Richard Winegarden. (Courtesy WSB-TV)

When senior Judge Richard Wine­garden presided over the dismissal of the indictment of a North Georgia publisher and a lawyer on July 18, he held court even though he had been thrown off the bench eight years earlier by the voters and then defeated in a subsequent campaign for another judgeship.

But Georgia law and court rules allow judges defeated in an election to sit as designated “senior judges” if they have served on the bench at least 10 years and get the approval of the governor and the state Supreme Court. Senior judges can be called to serve if a judge has recused; if a judge is unable to preside because of disability, illness or other absence; or if the circuit’s chief judge decides an additional judge is need to help manage a circuit’s caseload.