Georgia Court of Appeals Race

We have decided to address the background story on all three candidates for the Georgia Court of Appeals in a slightly more structured way than usual. For those of you who prefer left-side brain info to make a decision, we will first present the objective facts about each candidate. Objective means information that is known and not subject to dispute.

For the right-brained people, we will present the analysis in a more subjective manner; that is, our opinions on the different candidates.

OBJECTIVE ANALYSIS

(1) Voting Records of Candidates

In our travels around to various political events over the past 5 months, we've heard a lot of "So-and-so is a liberal because she voted Democrat" and "So-and-so is a conservative because he voted Republican." Well, we prefer to deal in documented facts rather than conjecture from ill-informed people.

The Political Vine asked the researchers over at Political Intelligence, Inc. if they wouldn't mind doing a little pro bono research work for our story. Due to the importance of this information for this race, they readily agreed. (NOTE: Political Intelligence, Inc. has not been retained by any of the campaigns in the Georgia Court of Appeals race.)

Political Intelligence obtained the voting histories of Debra Bernes, Howard Mead, and Michael Sheffield and compiled them in a historical race format. Their results are available as a downloadable PDF file above.

Political Intelligence, Inc. looked at races from the most recent 2004 Primary Run-off back to the 1990 Primary, spanning 18 distinct races in which a voter had to choose a political party ballot. The results are as follows:

Bernes: 13 Republican ballots, 2 Democrat ballots, 3 no ballot*
Mead: 2 Republican ballots, 13 Democrat ballots, 3 no ballot*
Sheffield: 3 Republican ballots, 15 Democrat ballots

* Voter did not participate in an election

As you can readily observe from her voting pattern, Debra Bernes is a pretty consistent "R" voter, with a "D" pulled once in the 2000 Primary and a "D" in the 1992 Presidential Preference Primary. She pulled an "R" in both the 1996 and 2000 Presidential Preference Primaries.

Mead's been a pretty steady "D" voter except for the 1996 Primary and 1996 Run-off when he voted "R."

Sheffield's been a very steady "D" voter until 2004.

(2) Contributions Raised Through 9/30/2004

Debra Bernes

$361,500 = Total Amount Raised
$130,000 = Loan from Candidate
36.0% = Percent of funds from Candidate
64.0% = Percent Raised from others

Howard Mead

$1,384,000 = Total Amount Raised
$1,090,000 = Loan from Candidate
78.75% = Percent of funds from Candidate
21.25% = Percent Raised from others

Michael Sheffield

$52,696 = Total Amount Raised (as of 8/6/2004)**
$11,000 = Loan from Candidate
20.1% = Percent of funds from Candidate
79.9% = Percent Raised from others

** No September 30, 2004 campaign disclosure from Sheffield appears on the SOS's Website as of 10/9/2004. Mr. Sheffield appears to be in direct violation of Section 21-5-34.1(a) which requires candidates seeking a statewide office to file electronically upon reaching a threshold of either raising or spending a minimum of $20,000 in an election cycle. No electronic disclosure, as of publication time, exists for Mr. Sheffield. (If one cannot follow the laws of the state, why should they sit on a bench and judge anyone else?)

(3) Results From The State Bar of Georgia Survey

Prior to the July 20 Primary, the Georgia State Bar Association mailed-out 24,329 ballots to their membership for a survey on the qualifications of the then-six candidates running for the Court of Appeals. Of these, the bar received 4,018 back for a 16.5% response rate...not too shabby of a response rate. (Click here for the link to the State Bar of Georgia's Judicial Poll Results.)

Now, as a PV sidebar, this poll is very interesting. To some degree, you could consider it a "straw poll," but ballots are not bought, so there is a high degree of control from "fixing" the poll's results.

The survey asked participants to rate the six candidates according to this scale of judgement: Well-qualified (WQ), Qualified (Q), Not qualified (NQ), and Don't know enough about the candidate to judge (DK).

The survey provided actual numerical votes of how many people voted one way or the other. We've converted those to percentages of the total respondents for each candidate and ordered them from the highest qualified rankings to the lowest qualified:

A) Debra Bernes: 18% (WQ), 13% (Q), 3.4% (NQ), 65.6% (DK)
B) Lee Tarte Wallace: 17.7% (WQ), 12.4% (Q), 3.7% (NQ), 66.2% (DK)
C) Mike Sheffield: 7.5% (WQ), 10.2% (Q), 5.6% (NQ), 76.7% (DK)
D) Thomas Rawlings: 6.6% (WQ), 9.9% (Q), 4.3% (NQ), 79.2% (DK)
E) Howard Mead: 5.0% (WQ), 8.5% (Q), 6.0% (NQ), 80.5% (DK)
F) William Hawkins: 3.9% (WQ), 7.4% (Q), 3.4% (NQ), 85.3% (DK).

Only three of these are now running for the seat in this November's election: Bernes, Sheffield, and Mead. Removing the other three from the mix and we have this array:

A) Debra Bernes: 18% (WQ), 13% (Q), 3.4% (NQ), 65.6% (DK)
B) Mike Sheffield: 7.5% (WQ), 10.2% (Q), 5.6% (NQ), 76.7% (DK)
C) Howard Mead: 5.0% (WQ), 8.5% (Q), 6.0% (NQ), 80.5% (DK)

(4) Legal Work Experience

Debra Bernes: Bernes has 25 years of legal experience. Her first 20 years were spent Assistant District Attorney in Cobb County. She has filed over 400 legal briefs and argued over 50 cases before Georgia's two appellate courts, the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals. She left the Cobb County DA's office in 1999 and is currently in private practice.

Howard Mead: Mead has never argued a case as a trial attorney (i.e., has never stepped into a courtroom and argued against an opposing attorney in front of a real judge...moot court in law school doesn't count, Howard). Mead has never written a brief for the appellate court.

Mead's "legal credentials" come from working for such political icons as Governor Zell Miller and Governor Roy Barnes as "legal counsel." He has drafted legislation, but has never been required to interpret it and defend law. He has clerked for the appellate court.

Michael Sheffield: Sheffield served as an Assistant District Attorney in DeKalb County for 9 years, worked as a DeKalb County Assistant Public Defender for 15 years and currently serves as assistant solicitor for the City of Duluth while maintaining a private practice as a lawyer since 1999.

SUBJECTIVE ANALYSIS

Before we launch into our subjective analysis of the candidates, we recommend you watch the replay of their 30-minute, July 9, 2004 debate on Georgia Public Television. Click here and search down the page until you come upon "Friday, July 9" and choose the "State Court of Appeals" debate that occured at 7:30 pm . You need to pay attention to the responses from Bernes, Mead and Sheffield, and, especially Mead when he responds to questions about his lack of experience in the "real world" of legal work. His answers confirm our assertions that he has never done trial work as a litigator.

Howard Mead Discussion

Assuming you have viewed the replay, what did we discover about Howard Mead? You know what "legal counsel" means in Mead's case? Drafting legislation for the Governor like the bill that initiated the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority ("GRTA"). Or, drafting the legislation that led to the infamous Denny's Placemat for a state flag.

Or, "legislation that cracked down on unethical public officials." You want to know what kind of "ethics" legislation Mead is so proud of? He's proud to be the guy who wrote the law that required candidates to make sure they disclose the "date of contribution, the amount of the contribution, the name of the contributor, the occupation of the contributor, and the address of the contributor." AND, woe to the public official who ommitted an occupation. Ooh! Mead just pees in his pants every time someone is caught not dotting their i's or crossing their t's via omitting a contributor's occupation on a disclosure.

Meanwhile, Mead and his pals who have business with the state, or whose personal businesses can be directly affected by legislation passed, are allowed to run roughshod over Georgia by using their government positions to enrich themselves rather than work on passing laws that prohibit true "conflicts of interests" of government officials.

People like Mead have absolutely no concept of what true "unethical" behavior is. No Democrat does, especially one that has worked the majority of their life as a political hack instead of, say, as an assistant district attorney as both of his opponents have done. How is it that Mead, as he portrays in his commercials, "gave up a lucrative law practice" and still had $1.09 million to loan his campaign to date???

Another interesting fact about Mead is who, besides himself, did give him campaign contributions. Two people whom you might never expect to see involved in a state-wide election contributed money to Mead's campaign. Who were they? Ah, James Carville and Paul Begala. Carville gave Mead $1000 and Begala gave him $500. Pretty famous Democrats, eh? They are both listed as working for CNN as their occupations.

Michael Sheffield Discussion

As we pointed out in the personal voting histories of the candidates, Sheffield voted "D" up until 2004. Based on Sheffield's frequent visits to "R" events, we know for a fact that he switched to voting "R" for political reasons.

Sheffield's stump chats deal with the standard pablum that "R" candidates for office are espousing: "My opponents are liberal trial lawyers who are against tort reform." A Court of Appeals judge will not be casting votes on tort reform, so, whoever is feeding Sheffield this stuff is an idiot.

Another partisan act that Sheffield has engaged in is the answering of a survey by a partisan political group. This group presented 5 decisions made by the U.S. Supreme Court and asked the survey participants to answer whether or not they agreed with the decision.

The interesting thing about this survey is that it did not present the arguments made by the attorneys to the Justices; it merely presented a brief subject matter and the decision. Sheffield is the only candidate who responded to the survey. Both Bernes and Mead declined, citing the fact that, as a judge, one should not make any decision on a subject until they are presented with the arguments for and against.

Sheffield, by answering the survey, demonstrates that, if he were to sit on the bench, he would not decide cases based on law, but based on personal "feelings"...and, of course, he would tap the fringe groups for guidance on what decision he should make. Not based on law, but based on his emotions. That does not make one a very good candidate to be a fair and impartial judge.

When candidates are put forward for nomination to the Federal Courts or Supreme Courts, they do not answer surveys based on past cases. In order to ensure they remain objective, they have to maintain the absolute appearance of neutrality. If anyone remembers the appointment of Judge Clarence Thomas to the USSC in the early 1990s, every time he was asked by the U.S. Senate panel what his feeling on any of the major Court decisions were, he steadfastly refused to comment on his personal beliefs and answered them with "Senator, I need to hear the case before I can give you a decision. I will not comment on any potential case that may come before me..."

Sheffield has already decided how he will vote on certain matters that may come before the Court of Appeals. That is not the indication of an unbiased judge. That is the indication that Sheffield would vote based on his political partisanship which would truly not be good for any citizen whether they be "D", "R", "L", or "Non-Partisan" citizens.

Debra Bernes Discussion

As we've detailed above in the Objective section of our report, Debra Bernes is NOT, by any stretch of the imagination, a "liberal trial lawyer" as Sheffield accuses her of being. Her private practice for the past 5 years has been similar to Sheffield's for the past 5 years. Taking cases that she can take in order to build her practice.

Her 20 years with the Cobb County DA's office demonstrates a stick-to-it work ethic that beats any of her opponents' work record into the ground. While Howard Mead was busy schlepping coffee and doughnuts for Zell Miller in the early 1990s, Debra Bernes was working on cases like the prosecution of Fred Tokars for the conspiracy and murder of his wife, Sara Tokars.

The survey by the Georgia Bar shows that her peers throughout the state feel that she is the most qualified for the position, far surpassing her closest competitor by a margin of 2-to-1.

In her statewide campaign, she has never brought politics into any discussion of her qualifications. That's the mark of a responsible candidate for the judiciary.

While Howard Mead is busy shoving his personal millions (earned from who knows where doing who knows what to whom) into buying TV media to paint the image that he "sacrificed" himself to work as a political hack under two Democrat governors, Debra Bernes drives the entire state on her personal grassroots campaign, visiting small-town Georgia cities like Tifton, Georgia to chat with the editors of the city newspaper. Debra's husband, Gary, is busy driving all over Georgia planting those "Debra Bernes for Court of Appeals" signs all over the place. This is a campaign that prides itself on hard work and grassroots campaigning.

Summary

As a reminder to the electorate, the position of Appeals Court Judge is non-partisan. We only presented their personal voting histories as info only.

Candidates who make campaign decisions based on politics open themselves up to be exposed more for their tendency to exhibit bias on subjects that will come before their bench than presenting an "open mind" to the facts of the case.

The Appeals Court hears cases to the tune of about 3500 per year. Two things have to be looked at for a decision from a lower court to be overturned: 1) Was there a flaw in the procedures by the lower court?, and 2) Was there a flaw in the lower court's application of the law?

In order to understand the procedures taken by the lower court, one must know what goes on in a courtroom in order to decide whether a mistake was made. Howard Mead is CLUELESS on trial procedures because he has never litigated in court. There are no "cheat sheets" on the appeals court. No asking for a neighbor judge how he or she would rule on a procedure. Mead would suck as a judge for this reason alone.

The other thing about Mead is that since he's only worked as someone who drafts law, he's never had to interpret and argue the law he's written. That also makes him unqualified to sit as judge. "Knowing" the law includes being able to interpet law, not just spout-off section and paragraph of the law.

Sheffield has demonstrated that he is running as a political animal and will decide certain cases based on his political beliefs. As we stated before, that kind of person as judge will corrupt the system of "fairness" and turn our judiciary into one resembling a King's Court, rather than one based on the Rule of Law.

Debra Bernes shines as an impeccably qualified candidate. She has the practical experience in the courtroom on both sides of issues, the knowledge of the law, and the attitude of neutrality in everything she presents in her campaign required to be a fair and impartial judge.