Past high-profile trials suggest stress and potential pitfalls for Georgia judge handling Trump case

ATLANTA – Judge Peter Cahill infrequently slept all through the six weeks he presided over the murder trial of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for killing George Floyd.

Cameras in the courtroom broadcast the veteran Minnesota judge’s each and every phrase to a world target market. Outside, the country waited nervously for the end result of a slaying that galvanized the motion for racial justice.

“When you’re in a high-profile trial, you feel the stress, you feel the pressure even if you’re not reading the papers,” he told an audience of judges remaining 12 months at The National Judicial College in Reno, Nevada.

Cahill’s enjoy supplies a glimpse of the extra scrutiny and pressure that look forward to the 4 judges overseeing the prison circumstances in opposition to former President Donald Trump.

But the problem going through Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee in Georgia is not like any of the others. For one, he’s the one judge to this point to permit tv cameras within the court to broadcast hearings and any trials. He is presiding over a sprawling indictment with 19 defendants, amongst them different outstanding figures together with former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Trump White House leader of personnel Mark Meadows. And the trials will play out in a battleground state that Trump narrowly misplaced in 2020.

Attorneys who’ve labored along McAfee, who took the bench simply this 12 months, say his demeanor and years of labor as a prosecutor have ready him for heightened drive. The judge’s various pursuits — he’s an achieved cellist and used to be a scuba diver on the Georgia Aquarium — must additionally supply aid from the stress of a protracted felony case.

But the enjoy of a few judges who’ve been thrust into the general public eye level to potential pitfalls and risks forward for the 34-year-old Georgia local. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon in Florida, who used to be nominated through Trump, has already faced sharp criticism for an early determination that appreciated the previous president in his struggle in opposition to fees he illegally hoarded labeled paperwork.

High-profile circumstances result in a “greater intrusion on your life,” stated U.S. Senior Judge Reggie Walton, who presided over the 2007 trial of I. Lewis ”Scooter” Libby, a former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, and the 2012 trial of pitcher Roger Clemens.

“Sometimes there’ll be articles that may be written that may be off base,” he said in a phone interview with The Associated Press. “They can create a little heartburn sometimes.”

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lance Ito was accused of self-promotion for giving an interview during the O.J. Simpson trial in 1994. Critics also said he appeared too sensitive to criticism in the press and failed to control the proceedings, allowing the case to drag on for months and turn into a spectacle. “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” mocked the trial with a skit featuring dancers in beards and black robes: the Dancing Itos.

In Florida, a judicial commission found Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer violated several rules governing judicial conduct during the penalty trial last year of Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz. Among them, she “unduly” chastised the lead public defender and improperly embraced members of the prosecution in the courtroom after sentencing Cruz to life without parole, the commission said. Scherer, who has since retired, told the commission she also offered to hug the defense team.

Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis, who presided over Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit against Fox News, stated he discovered even amusing may also be misconstrued.

“Sarcasm doesn’t come across well. I learned that,” he said at an American Bar Association meeting in August.

The cases may also prompt safety concerns. Already some of the judges overseeing Trump’s criminal cases have received threats. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over the federal election subversion case in Washington, has increased security after a woman was arrested for threatening to kill her.

McAfee didn’t reply to interview requests from The Associated Press. But in an indication that he understands the potential hazards forward, he informed The New Yorker he has no aspiration to turn into the following Ito or Judge Judy.

“The idea with my job, in general, is to keep your head down,” he told the magazine. “Stay even-keeled and manage expectations.”

Attorneys who know McAfee say he is in a position for the problem.

Although he is presided over few trials, McAfee’s earlier court enjoy presentations he has nice self belief and poise, stated Han Chung, an lawyer who labored along McAfee on the Fulton County district lawyer’s place of work.

As a senior assistant district lawyer, McAfee prosecuted loads of prison circumstances, together with homicide and armed theft. He used to be unflappable beneath difficult wondering from a judge or the gaze of a jury, Chung stated.

Chung, who’s now a prosecutor in within reach Gwinnett County, recalled coming runner-up to McAfee in 2016 for the most productive trial attorney of their unit.

“In order to do our job, you can’t be afraid of the courtroom,” he stated. “He was somebody who was especially not afraid.”

In a listening to previous this month for two of Trump’s co-defendants, McAfee used to be well mannered, presaged a key potential stumbling block within the prosecution and ruled directly from the bench that the 2 could be attempted in combination. When a prosecutor requested for two weeks to post a short lived, the judge gave him six days.

At a 2nd listening to days later, a protection lawyer accused a prosecutor of defaming the lawyer’s colleague. McAfee stated the prosecutor’s remark wasn’t a subject for the courtroom, however the lawyer talked over him and pressed on. McAfee let him proceed in brief earlier than chopping him off.

“I said it’s over,” he informed the lawyer, who endured to protest as he left the lectern.

McAfee later listened patiently to the similar lawyer’s advice for the right way to time table the trial.

Retired Massachusetts Superior Court Judge E. Susan Garsh, who presided over the 2015 homicide trial of New England Patriots celebrity Aaron Hernandez, informed the AP that “you want to be this very firm presence but not become part of the story.”

Garsh recalled getting a weekly therapeutic massage and taking note of audio books all through her go back and forth to assist ease the stress of the trial.

She additionally stated she attempted to await as many problems as conceivable. That integrated ensuring other people didn’t put on Patriots jerseys within the court, she stated.

For McAfee, it is going to imply accounting for his prior paintings on the Fulton County district lawyer’s place of work. His manager for a part of his tenure there used to be Fani Willis, who introduced the indictment in opposition to Trump and the 18 different defendants.

Trump has attacked Willis, a Democrat, as a “rabid partisan,” and his attorneys may make McAfee’s work under her an issue. His legal team has already filed motions asking two of the judges overseeing indictments against him — Chutkan, who was nominated by President Barack Obama, and New York Judge Juan Manuel Merchan, who also oversaw the Trump Organization’s tax fraud trial — to recuse themselves, citing bias. Merchan rejected the request. Chutkan has yet to rule.

But McAfee, who got his law degree in 2013 from the University of Georgia, also has conservative credentials.

He worked for the administration of Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, and in law school was a member of the Federalist Society, a group closely aligned with Republican priorities.

Kemp in 2021 appointed McAfee to lead Georgia’s Office of Inspector General, which is tasked with exposing fraud and waste in state government. Before then, McAfee worked for the U.S. attorney’s office, where he prosecuted drug trafficking groups.

In a press release announcing his appointment to the bench last year, Kemp’s office noted McAfee, who is married with two children, was captain of a tennis team, received a scholarship to play the cello as an undergraduate at Emory University and volunteered as a scuba diver at the Georgia Aquarium.

Those activities may prove helpful for McAfee while he presides over the Georgia case.

“Hopefully, you have a life outside the law,” Cahill stated all through his communicate in Reno about handling high-profile circumstances. “Something where you can get away from the law itself and enjoy yourself.”