Brickbat: Going Out with a Bang

In Georgia, Philip Woodward, the Juvenile Court judge for Whitfield and Murray counties, has announced his retirement, a week after a newspaper revealed he had fired a gun in his office at the Whitfield County courthouse several months earlier. Woodward told a sheriff's office deputy who responded to the shot he was just getting a feeling for a new Glock pistol. Woodward said he took the magazine out and racked it to make sure it was empty. He said when he put the magazine back in he must have inadvertently chambered a round. He then pointed the gun to the floor under his desk and pulled the trigger. The sheriff's office closed the case administratively without filing any charges.