Georgia judge is stepping down following publication of Facebook messages he exchanged with a woman who was a defendant in a matter pending before his court

"Earlier today, I recapped some of the fabulous Facebook follies of 2009, examples of how Facebook can be risky for lawyers, judges, law students and just about anyone else. Now comes our first folly of the new year.

A Georgia judge is stepping down following publication of Facebook messages he exchanged with a woman who was a defendant in a matter pending before his court. The judge, Ernest H. Woods III, chief of the Mountain Judicial Circuit Superior Court, resigned effective Jan. 15 after 17 years on the bench. "I call it a retirement," he told the Fulton County Daily Report. "I just got tired of living under a microscope. I'm wanting to move forward."

The Daily Report obtained the messages from documents provided in response to a public-records request by another newspaper, the Clayton Tribune. The district attorney had compiled the documents in connection with an inquiry into complaints that the judge was unfairly holding a drug-court defendant in jail. The defendant's family presented printed copies of 33 pages of messages between the judge and 35-year-old Tara Elizabeth Black, who had been involved with the drug-court defendant and who was herself a defendant in a theft case." 


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