Supreme Court of Georgia (U.S. state)

The Supreme Court of Georgia is the highest judicial authority of the US state of Georgia. The court was established in 1845 as a three-member panel. Since 1896, the justices (increased in number to six, and then to seven in 1945) have been elected by the people, and today those elections are non-partisan. Three of the state's seven sitting Justices were re-elected, all unopposed, in 2012.

The first Chief Justice of the Court was Joseph Henry Lumpkin, who was appointed in 1863. There have been 27 Chief Justices, and the current Chief Justice of the Court is Hugh P. Thompson.^[1]

Justices

Bar admissions

The Supreme Court of Georgia is unusual among state high courts in that it does not admit new lawyers to the state bar. Instead, new lawyers are admitted to practice by the superior court of a county where they live or wish to practice. The new lawyers must separately seek admission to the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court.

See also

• Chief Justices of the Supreme Court of Georgia
• Justices of the Supreme Court of Georgia
• Fiat justitia ruat caelum
• State Bar of Georgia
• Georgia Court of Appeals
• Courts of Georgia

References

• History of the Supreme Court of Georgia (accessed February 17, 2014)

Huebner, Timothy. The Southern Judicial Tradition: State Judges and Sectional Distinctiveness, 1790-1890. Athens, Ga.: University of Georgia Press, 1999.

External links

• Website of the Supreme Court of Georgia

Coordinates: 33°44′55″N 84°23′21″W / 33.748496°N 84.38913°W / 33.748496; -84.38913