Judge Stephen Yekel, 74, was found dead on Tuesday in his own courtroom

Summary

Judge Stephen Yekel, 74, died by suicide in his courtroom on his last day in office after losing a re-election bid.

He was found Tuesday morning at Effingham County State Courthouse, with investigators believing the incident occurred late Monday or early Tuesday.

Yekel, appointed in 2022, had recently attempted to resign but was denied by Governor Brian Kemp.

He was also facing a wrongful termination lawsuit from a former court employee.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
    1426·
    4 days ago

    Yekel was appointed to the state court in 2022. He recently attempted to resign from his position, but was denied by Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, according to WJCL.

    I don’t understand how that is legal. You can force someone to keep a job whether they want to or not?

    • doggle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      662·
      4 days ago

      Well, GA is employment at will so, unless there’s some special law for judges I don’t know about, I’m guessing the ‘rejection’ is more symbolic than anything. My best guess is that he was about to be fired anyway and Kemp didn’t want him to get away with acting like it was on his own terms. It would be good to hear a lawyer’s take on it, though.

      • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
        324·
        3 days ago

        Well, GA is employment at will so, unless there’s some special law for judges I don’t know about, I’m guessing the ‘rejection’ is more symbolic than anything.

        “At-will employment” just means they’re kneecapping the unions. It doesn’t mean an individual’s job can’t be governed by an actual negotiated contract with terms different from “either party may end the agreement at any time for any reason without prior notice;” that’s merely the default when no such contract exists. Actors, for example, often have actual employment contracts so they can’t just abandon their portrayal of a recurring character without consequences.

        I don’t know if there are special employment terms for elected judges (or elected officials in general) in GA either, but I don’t know that it would necessarily require a “law” (as opposed to administrative rule or even just convention) and I’m guessing I think it’s more likely than you do.

        • MirthfulAlembic@lemmy.worldEnglish
          152·
          3 days ago

          At-will has little to do with curbing union power. You are thinking of right to work laws.

          At-will is, as you mentioned, the default that absent a contract either party can unilaterally terminate the employment relationship except for a reason explicitly prohibited by law, like due to being part of a protected class.

          Right to work laws harm unions because they allow individuals in a workplace under union contract to opt out of paying union dues while still benefitting from the agreement, draining the union of resources so it cannot be effective in the future.

          • technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            12·
            3 days ago

            At-will has little to do with curbing union power. You are thinking of right to work laws.

            At-will is, as you mentioned, the default that absent a contract either party can unilaterally terminate the employment relationship

            If you don’t think this curbs union power, then I can’t even think of something to say here.

      • Bronzebeard@lemm.eeEnglish
        10·
        4 days ago

        Probably wanted him to win reelection so he could place a temp replacement, instead of losing the seat. I have no idea if that’s a thing for judge seats in Georgia…

    • thefartographer@lemm.ee
      728·
      4 days ago

      Isn’t judge an elected position? As a voter, I’d be pretty pissed if I voted for someone and there were no mechanisms in place to prevent them from going, “whoops, nevermind! Turns out this was not for me!” Like, I’m cool with them saying that and helping create a plan to step down, but we can’t just have elected officials abandoning posts, no matter how qualified or corrupt they are.

        • thefartographer@lemm.ee
          59·
          4 days ago

          I’m not saying that people shouldn’t be allowed to resign. I’m saying that a resignation can’t be as simple as “I quit.” Which Nixon’s wasn’t. He had to submit his resignation to the secretary of state for them to accept; possibly the only good thing Henry Kissinger ever did in his accursed life

      • takeda@lemm.eeEnglish
        61·
        3 days ago

        As I understand, this judge was appointed by Kemp, then tried to resign (probably due to scandal), Kemp didn’t allowed it, then he lost reelection and offed himself.

        Doesn’t look like anyone else voted for him except Kemp.

  • chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world
    95·
    4 days ago

    He attempted to resign, but was denied. Then he lost reelection. So, this isn’t a “I don’t have anything to live for” situation. It’s a “I don’t want to live with what I’ve done” type thing.

      • chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world
        8·
        3 days ago

        It was that he attempted to resign, was told no by the Governor, then lost his re-election, and killed himself. Basically, he got what he wanted in the first place by not being reelected, but he killed himself anyway. He was the defendant in a wrongful termination suit that may have something to do with his suicide, depending on what comes to light from that. If a guilty verdict was something that could potentially affect his pension, he might have pulled a Bud Dweyer and killed himself so his family could still collect before it was taken away from him. There could also be other things that were simmering away in the background that haven’t come to light at all. It’s just a very strange state of affairs to get what you want, and then kill yourself the day you get it. If it had been several months from now, I could see otherwise, but he killed himself on the last day in the office. If it isn’t a statement, then I don’t know what is.

        • fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de
          2·
          3 days ago

          That doesn’t answer my question though.

          Yes it’s very suspicious and likely something shady will be discovered soon.

          What is it about the resignation that makes it more suspicious though?

  • danekrae@lemmy.world
    8710·
    3 days ago

    re-election bid

    En elected judge? That sounds like the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of. Could someone explain to a European how that works? Do they at least have to qualify for election in some ways?

    • NateNate60@lemmy.world
      994·
      3 days ago

      Lot of derision but not much explanation as to how this strange system came to be.

      Many state constitutions in the US were written in the 18th and 19th centuries. The key differences relevant here to this discussion were that during these times, suffrage was far more restricted, and communities were far more sparsely populated and isolated.

      Prior to the 20th century, suffrage was not universal and generally was restricted to wealthy white men of status, who, as a consequence of their socioeconomic standing, also tended to be more educated and thus better suited to rationally judge the qualifications of office-seekers. A consequence of universal suffrage is that the education level of the average voter goes down.

      Most Europeans severely underestimate how few people lived in these states and across how much land they occupied. The US typically granted statehood to its territories when they reached the mid to high five digits in population. The majority of Western states are the same size as the largest European countries. Let me use California as an illustrative example. Its statehood was granted in 1850 and it had a population of 92,597. So just imagine essentially a group of people fewer in number than a single small European city trying to run a piece of territory the size of Germany (California is actually bigger than Germany by 69,000 km²).

      What happens in such a scenario is that communities become very isolated and insular. They get used to running their own affairs since basically any model of centralised government is going to fail when your population density is 0.2 people per km².

      Understand that aside from tightly-knit indigenous communities (who were branded as “savages” and categorically excluded from participation in so-called “civilised” society) this was literally unsettled land. Empty plains, dry desert, and wild forest for hundreds of kilometres around where there was no law but those of physics.

      In these isolated communities, you still need to fill the required leadership roles, but you run into the issue where nobody is particularly qualified to these offices and further still, the townsfolk don’t really want to just elect a single person to fill all the other offices by appointments. Rather the best way to fill these offices is by election where the community can get together and decide collectively who is best qualified for office. So how it would go is that everyone entitled to suffrage would, every other year, ride their horses into the county seat, which could take hours, and then listen to the candidates’ campaign pitches, vote for whomever they thought was the most qualified for sheriff and county judge, and then go home and never hear from those people again for months on end.

      As a result, when these territories were granted statehood, most delegates to the conventions that wrote the state constitutions saw no reason to deviate from these established methods for picking local office-holders.

      Edit: I realise this also doesn’t explain why these constitutions haven’t been amended to allow for appointed judges in the modern US. The reason is because politics in the US is extremely cutthroat and anyone who proposes such an amendment is taking a rather unnecessary risk with their political career because their political opponents can then attack them for taking away power from the voters in favour of “unelected bureaucrats”.

      • Apytele@sh.itjust.works
        9·
        3 days ago

        What I like most about this explanation is that there is very little excusing OR blame featured. You mention the sociocultural prejudices (briefly as their relevance to this specific topic is limited) and you use overall very objective language throughout to describe the sociolocultural context of rural communities. 10/10.

      • Skates@feddit.nl
        11·
        3 days ago

        Hey, thanks for taking the time to write that out, it’s a cool bit of context to better understand why you guys have votes for some jobs.

            • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
              31·
              3 days ago

              I don’t see why not, though they’d probably want a concession like splitting E. WA and E. Oregon into a new state. Regardless, political power tends to change every 2-4 years, a party retaining control over all three houses for more than that is incredibly rare.

              • NateNate60@lemmy.world
                8·
                3 days ago

                I point my finger at Joe Manchin and Kristen Synema for sinking the DC Admission Act back in 2021. We were this close to a 51st state! The bill had already passed the House of Representatives and had the support of every other Democrat. Biden said he’d sign it.

      • technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        38·
        3 days ago

        That’s a long way of saying that racist white bros concocted a system of violent control in order to entrench their extreme privilege.

    • Maeve@kbin.earth
      571·
      3 days ago

      No. Bible belt USA coroners and medical examiners don’t even have to have medical degrees, and judges don’t need a juris doctor degree.

    • vortic@lemmy.world
      22·
      3 days ago

      People are giving you somewhat bad information. This may differ in other states, but they do need to have practiced law in Georgia for seven years prior to being allowed to run for election.

      Its a dumb system but not completely unregulated.

      Other states have various methods of selecting judges. In Colorado, the governor appoints them for their first term, then they are subjected to a retention vote every few years. They rarely lose their retention votes.

    • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
      101·
      3 days ago

      Not that dumb, they’re people deciding the lives of others so picking them democratically makes sense.

    • takeda@lemm.eeEnglish
      122·
      3 days ago

      It is dumb. It is to to states how they do it, but most of the times the state judges are selected via election. Which is tough as a voter it is very hard to learn about a judge especially if the judges supposed to be non partisan (believe in our not, but in some states they declare the part they are in).

      IMO the governor should select judges and perhaps give option during election to allow people to recall them if they are grossly biased or something (at that point judge would be well known).

            • Hobbes_Dent@lemmy.world
              145·
              3 days ago

              Then accept that it’s as dickish as these comments.

              This thread is fucked up. I hope nobody here has to think back to it one day and wonder if their loved one deserved to be made fun of even if they did wrong in life.

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
              2044·
              3 days ago

              Well I’m sorry that you and others lack the small amount of empathy it takes to have the tact to not make fun of someone who literally just killed themselves.

              But silly me, suicide his hilarious, do continue. I’m sure whatever he did was totally deserving of death and his wife and four kids will see the funny side. And if they don’t, fuck their feelings.

              Editing this into all of my posts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines

                • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
                  1524·
                  3 days ago

                  Yes, being on the internet totally excuses a lack of empathy and a tacit approval of suicide during a time of year where depression is at a height. Because there’s nothing someone on the edge needs more right now than to see a bunch of people mocking someone who just died, confirming to them how worthless human life is and how no one will miss them either. Ask me how I know this, go ahead.

                  Editing this into all of my posts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines

                • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
                  1120·
                  3 days ago

                  I’ll just quote what I said to the other person:

                  Yes, being on the internet totally excuses a lack of empathy and a tacit approval of suicide during a time of year where depression is at a height. Because there’s nothing someone on the edge needs more right now than to see a bunch of people mocking someone who just died, confirming to them how worthless human life is and how no one will miss them either. Ask me how I know this, go ahead.

                  Editing this into all of my posts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
              13·
              3 days ago

              As I asked someone else, would you be happy if a judge was raped?

              And I said that because I was accused of trying to censor people by daring to suggest that maybe wait until the body is cold before making jokes. Turns out, based on an article someone else pasted, his wife ruined them financially, which could be a motive for the suicide rather than anything nefarious he may have done. Why is that a thing to be happy about, someone killing themselves because their spouse destroyed their future just because of their profession?

              Also, are you suggesting we do away with judges? What would be the alternative?

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines

          • ScoopMcPoops@lemmy.world
            81·
            3 days ago

            Idk if a judge offing himself because he lost his election bid would inspire many copy cats. His life wasn’t ruined, it probably would’ve been if he hadn’t died. But he didn’t want to wait to find out apparently.

            • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
              73·
              3 days ago

              He did it in the courtroom, as in, his place of employment. You don’t know what others are going through, and it’s possible people could read this and choose to go out like this at their own job instead of at home or someplace else. Or maybe they’ll see someone who ended it all at the peak and somehow think that means it’s a non-terrible idea.

              Or maybe nothing will happen. I don’t know, what I do know is it’s not cool to make fun of someone who was likely suffering from mental distress/sickness, especially while their family is still grieving. That’s a dick move, even if there’s little chance of copy cats.

              A little empathy goes a long way. What we should take away from this is that mental illness can affect everyone, and we never know what others are going through, so we should always treat others like they’re going through something really hard (and we’ll probably be right more than we’d like to know).

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
              33·
              3 days ago

              What inspires people is seeing other people mocking a suicide victim and thinking, “see? This is what happens. No one cares if you live or die.”

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
              12·
              3 days ago

              That’s not an answer. If we should be punching up when bad things happen to judges, why does that not apply to things that are crimes?

              • jagged_circle@feddit.nlEnglish
                42·
                3 days ago

                I still think we should punch up for some crimes. It depends on the crime.

                But in this case, there’s clearly no reason not to punch up, because this person is not a victim.

                • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
                  12·
                  3 days ago

                  But in this case, there’s clearly no reason not to punch up, because this person is not a victim.

                  I’ve given the reason multiple times. I will give it again. And I will say again that I know this from personal experience, but that doesn’t seem to matter to anyone:

                  Someone on the edge sees a bunch of people mocking a suicide and thinks, “this is what it will be like when I’m gone, no one will give a shit except to laugh at me.” And it drives them closer to the edge themselves. (They don’t think, incidentally, “well that guy’s a judge so they’ll mock a judge, but they definitely wouldn’t do the same with me even though I’m even more worthless and despicable than that judge.”)

                  I very sincerely hope suicide will not be something you will have to deal with in your life.

                  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines

  • TastehWaffleZ@lemmy.world
    34·
    3 days ago

    I have a buddy who lives in Effingham county, he said

    “Apparently he was trying to resign to undo the recent election where he lost to the first person to run against him in a while”.

    • peoplebeproblems@midwest.socialEnglish
      16·
      3 days ago

      The dude was 74, and pissed he lost an election to the first incumbent?

      So he shoots himself?

      That… Well. Ok I have no fucking idea how it clears much up, but he didn’t like that outcome by the look of it.

      • TastehWaffleZ@lemmy.world
        6·
        3 days ago

        Yeah it’s word of mouth info so take it with a grain of salt. It very well could be the family’s attempt at a cover up that’s spreading through the rumor mill, it’s a small town in South Georgia after all.

  • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
    101·
    3 days ago

    Used to be a part of the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax office. Maybe it’s just a case of the sin of pride.

  • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
    74·
    3 days ago

    You know some fool somewhere was criminaling just to be judged by this judge. Then this. How can the fool live with himself now?