Stubbs v. Carpenter

Thompson, Justice.

M. Francis Stubbs filed a petition for a writ of mandamus to compel Don P. Carpenter, the Judge of the State Court of Toombs County, to conduct civil trials in his court. At the hearing which followed, Stubbs established that the State Court of Toombs County is required to have four terms of court each year; 1 but that no civil case has been tried in that court since November 1996 — despite an apparent backlog and repeated requests to put such cases on a trial calendar. The trial court dismissed the mandamus action on the ground that Stubbs has a specific legal remedy.…