Martha Christian, the first female judge for the Macon Judicial Circuit, has died
Former Chief Superior Court Judge Martha Christian of the Macon Judicial Circuit died Thursday night, officials confirmed. She was 75.
Christian became the first female Superior Court judge for the Macon Judicial Circuit, which serves Bibb, Peach and Crawford counties, in 1994. She took the bench after Judge Louis Sands, who previously held the position, left the bench for a federal judgeship. In 2007, she became the first female chief judge. Assistant District Attorney Rebecca Fogal, who works alongside Christian’s husband, District Attorney George Christian for the Mountain Judicial Circuit that oversees Habersham, Rabun and Stephens counties confirmed Christian’s death.
The first time she wore her black judge’s robes, it felt “incredible,” Martha Christian previously told The Telegraph.
During her time on the bench, she gained a reputation for being prepared, organized and taking detailed notes, with some branding her the nicknames “Maximum Martha” and “Crushin’ Christian.”
After her retirement at the end of 2011, she and her husband, George Christian, moved north to Rabun County, where he began a new job at the district attorney’s office and where he would later become the district attorney.
The Christians had considered the move up north their “dream.”
From teacher to chief judge
Martha Christian first worked as a teacher and school counselor. After finding out the educational field wasn’t for her, she enrolled at Mercer University’s Walter F. George School of Law. In 1980, she was admitted to the Georgia Bar.
In a prior interview with The Telegraph, she said she’d miss watching two good lawyers practice their art and the excitement that comes with referring proceedings. She fondly remembered the graduations in drug court and being greeted on the street by the people she had given a second chance.
“You get so emotionally involved in their lives and how they are trying to turn their lives around,” she previously told The Telegraph.
She also remembered darker cases, like one in 2000 in which three women were raped at the former Rio Bravo Restaurant on Tom Hill Sr. Boulevard.
“To watch those victims testify, knowing they would never be the same again, especially the young women raped in bathrooms and watching young men crying on the stand ... I’ll never forget that,” Martha Christian said.
But after retirement, she sought “to do human things again,” like participating in cooking courses, learning to play a hammered dulcimer and singing in a church choir. She also wanted to renew or develop friendships with lawyers outside of the courtroom, something she avoided once becoming a judge.
