A Douglas County Probate Court judge was removed from the bench on Tuesday by the Georgia Supreme Court.
The court immediately removed Christina Peterson from her office and banned her from holding any elected or appointed judicial position in Georgia for the next seven years. Eight of the nine Georgia justices signed onto the opinion; Justice Verda Colvin recused herself from the case.
The court’s ruling is unrelated to Peterson’s arrest at a Buckhead nightclub that made headlines last weekend.
The ethics case began with the director of Georgia’s Judicial Qualifications Commission, Courtney Veal, filing 50 formal charges against Peterson throughout 2021 and 2022 for violating the state’s code of judicial conduct.
Those charges stemmed from four separate situations: her handling of a 2021 criminal contempt hearing, her conduct toward county employees, allowing her clerk to have a prohibited “ex parte” meeting, and Peterson’s behavior at her neighborhood’s homeowners association meeting.
In what the court called the “most troubling allegation,” Peterson held a woman in criminal contempt in August 2021 after the woman filed a petition to amend her marriage license to correct her father’s name, which was incorrectly listed. Peterson decided that the woman was attempting to defraud the court and sentenced her to the maximum sentence of 20 days in jail.
A hearing panel convened by the Judicial Qualifications Commission determined that Peterson, “without explanation or justification, imposed the maximum term of incarceration plus a fine.” Ultimately, the woman served two days in jail and paid a $500 fine to erase the contempt order from her record.
By the final hearing, which began in September 2023 and ended in February 2024, Peterson faced 30 charges of misconduct. On March 31, the hearing panel issued a report stating that the JCQ had proven 28 of those with “clear and convincing evidence” and recommended that she be removed from office.
The Georgia Supreme Court decided ultimately that only 12 counts warranted disciplinary action.
Peterson was arrested in a Buckhead nightclub after allegedly pushing an Atlanta police officer. In that case, she faces charges of felony obstruction of law enforcement and a misdemeanor for simple battery against a police officer.
Peterson said in an Instagram post that her arrest resulted from her trying to help a woman who had been assaulted.
“[The] officer initially claimed he was charging me with disorderly conduct, all for trying to help a woman who was being attacked by men then took me to jail. [The] officer slammed me to the ground for helping this woman but let the attacker get away …” Peterson wrote on Instagram, where she also posted a video of the woman who was attacked.
She’s being represented by attorney and Fulton County Commissioner Marvin Arrington Jr. in that case.
At a press conference on Friday, the woman who was attacked, Alexandria Love, said that Peterson was the only person who helped her when the man pushed her to the ground and punched her in the face.
“She didn’t mean to hit the officer. The officer swooped in and grabbed me up. He didn’t even care to see the big man that was actually brutally hitting me in my face,” she told reporters.
According to Arrington, police officers at the scene did not take any witness statements and the man who allegedly assaulted Love was not arrested or detained.
“Judge Peterson was simply trying to help the young lady that was viciously attacked. She was unaware that any police had arrived on the scene. She would never intentionally strike an officer,” Arrington said in a statement.
