Last week, Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Harold Melton delivered a State of the Judiciary address unlike any other one to the General Assembly

The COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic shutdown came three weeks after the chief’s annual address at the Capitol in 2020. The chief had a lot to review from the events of the past year— starting with the unthinkable task of naming the dead within the judiciary.

One of the names mentioned in the General Assembly by the Chief Justice was the late Chattooga County Probate Judge Jon Payne.  Judge Payne, who had served as the county’s first probate judge since 1975, passed away from COVID-related issue on August 18, 2020.

As Chief Justice Melton read the names of the deceased from Georgia’s judiciary, those present from the Georgia House of Representatives and the Senate—masked and spaced apart—quietly rose and stayed on their feet until he finished that part of the speech.