Superior Court judge candidates tout their experience

Only one Superior Court judge position is contested this election year in the six-county Chattahoochee Judicial Circuit that includes the counties of Muscogee, Harris, Chattahoochee, Talbot, Taylor and Marion.

Residents in each of those counties vote in the race, which pits incumbent Ron Mullins against longtime prosecutor Alonza Whitaker.

Here are the candidates:

Ron Mullins

Judge Ron Mullins, 65, grew up in Chipley, Ga., a Harris County town he notes no longer exists. He graduated from Harris County High School in 1969 and got his undergraduate degree in political science from the University of Georgia in 1973. He earned his law degree there in 1976.

He started in private practice in Augusta, Ga., and became a partner in a law firm there, but having married a Columbus native, he and his wife were eager to move home. They came to Columbus in 1980.

He first practiced civil law here with Kelly, Denney, Pease and Allison, and he later joined an office with attorneys Ron Self, Pete Robinson and Allan Kamensky.

He moved to Page, Scrantom, Sprouse, Tucker & Ford in 2003. He left as a partner there when Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal appointed him to the bench in 2013. He began serving the next year.

Besides his experience in civil law — Superior Court judges switch back and forth between court sessions, with some hearing civil cases while others handle criminal dockets — Mullins emphasizes judicial temperament, saying it’s crucial that people coming to court are treated with dignity and respect, and that they feel that their rights are recognized and protected.

The primary challenge nowadays is the caseload, he said: “In some instances we have heavy dockets, both civil and criminal, and my desire is to move cases as expeditiously as possible.”

Alonza Whitaker

Alonza Whitaker, 60, chief assistant district attorney for the Chattahoochee Judicial Circuit, has served 18 years as a prosecutor and also worked as a defense attorney and as an environmental and Columbus Recorder’s Court judge.

A Columbus native, he graduated from Jordan High School in 1974 and got his undergraduate degree from Alabama State University in Montgomery before gaining his law degree from Creighton University in Omaha, Neb., where he then worked seven years as a public defender.

He came home to Columbus in 1993 and worked as a prosecutor in the district attorney’s office from 1993 to 2004 before going into private practice. He later returned to the district attorney’s office to be the chief assistant, a position he has held for the past seven years.

He touts his range of experience as a prosecutor, defense attorney and judge of first-appearance hearings in Columbus Recorder’s Court, noting he has tried over 200 cases, and worked in each of the circuit’s six counties.

“I know the dynamics of each,” he said, adding the people and criminal justice agencies are unique in how they relate to each other, especially in the smaller counties where “most of the people know each other.”

If elected, his priorities will be improving scheduling and communication to eliminate “unproductive” court time during which witnesses are summoned to court for hearings that then are delayed.

That not only wastes people’s time, it subjects them to unnecessary hardship, he said. Some live from paycheck to paycheck: “They don’t get paid if they miss a day of work.”

This story was originally published April 22, 2016 at 4:31 PM with the headline "Superior Court judge candidates tout their experience."