FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — Tears of joy from a former judge after a jury found her not guilty of obstructing an officer and punching him. The jury came back in less than an hour with its verdict.
Former Douglas County Probate Judge Christina Peterson was on trial in a Fulton County courtroom for the last two days, Channel 2’s Tom Jones reports. She faced a misdemeanor charge of willful obstruction of law enforcement officers.
She said she did nothing wrong. And the jury agreed.
“As to count one willful obstruction of law enforcement officers,“ Fulton Magistrate Court Judge Nancy Mau said to a hushed courtroom, “We the jury find the defendant Christina Janae Peterson not guilty.”
Peterson hung her head and placed her hands over her mouth as she tried to hold back the tears.
Mau then polled the jury: “Was this your verdict in the jury room? All of you? Was it freely and voluntarily made by you?
Peterson had spent the last two days insisting bodycam and surveillance video didn’t show her hitting then APD officer Keith Wadsworth at the Red Martini lounge in Buckhead two years ago.
She said she never knew he was an officer, and he never gave her any commands as she tried to get security to let a woman go who had been punched by another man.
“If he would have said, ‘Ma’am, I’m police. Get out the way. I got it,’ that would have been it for me,” Peterson said during her closing argument.
Prosecutors said Peterson didn’t give the officer enough time to give her any commands because she stormed in and punched him.
“She didn’t care about his right to human dignity. The fact that he didn’t want to be touched or hit or punched, none of that mattered to her,” Assistant District Attorney Tonya Boykin said during her closing.
But the jury didn’t see it that way and found Peterson not guilty.
Peterson only faced up to a year in jail since this was a misdemeanor. The Solicitor General’s office usually tries misdemeanor cases, but the District Attorney’s office prosecuted this case.
Peterson didn’t want to comment after the verdict. But she said during the trial the officer had no legal authority to arrest her.
She has filed a $50 million lawsuit against the city over her arrest.
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