Ms Marquitta Portman
261 Pioneer Trail
Marietta, Georgia 30068-3470

Dear Ms Portman

I am in receipt of your letter of April 29, 2000.

Your letter indicates that you are not aware of court procedures. I will try to explain some things to you…For one thing, just because a case has been assigned to a particular judge by the clerk, it does not mean the judge is aware of it. I have hundreds of cases assigned to me, yours is just one and six months is not a long time, particular when you have not taken any actions to have any matter placed on a calendar for hearings.

The method by which a trial or hearing takes place is that one party or the other request that the case be placed on a motion calendar or trial calendar. My calendar clerk indicates that you have made no such request and the file does not show anything in writing asking that the case be placed on a calendar to be heard. Even though you are proceeding without an attorney, you are responsible for the prosecution of or defense of your case.

So in reality, not until you filed your motion on March 9, 2000, has there been any activity on your case, that I was personally aware of. Since motions calendars are printed in advance, the earliest motions calendar that any motion you had filed would be placed on would be the May Calendar. It was your responsibility to call the calendar clerk and ask that any motion that you filed be placed on a calendar to be heard. Your general requests in the body of your pleadings does not cause the particular request to be placed on a calendar.

However, as to your recusal motion, I will address forthwith since I am personally now aware of it. Any other motions that you want to be heard, you should follow the procedure I have mentioned and call the calendar clerk.

Enclosed is a copy of my order on the Recusal Motion that you are requesting a ruling on. Please govern yourself accordingly.

Sincerely,

[signature of Ken Nix] /s/

Kenneth O. Nix
KON: eg

For the attached Order, Click here