David Nahmias
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David Nahmias was a judge of the Georgia Supreme Court. He assumed office on September 2, 2009. He left office on July 17, 2022.
Nahmias was elected by his peers to succeed Harold Melton as chief justice of the court. His term as chief began on July 1, 2021.[1] He resigned from the court on July 17, 2022.[2]
Nahmias was appointed to the state supreme court by Governor Sonny Perdue (R) on August 13, 2009, to replace Leah Ward Sears, who retired following the end of her term as chief justice.[3][4] To read more about judicial selection in Georgia, click here.
In 2020, Ballotpedia published Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship, a study examining the partisan affiliation of all state supreme court justices in the country. As part of this study, we assigned each justice a Confidence Score describing our confidence in the degree of partisanship exhibited by the justices' past partisan behavior, before they joined the court.[5] Nahmias received a confidence score of Mild Republican.[6] Click here to read more about this study.
Biography
David Nahmias was born in Atlanta, Georgia. He earned his undergraduate degree from Duke University in 1986 and his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1991. While at Harvard, he edited the Harvard Law Review.[7][8]
Nahmias' career experience includes working as a law clerk to Judge Laurence Silberman on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court of the United States. He practiced law with the firm Hogan & Hartson before joining the U.S. Attorney's Office in Atlanta in 1995. In 2001, he began working for the Department of Justice in the Criminal Division, where he became the deputy assistant attorney general a couple years later. He was appointed the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia on December 1, 2004, by George W. Bush, a position he held until joining the Georgia Supreme Court in 2009.[9][10]
Elections
2016
- See also: Georgia judicial elections, 2016
Nahmias ran unopposed and was re-elected on May 24.[11]
Election results
| Georgia Supreme Court, David Nahmias' Seat, 2016 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Vote % | Votes |
 David Nahmias Incumbent (unopposed) |
100.00% | 775,214 |
| Total Votes (159 of 159: 100%) | 775,214 | |
| Source: Georgia Secretary of State Official Results | ||
2010
- Main article: Georgia judicial elections, 2010
| Georgia Supreme Court, Associate Justice 2010 General election results | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Candidates | Votes | Percent | ||
| David Nahmias
|
176,627 | 67% | ||
| Tammy Lynn Adkins | 86,938 | 33% | ||
- Click here for 2010 General Election Results from the Georgia Secretary of State.
Because Nahmias was appointed to the court, he had to stand for election to retain his seat. Nahmias defeated Tammy Lynn Adkins in a runoff election on November 30, 2010.[12][13][14]
Analysis
Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship (2020)
Last updated: June 15, 2020
In 2020, Ballotpedia published Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship, a study examining the partisan affiliation of all state supreme court justices in the country as of June 15, 2020.
The study presented Confidence Scores that represented our confidence in each justice's degree of partisan affiliation. This was not a measure of where a justice fell on an ideological spectrum, but rather a measure of how much confidence we had that a justice was or had been affiliated with a political party. The scores were based on seven factors, including but not limited to party registration.[15]
The five resulting categories of Confidence Scores were:
- Strong Democrat
- Mild Democrat
- Indeterminate[16]
- Mild Republican
- Strong Republican
This justice's Confidence Score, as well as the factors contributing to that score, is presented below. The information below was current as of June 2020.
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David
Nahmias
Georgia
- Partisan Confidence Score:
Mild Republican - Judicial Selection Method:
Elected - Key Factors:
- Appointed by a Republican governor
- State was a Republican trifecta at time of appointment
Partisan Profile
Details:
Nahmias was appointed by Gov. Sonny Perdue (R) in 2009. At the time of his appointment, Georgia was a Republican trifecta.
Other Indicators:
In a 2012 study of campaign contributions, Nahmias received a campaign finance score of 0.38, indicating a conservative ideological leaning.
Other Scores:
In a 2012 study of campaign contributions, Nahmias received a campaign finance score of 0.38, indicating a conservative ideological leaning.
Bonica and Woodruff campaign finance scores (2012)
In October 2012, political science professors Adam Bonica and Michael Woodruff of Stanford University attempted to determine the partisan ideology of state supreme court justices. They created a scoring system in which a score above 0 indicated a more conservative-leaning ideology, while scores below 0 were more liberal.
Nahmias received a campaign finance score of 0.38, indicating a conservative ideological leaning. This was more conservative than the average score of 0.09 that justices received in Georgia.
The study was based on data from campaign contributions by the judges themselves, the partisan leaning of those who contributed to the judges' campaigns, or, in the absence of elections, the ideology of the appointing body (governor or legislature). This study was not a definitive label of a justice, but an academic summary of various relevant factors.[17]
State supreme court judicial selection in Georgia
- See also: Judicial selection in Georgia
The nine justices on the Georgia Supreme Court are chosen by popular vote in nonpartisan elections. They serve six-year terms, after which they must run for re-election if they wish to retain their seats.[18]
Qualifications
To serve on this court, a judge must be:
Chief justice
The chief justice is selected by peer vote and serves in that capacity for four years.[18]
Vacancies
If a vacancy appears on the court, the position is filled by assisted appointment. The governor chooses an appointee from a list of qualified candidates compiled by the judicial nominating commission. As of March 2023, the judicial nominating commission consisted of 35 members, each appointed by the governor. For each court vacancy, the commission recommends candidates, but the governor is not bound to the commission's choices and may choose to appoint a judge not found on the list.[19] If appointed, an interim judge must run in the next general election held at least six months after the appointment, and, if confirmed by voters, he or she may finish the rest of the predecessor's term.[18][20][21]
The map below highlights how vacancies are filled in state supreme courts across the country.
See also
External links
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Footnotes
- ↑ The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "Nahmias to become Georgia’s next chief justice," March 11, 2021
- ↑ Supreme Court of Georgia, "Chief Justice Nahmias to Leave Supreme Court," February 11, 2022
- ↑ Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Kyle Wingfield, "State high court shifts to the right," September 2, 2009
- ↑ New Georgia Encyclopedia, "Leah Ward Sears (b. 1955)," accessed July 6, 2021
- ↑ We calculated confidence scores by collecting several data points such as party registration, donations, and previous political campaigns.
- ↑ The five possible confidence scores were: Strong Democrat, Mild Democrat, Indeterminate, Mild Republican, and Strong Republican.
- ↑ Supreme Court of Georgia, "Justice David E. Nahmias, accessed July 18, 2021
- ↑ Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "New Georgia Supreme Court justice earns praise," February 15, 2016
- ↑ The United States Attorney's Office Northern District of Georgia, "DAVID E. NAHMIAS," accessed July 18, 2021
- ↑ Athens Banner Herald "Nahmias appointed to Georgia Supreme Court" August 13, 2009
- ↑ Georgia Secretary of State, "Qualifying candidate information," accessed March 14, 2016
- ↑ Savannah Morning News, "Nahmias forced into runoff for Georgia Supreme Court," November 3, 2010
- ↑ Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "Nahmias to be sworn in to Supreme Court today," September 3, 2009
- ↑ WALB, "Georgia Justice campaigns in Albany," February 2, 2010
- ↑ The seven factors were party registration, donations made to partisan candidates, donations made to political parties, donations received from political parties or bodies with clear political affiliation, participation in political campaigns, the partisanship of the body responsible for appointing the justice, and state trifecta status when the justice joined the court.
- ↑ An Indeterminate score indicates that there is either not enough information about the justice’s partisan affiliations or that our research found conflicting partisan affiliations.
- ↑ Stanford University, "State Supreme Court Ideology and 'New Style' Judicial Campaigns," October 31, 2012
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 18.3 American Judicature Society, "Methods of Judicial Selection: Georgia," archived October 2, 2014
- ↑ American Judicature Society, "Methods of Judicial Selection: Georgia; Judicial Nominating Commissions," archived October 2, 2014
- ↑ Governor Brian Kemp, "Executive Order," accessed March 29, 2023
- ↑ Governor Brian Kemp, "Gov. Kemp Names 35 to Judicial Nominating Commission," October 27, 2021
Federal courts:
Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals • U.S. District Court: Middle District of Georgia, Northern District of Georgia, Southern District of Georgia • U.S. Bankruptcy Court: Middle District of Georgia, Northern District of Georgia, Southern District of Georgia
State courts:
Georgia Supreme Court • Georgia Court of Appeals • Georgia Superior Courts • Georgia State Courts • Georgia Business Court • Georgia Juvenile Courts • Georgia Probate Courts • Georgia Magistrate Courts • Georgia Municipal Courts
State resources:
Courts in Georgia • Georgia judicial elections • Judicial selection in Georgia
