A judge I once knew long ago told me that he preferred judge alone trials more than jury trials because it was then that he could put his experience, knowledge and skill to work in judging the credibility of witnesses. He said the task included not only listening carefully to what the witness said but an intense examination of the entire demeanor of the witness in the witness chair. He may have been bragging some, but he claimed based on having observed hundreds of witnesses in his time, to be able to spot deception and a liar almost immediately. He said it matured on him like a sixth sense. I can’t help but think that the Atlanta judge is as capable of spotting the BS being peddled in the Willis/Wade Fulton County hearing.
After I first posted the work histories of the judge and Fani Willis side-by-side last week, some people asked why McAfee was appointed by Kempt to be Inspector General after Kemp appointed him to be assistant United States Attorney for the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia just two years earlier.
I've been thinking about that and I'm concluding that organizations identify "high potential" people and rotate them through different parts of the organization early in their career so they can get a diverse work experience in different parts of the business operations.
It's possible that McAffee is one such person (I suggested he was being fast-tracked based on his career progression relative to Willis') and that time in the Inspector General position would also help McAfee hone his BS detector as state whistleblowers file claims against other state agencies.
After a year in the IG position, Kemp appointed McAfee to fill a vacancy on the Fulton County Superior Court where he is now. Yes, McAfee has to run for a full term on the court, but I suspect that if McAfee fails to win reelection, Kemp will find some other position for McAfee in state government.
-PJ
” I can’t help but think that the Atlanta judge is as capable of spotting the BS being peddled”
Plus, hasn’t the Judge seen ALL of the texts that (allegedly) were privileged? He knows the score.
I had a similar experience long ago working with a fresh out of law school attorney who later went on to a short stint as the US Atorney General. We had watched a DOD lawyer who was clearly lying in the court room. I asked my friend on the walk back to his office: “how could he get by with lying to the judge”. My friend’s nonchalant reply was “He wasn’t under oath”. He went on to explain, rather cynically: That’s a double-edged sword. A judge experiences many liars. The defendant almost always lies, and many lawyers do, too. The witnesses are the most likely to be telling the truth, but some of them lie, too.
Because of this, judges get to be very good at picking out liars, and a lawyer loses all of his credibility if he is one.