions, the Superior Court Clerk is a constitutional position and is decided at the ballot box. Voters in Cobb County can decide between Connie Taylor and her opponent Deborah Dance on November 5.
“Thanks to judicial efforts, the vendor assisted the Clerk in transitioning documents into the new case management system, but progress alone does not erase the fact that there is an ongoing backlog of unindexed cases dating back to November 2023,” said Republican Candidate for Superior Court Clerk, Deborah Dance. “As your next Superior Court Clerk, I will ensure that the office is not only technologically equipped but fully staffed and trained to prevent such crises from ever arising again. No case should ever fall through the cracks. I will rebuild the Clerk’s Office so that it functions efficiently and transparently, so that backlogs and missing or lost documents are a thing of the past.”
When it comes to the election, we asked Kevin Rodgers what his message is to the voters of Cobb County, and he said, “your vote counts; I have no idea how we’re going to do this for four more years,” and this journalist shares that sentiment.
