State Judicial Committee Rejected Oconee/Clarke Circuit Split

The Judicial Workload Assessment Committee of the Judicial Council of Georgia voted on Friday to recommend to the full Council that Oconee County not be allowed to split from Clarke County in the Western Judicial Circuit.

The Workload Assessment Committee was responding to a Feb. 12 request from Marcus Wiedower and Houston Gaines, who represent both Oconee County and Clarke County in the Georgia House of Representatives.

The pair were requesting that the Judicial Council do what is known as a “circuit boundary study” to determine if the current configuration of the Circuit could be changed.

Staff of the Judicial Council told the Workload Assessment Committee that Oconee County has too low of a caseload to be placed alone in a judicial circuit.

As a consequence, it considered five alternatives, in which the two counties were merged into other judicial circuits.

The only “viable scenario,” according to the report, was a merger of the Western Circuit and the Alcovy Circuit. The Alcovy Judicial Circuit is made up of Newton and Walton counties.

The Workload Assessment Committee did not recommend that merger.

The full Judicial Council will hear the recommendation of the Judicial Workload Committee at its Aug. 13 meeting in Columbus.

For more on this story, please click through to Oconee County Observations.