At the beginning of the 2025 state legislative session, District 18 State Representative Tyler Paul Smith had hoped to get a bill passed that would provide for an additional judge of the superior courts for the Tallapoosa Judicial Circuit, which covers Haralson County and Polk County.
Smith introduced House Bill 93 in mid-January. The bill stalled in the House Judiciary Committee. Smith tells WLBB Radio that he will push the bill again in the 2026 legislative session.
If legislators approve an additional judge in 2026, Governor Brian Kemp would appoint a judge to fill the position by the end of the year. That most likely means that the soonest an additional judge would bang the gavel in the Tallapoosa Circuit would be January of 2027.
Tallapoosa Judicial Circuit Chief Judge Mark Murphy told WLBB Radio this past weekend that eight of Georgia’s 51 judicial circuits are on the 2025 Judicial Council of Georgia’s ‘new judgeship’ list. Only two of those circuits have ‘just two’ active judges ‘in need of a third judge’ and Tallapoosa is one. He says the other circuit was approved for a third judge this year.
Georgia’s Judicial Council, part of the state’s administrative office of the courts, recommends additional superior court judgeships based only upon a need that is demonstrated through careful inquiry and deliberate study according to a rigorous methodology and best practices developed by the national center for state courts.
According to judicial council data going back to 2019 – the Tallapoosa Judicial Circuit has been recognized as having two active judges who are and have been carrying the workload of three judges for at least the past six years.
“Having only two active judges processing the workload of three full-time judges stresses the entire court system,” Murphy stated. “Both judges’ criminal trial calendars must carry 33% more cases than normal in order to keep open cases moving and to minimize overcrowding our local jails. And because our judicial circuit’s public defenders and prosecutors are allocated based on the number of superior court judges, each attorney is called upon to process more cases than normal.”
Murphy says access to the courts for civil and domestic litigation is also much more challenging for the same reasons and that it is extremely hard for judges to keep finding available courtroom time for that extra 33% of the caseload each judge is carrying.
“If there has been a silver lining for the courts in the COVID pandemic, it has been the access to grants made available under the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA),” Murphy stated. “I applied for and received ARPA grant funding which has paid for the help of senior judges and temporary personnel for the District Attorney and the Superior Court clerks to move a backlog of cases that was created when Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Melton shut down the courts for 15 months in 2020.”
Murphy says the Tallapoosa Circuit Court used that grant money to pay senior judges to help process the case load, move the COVID backlog, and avoid some of the backlog that not having a third judge would otherwise create.
“But…” he said, “….because we won’t have the third judge position filled by the time the ARPA grant expires at the end of 2025, we can expect the civil, domestic, and criminal backlog to rise if case filings remain as they have for the past several years. Complicating our situation is that both of us Superior Court judges have pending death penalty cases. These are the most time and resource demanding cases that a Superior Court judge handles.”
Murphy stated that he is grateful to Rep. Tyler Paul Smith, Senator Jason Anavitarte and Senator Tim Bearden for the “demonstrated support” that they have given the Tallapoosa Judicial Circuit in the General Assembly for the ‘third judge legislation’ and he hopes that in 2026 the legislation will pass.
