“The cases involving families and their children are the ones I’ll agonize over,” says the 1976 Child and Family Development graduate. “It’s not hard to give a convicted child molester 10 or 15 years. But when you have two parents who are both loving, caring and nurturing arguing over the custody of their children, that’s a hard decision to make.”

But it’s precisely her experience in dealing with cases involving children and families that helped Palmer capture the judgeship, defeating the district attorney for the Middle Judicial Circuit who had been prosecuting cases for the past 18 years.

“When I decided to run, I analyzed the case breakdown for the circuit and talked about my experience in all areas,” Palmer explains. “Criminal cases are only 25 percent of the caseload, 58 percent of the caseload in this circuit involves families and children, and the remaining 17 percent is general civil litigation.”

Arriving at the Toombs County Courthouse, Palmer seems to know everyone in the building. She first speaks to a young family waiting to see the Juvenile Court judge. Social workers with the Department of Family and Children Services are trying to remove the three children from the parents’ custody, citing ongoing neglect, such as the children having lice. Palmer has had a contract with the Middle Judicial Circuit to represent parents in DFCS child-custody cases, ensuring that their legal rights are protected. However, since her election, Palmer has begun closing down her law practice and is hoping this case will be turned over to another lawyer and the decision on placing the children in foster care delayed.

Before the family’s case is heard, Palmer takes care of several other items of business: She makes sure the chief bailiff is still going to serve in her court, touches base with the local sheriff, and handles an unexpected plea agreement for a former client who has been arrested on an outstanding warrant. Palmer considers helping another prisoner seeking bail whose lawyer hasn’t appeared, but after hearing details realizes the case is too complicated to handle in a short period of time.

“That’s part of being a good officer of the court,” she says. “If you’re able to do something to help cases move along, you do it.”

In the case of the young family, Palmer achieves her objective. The children aren’t removed from their parents’ custody and the case will be transferred to another attorney.

“Public policy in the state of Georgia says that children should be raised by their parents,” Palmer says. “I support that policy and I cite it all the time in these sorts of cases.”

As Palmer’s day continues‹it began with her arranging a plea bargain for a client in Swainsboro, continued with the DFCS hearing in Vidalia, and concluded with another plea bargain in Statesboro before she returned to her Swainsboro office and an evening at a peanut boil sponsored by Emanuel County Sheriff J. Tyson Stephens (no relation to Palmer’s family)‹she tells how she went from being a child and family development major with plans to become an Extension Agent to being the first woman elected judge in this South Georgia circuit.

“I actually started out in pre-law,” she says, “but I married Danny my freshman year and decided I’d transfer into Child and Family Development and become an Extension Agent.”

Palmer’s background would seem easily suited to her becoming an Extension Agent. She grew up picking cotton and tobacco with her sisters on her grandfather and uncles’ farms in rural Johnson County and participated in all aspects of the local 4-H program, including winning second place in the state for her fruit and vegetable production, the title of Master 4-H’er, and a scholarship to the University of Georgia. In choosing CFD as a major, she became one of three sisters to earn a home economics degree at UGA. Her brother attended the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, while a fourth Stephens sister received her doctorate in statistics from UGA.

“I was picking cotton when I was 6 years old and I took tobacco off the stick and graded it the day before I matriculated to the University of Georgia,” she says, clearly proud of her rural roots.

Several elements of fate intervened with Palmer’s plans for Extension work, including her acceptance into a UGA-based program that provided scholarships to women and other minorities in exchange for them receiving training for careers in police administration. Palmer was a top graduate and spent about a year as a police officer for the University of Georgia.

By the time she graduated in 1976, Palmer knew that she wanted additional education. She applied to both the graduate program in Child and Family Development and to the UGA School of Law, eventually choosing to pursue a law degree.

Several years‹and a series of law-related jobs‹passed before Palmer and her family, including sons Kyle and Kirk, settled in Swainsboro. She accepted a position with a local attorney with the agreement that she would try civil cases while he handled the criminal work.

“I had worked as an assistant solicitor in DeKalb County and I just didn’t think I could switch sides and begin representing criminal defendants,” Palmer explains. However, that soon changed.

“I had been at work for about a week and the other attorney went on vacation. I asked the judge for a continuance on my colleague’s cases and he agreed except for one case involving a man charged with DUI.”

After an initial feeling of panic, Palmer drew on past experience as an instructor for the Prosecuting Attorneys Council of Georgia where she taught police officers and state court judges about a variety of issues, including traffic laws.

Palmer on the campaign trail.

During the one-day trial, Palmer was able to demonstrate three major technical errors the arresting officer had committed in applying the breathalyzer test. The test was thrown out and her client walked free. From that point on, Palmer began representing criminal defendants as frequently as she accepted civil cases.

“One of the things criminal defense lawyers do is to help law enforcement personnel become better at their jobs by pointing out their mistakes,” Palmer says, laughing before becoming more serious about the role of defense lawyers.

“Everyone is entitled to good representation to be certain that their rights are protected,” she says. “What makes this job worth doing is knowing that some of our clients are innocent and it’s essential that the technical points of law be addressed to ensure that an innocent person isn’t convicted.”

Deciding to run for judge was a gradual decision, according to Palmer, one that she and her fellow attorneys had discussed for the past six years.

“Our circuit became eligible for a third judgeship six years ago, but it hasn’t been funded,” she explains. “So, we’ve all talked about who the governor would appoint when it was funded and I had definitely decided I was interested.”

But instead of waiting on an appointment, Palmer had the opportunity to run for a judgeship when long-time Judge Marvin Hartley announced his retirement in March.

"I had about a zillion phone messages from people telling me about Judge Hartley’s retirement. Then, a friend of the district attorney called and asked if I planned to run,” Palmer recalls. “I said, ŚOh yeah, I’m in.’”

And like that she was on the campaign trail.

Palmer clearly relishes a challenge and admits thriving on stress, but overcoming her opponent’s advantage as a long-time district attorney required a unique solution.

“I talked about families and I talked about children,” she says. “I visited a different church every Sunday morning, and I called every civic group around and asked to come speak. They didn’t want to hear campaign speeches, so I focused on the issue of family violence and the effect it has on communities.”

Palmer won the race with 56.4 percent of the vote.

As a judge, Palmer has reached what’s considered the pinnacle of a career for a lawyer, but she’s not willing to concede that this is her last career move.

“In order to run for another office I’d have to resign my position as a judge,” she says seriously.

But then a smile begins to form on the edge of her lips and a mischievous look comes into her eyes as she shrugs her shoulders and says, “Well, you just never know....”