This is such a sad sad day.
The Court reporter was beloved by everyone. A beautiful single woman, mother of a college girl.
Am just having a hard time with the sudden randomness of lives lost.
Long time ago, I spent a lot of time in a big city Courthouse and never once thought about personal safety.
Thinking back, I think I met Judge Barnes in connection with the High School Mock Trial competition one year.
The judicial community in Atlanta is going to have a hard time digesting this. We all have narrow escapes - years ago, when I was a young(er) law clerk, I had a "funny feeling" about a civil litigant that just seemed a little off to me. I recommended to my boss that the court issue a "per curiam" order . . . one not signed by an individual judge but just issued under the seal of the court. Which was done.
About a month later, I heard on the radio that a person of the same name had murdered her entire family. Called the sheriff's office in that jurisdiction, found it was indeed the same individual, and had a very panicky fifteen minutes while I located all our office staff and the court clerk and alerted them to the fact that this woman had killed four people and was still at large.
Nobody at the courthouse was very happy until she was located and arrested.