By Joe Johnson
Steve C.Jones, a native of Athens and federal judge who has presided over some of the most high-profile Georgia cases in recent years will be taking on a senior status.
Upon becoming eligible to take senior status, the 67-year-old judge said that he plans to retain all of his pending cases while accepting a limited number of new cases in his new capacity that will take effect in January.
“It has always been my goal and judicial practice to make sure everyone has their day in court, is treated fairly, is given respect and receives an explanation for my decisions,” Jones told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in March. “The most satisfying part of my job has been receiving a case and moving it toward completion so that the parties receive an answer to the legal questions presented.”
A Cedar Shoals High School graduate, Jones earned his law degree at the University of Georgia in 1987, then became an assistant district attorney for the Western Judicial Circuit that includes Athens-Clarke and Oconee counties.
He served as a municipal court judge in Athens-Clarke County from 1993 to 1995, when Georgia Gov. Zel Miller appointed him to be a Superior Court judge for the Western Circuit.
Jones was appointed to the federal bench by President Barack Obama and he was unanimously approved by the Senate in February 2011.
Jones has since handled some of the hottest cases to come through the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, including challenges to Georgia’s abortion law, voting rules and political maps.
“The most satisfying part of my job has been receiving a case and moving it toward completion so that the parties receive an answer to the legal questions presented,” Jones had said in a previous interview with Classic City News.
“The most challenging part of my job has been ensuring that cases proceed in a manner that does not delay justice but also affords due process and sufficient preparation time — in essence,” he said, “balancing the need to move cases toward completion in a timely manner with the needs of parties who may request extensions of time to prepare their case.”
Jones ruled in 2020 that Georgia’s six-week abortion ban was unconstitutional at a time when Roe v. Wade was still the law of the land.
He also ordered Republican lawmakers to redraw Georgia’s political maps after ruling that district lines created in 2021 illegally diluted the voting strength of Black voters.
The judge has also played a role in the ongoing fallout from the 2020 election, rejecting a request by former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows request to have his case moved from state to federal court. Jones concluded that Meadows was working on behalf of the Trump campaign when he participated in the infamous Jan. 2, 2021, phone call in which Trump asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to tilt the election in the outgoing president’s favor.
Jones’s ascension to the senior judgeship will take place in January.
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