Kimberly Smith Removed

Kimberly Smith, chief judge of the probate and magistrate courts for Clinch County, Georgia, resigned on March 17, 2025, and permanently agreed never to seek or hold judicial office again, resolving a pending investigation by the Georgia Judicial Qualifications Commission. According to the Commission's Report of Disposition, its Investigative Panel had authorized a full investigation and found reasonable cause to believe Smith exhibited a pattern of failing to follow the law: she was routinely absent from her own courts and failed to give priority to her judicial duties, failed to perform her judicial and administrative duties competently, and failed to decide Probate Court matters she was not even disqualified from hearing. The Panel further found she failed to adequately supervise her staff, resulting in her office not collecting required filing fees on Probate Court matters, failing to issue required legal notices, and giving citizens incorrect instructions on their court filings.

Rather than face further investigation, Smith resigned and signed a Consent Agreement permanently barring her from future judicial office — an outcome the Commission described as "a fair disposition of the matter and in the interests of justice." In her own handwritten resignation letter, Smith wrote that she was stepping down "due to medical conditions and false accusations," disputing the allegations rather than acknowledging them. The resignation came just months after she had been elected to a new term in office the previous November, and made her the third chief judge of a Georgia county magistrate court to resign in 2025 alone specifically to end a pending JQC ethics probe.