Clayton County State Court calendar: guilty pleas, probation terms and multiple bench warrants on Feb. 17, 2025

Judge Tammy Long Hayward presided over the State Court of Clayton County calendar call in Courtroom 304 on Feb. 17, 2025, accepting guilty or no-contest pleas in several cases, issuing bench warrants for absent defendants and entering several "no process" (state declines to prosecute) announcements.

The most serious plea came in the case of Ryan Mitchell Cox. The court accepted Cox's guilty pleas to three counts of public indecency related to separate incidents at a Clayton County fast-food restaurant in May 2021. Judge Hayward sentenced Cox to probation consistent with the state's recommendation: 12 months probation on count 1 with a $300 fine and 40 hours of community service; count 2 to run concurrent with count 1; and count 3 to run consecutive, producing a total of 24 months of probation. The judge ordered Cox to stay away from the named victims and instructed him to register with the probation office before leaving the courtroom. "I just can't imagine, being a teenager ... and somebody pulls up and unasked, unwanted, they just pull out their [private parts], and show you stuff that they didn't ask for, that's an assault," Hayward said during the hearing.

In a separate, high-profile traffic-and-impairment case, the court accepted a guilty plea from Roderick Thornton to DUI and related…