ROSWELL, Ga. – Roswell Municipal Court Judge Maurice Hilliard is calling it quits after 32 years on the bench dispensing his unique brand of justice. He has been called by both detractors and friends as acerbic and irascible outside the courtroom.
Sitting on the bench, he was fair and dispassionate, and attorneys said they knew the case would be tried on the law. But Hilliard said the time had come to step down.
“It was just time to go,” he said.
After practicing law for 19 years, Hilliard served one year as Roswell’s solicitor and then ran for Municipal Court judge in 1980. He won that handily and never looked back.
“At the time, I had been the first full-time lawyer in Roswell. I guess I knew a lot of people. I beat the incumbent, and he didn’t come back to finish out his term,” Hilliard recalled.
Hilliard has a little more than two years left on his current term, but there should be time to get the seat on this year’s ballot in November.
“It was not a sudden decision. It was something that had been building for quite a while. I guess I just burned out, and was at a point where I was under a lot of stress,” he said. “For 30 years, it was a wonderful place to work, and I was blessed to have three of the best prosecuting attorneys you could ever wish for.”
via NorthFulton.com | Judge Hilliard steps down from Roswell Municipal Court.
Comments ( 0 )