Matthew Karl “Matt” Hube joined the Ogeechee Judicial Circuit bench this week as its newest Superior Court Judge. After first being officially sworn by Bulloch County Probate Judge Lorna DeLoach, Hube was treated to a ceremonial swearing in by retiring Superior Court Judge F. Gates Peed, whom he succeeds in office.
Hube wasn’t part of the 10 a.m. Dec. 30 Oath of Office ceremony that DeLoach conducted for most of Bulloch’s newly elected and re-elected officials on the second floor of the historic Bulloch County Courthouse. But she had sworn in Hube at 9:30 a.m., since the judgeship he holds is assigned to Bulloch for that purpose, although like the other Superior Court judges, he will serve throughout the four-county circuit.
Then Peed conducted the separate ceremony, just for Hube, across the street at the Bulloch County Judicial Annex. Hube’s family, friends and other citizens filled Courtroom A for that purpose, while a reception was set out downstairs in the jury assembly room for officials and their families who had been part of the main ceremony.
Gary Mikell, who retired as Bulloch County State Court judge in 2019, said a prayer giving thanks for Hube’s education, career and life experiences and asking, “Continue to sharpen in him the virtues of justice, courage, temperance and wisdom.”
Peed gave some details, with his own interpretation, of the new judge’s life story.
Proclaimed a ‘native’
“Matt Hube grew up in Cobb County but he’s now a native of Bulloch County,” Peed said. “As he put it, he’s lived here longer that anywhere else. Matt, we all consider you to be a Bulloch County native, and I’m glad you came here.”
Hube came to Statesboro as a Georgia Southern University student and graduated in 1995 with a Bachelor of Business Administration, majoring in finance. Then he went to Mercer University’s Walter F. George School of Law, graduating in 2000. Hube returned to Statesboro to clerk with Peed’s firm in summer 1999 and then was employed with the firm as a new attorney the next year.
“I always found Matt to be very studious and very able,” said Peed. “He was that way in the beginning. He has maintained that throughout.”
Matt Hube’s wife, Linda, held the Bible he placed his left hand on while raising his right hand to affirm the oath of office. They have been married 20 years. Their son, Nick, also attended the ceremony, as did the new judge’s parents, who had travelled from Alpharetta for the occasion, and other relatives.
Hube has served as a “certified neutral,” a kind a mediator involved in resolving disputes out of court, Peed noted. After reporting that he also took some training as a “neutral” but did not complete it – “I was too wedded to telling people what to do,” Peed said – and telling a humorous anecdote, the retiring judge advised the incoming one that he no longer has to go so far to get people to agree.
“All you have to do is sign the order,” he said.
But more seriously, he told Hube he should remember to listen.
“The best advice I could give anybody becoming a judge or wanting to be a judge is, listen,” Peed said. “It doesn’t cost you anything to listen, and most of the time, though most of what we hear, it shows itself to us, if we will just listen.”
Georgia’s oath of office for Superior Court judges is a little different from the more general one affirmed by county commissioners and administrative officers. With the judge’s oath, Hube swore or affirmed to “administer justice without respect to person and do equal rights to the poor and the rich” and “faithfully and impartially … perform all the duties” of a judge to the best of his “ability and understanding and agreeably to the laws and Constitution of this state and the Constitution of the United States.”
After Hube said, “So help me God,” and was introduced as the new judge, applause erupted. “I would warn you, don’t get used to that,” Peed quipped, so the applause was followed by laughter.
Hube told the crowd it was “an incredible honor, humbling, taking on this position and following in Judge Peed’s footsteps.”
24 years each
The new judge noted that he had been an attorney in private practice here for 24 years and said that many judges who have been his examples and attorneys who have mentored him were attending the ceremony. Those 24 years tracked closely with the time Peed was a judge, since soon after Hube arrived in Statesboro as a beginning attorney, Peed was elected to the Superior Court and left Hube to take over his private law practice.
To take on the judge’s role, Hube has now closed down The Hube Law Firm P.C. and is selling its building, previously a house at 14 Oak St.
He has long wanted to be a judge, he said, but has not been a judge before at any level.
“I have not been a judge anywhere,” Hube told the Statesboro Herald. “I’ve just been in private practice the whole time, doing all kinds of different cases, … criminal and civil and domestic cases and personal injury and probate. Pretty much name it and I’ve done a little bit of it.”
Hube attended the new judge orientation training held in Athens for Georgia’s incoming new superior court judges – there were 24 at the time – for three and a half days in mid-December.
Muldrew chief judge
For the last six years of his 24 years as a Superior Court judge, Peed was chief judge of the Ogeechee Judicial Circuit. The honor and responsibility of being chief judge now goes by seniority to Superior Court Judge Michael T. Muldrew, who was first elected in 2016 and has now been an Ogeechee Circuit Superior Court judge for eight years.
After Peed announced in February 2024 that he would retire at year-end, Hube was the only candidate to announce for the seat Peed has now vacated. So Hube was elected without opposition in the nonpartisan election general election held with the May primary.
Continuing in office
Re-elected without opposition, Muldrew and Superior Court Judge Lovett Bennett Jr. had been sworn in for their 2025-2028 terms by DeLoach during a separate ceremony Dec. 20. Superior Court Judge Ronald K. “Ronnie” Thompson, also elected without opposition, was sworn in first by Effingham County’s probate judge but then took part in Bulloch County’s Dec.30 ceremony.
Bennett has been a Superior Court judge since late summer 2018; Thompson, since mid-January 2022, when he was installed as the fourth judge for the previously three-judge circuit.
The Ogeechee Circuit, which comprises Bulloch, Effingham, Jenkins and Screven counties, also has an appointed Juvenile Court judge.
Peed, like many other Superior Court judges who retire from full-time service, is set to become a senior judge. As such, he may accept assignments when needed in this or other circuits, such as when elected judges are on leave or are recused from cases.