Recent appeals court rulings suggest a Georgia judge, J. David Roper, is something of a loose cannon — one who was even willing to defy the authority of a higher court in a high-profile child neglect case.

Judge David Roper

Christine Long and her ex-husband, Jeremy Long, lived with their 11 children in a remote Hephzibah, Ga., shack without electricity or running water. Ten of the children were minors and none of them had ever been to school or seen a dentist or doctor.

After the Longs were charged with cruelty to children, one expert testified that of the estimated one hundred child neglect cases she had reviewed, the Long family was one of the three worst she had ever seen.

Roper, a Superior Court judge who sits in Augusta, was assigned the Longs' divorce case. In an extraordinary order, he declared “void” a March 2010 ruling in which the Georgia Court of Appeals said he overstepped his authority by blocking the return of the four oldest Long children to their mother.

Reversing Roper for a second time in a recent decision, the appeals court reminded him that "[A]ny ruling by the Supreme Court or the Court of Appeals in a case shall be binding in all subsequent proceedings in that case in the lower court” and “A 'trial court ... cannot decide to disregard the opinions of this court.'”

One Georgia lawyer said he had never heard of a judge simply setting aside an appeals court order.

Roper has previously displayed a propensity for judicial activism. In other recent cases, the Court of Appeals reversed him for ruling that a foster parent could not adopt a child because her out-of-wedlock relationship with a man was “immoral” and the Georgia Supreme Court reversed him for ordering a divorcing couple to pay their taxes.

“[A]s a general matter, our State courts are not authorized to impose income tax liability,” the court noted in Symms v. Symms, 707 S.E.2d 368 (2011).

Police discovered the Long family living in squalor on July 31, 2008 while looking for suspects in the theft of a chainsaw. The minor children, ranging in age from 1 to 17, were removed from their parents' custody and placed in foster homes.

With the child cruelty charges against the Longs still pending, social workers recommended that the four oldest children be returned to their mother. At the request of prosecutors, Roper intervened, enjoining the Burke County Department of Family and Children Services from “placing any of the [Longs'] children to live with [Christine Long] or visit with her unsupervised.”

The order prevented a juvenile court judge from considering the social workers' recommendation at a hearing scheduled for later the same day.

Roper's intervention appears to have been motivated by concern over the children's welfare. And he received plaudits from the community, with the Augusta Chronicle newspaper praising him for “having the courage to get involved and for refusing to close the hearing to the public.”

But in March 2010, the appeals court said Roper was wrong to interfere, finding he had no “good reason” to conclude that he was “in a better position to address the Department's placement decisions than the juvenile court.”

Under normal procedure, Roper was then supposed to enter a judgment confirming the findings of the appeal court. On Aug. 3, 2010, however, he declined to “make the decision of the Court of Appeals the judgment of this court.”

An order in a divorce case in which child custody is an issue cannot be directly appealed, Roper said, citing Todd v. Todd, a case decided by the Georgia Supreme Court on the same day as the appeals court's decision.

“This court is reluctant to declare a decision of the Court of Appeals void; however, based upon the decision in Todd, this court is compelled to do so,” Roper concluded.

By that time, the juvenile court had terminated the parental rights of both Longs, allowing authorities to put their children up for adoption. But the appeals court could not let Roper's defiance go unchecked.

“The trial court disregarded [its] duty and committed grave error by refusing to give full effect to the binding decision of this court,” the court said.

By Matthew Heller
7/12/11