Nathan Deal Judicial Center in Atlanta
ATLANTA – Georgia Democrats lost their effort to boost the party’s presence on the state’s supreme court this week, with voters instead deciding to keep two conservative justices.
Despite endorsements from former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Kamala Harris, Jen Jordan and Miracle Rankin were defeated Tuesday by justices Sarah Hawkins Warren and Charlie Bethel.
Though the election was nonpartisan, the lines were clear. Justice Bethel is a former Republican state lawmaker, and both he and Warren were appointed to the Supreme Court by Republican former Gov. Nathan Deal.
Rankin, meanwhile, is a personal injury lawyer at Morgan & Morgan – one of the nation’s prominent personal-injury firms. Jordan was a state senator and the Democratic nominee for state attorney general in 2022.
Rankin narrowly lost to Bethel, and no incumbent justice has been voted out of office in Georgia since 1922. The court will continue to hold an 8-1 conservative majority.
“Georgians want a predictable legal system that doesn’t pander to plaintiffs attorneys and punish police for doing their job,” said Peter Bisbee, president of First Principles PAC, which spent $610,000 advertising for the sitting justices. “That’s why we supported Charlie Bethel and Sarah Warren in this race.”
The state’s civil justice system has been seen as problematic for defendants, leading Gov. Brian Kemp and lawmakers to pass a reform bill last year. Among the issues companies complained of was a rule that kept car-wreck defendants from telling jurors whether the plaintiff was wearing their seatbelt.
The law changed rules for so-called “phantom damages” – inflated medical bills introduced in evidence – and forbids plaintiffs lawyers from tossing out the idea of a large verdict during closing arguments.
But the conservative-led Supreme Court hasn’t always sided with the business community on key issues, though it did reverse a $1.7 billion verdict against Ford in 2024. In an October ruling, the court gave a woman more time to sue than the 10-year statute of repose because, it decided, every time she used the product at issue, her window to file suit opened again.
It also raised eyebrows in 2023 with a decision on “foreseeability” for property owners. A man had been shot in a CVS parking lot, and the court affirmed a $45 million verdict that assigned 95% of the liability to CVS and none to the shooter.
CVS allegedly failed to hire security guards despite employees complaining of three violent crimes in the two years before the shooting.
