Story Archive

There Goes the Bride II

Billy J. Rutherford, 23, took his fiancee to the Macon County (Ga.) Courts Facility to get married. She wore a traditional white dress; he wore a red T-shirt. They brought 15 guests along to witness the festivities. As they waited outside a courtroom for Associate Judge Thomas Griffith to perform the rite, court officials ordered Rutherford arrested. The charge: his fiancee had reported several months earlier that Rutherford “had been beating on her all day,” and Rutherford was arrested on one count of aggravated domestic battery and three counts of domestic battery with a prior conviction, and she was granted a protection order. A short time later, he was arrested for allegedly violating the protection order, charged with three more felonies, and released on bail again. The couple wanted Judge Griffith to perform the ceremony because he had represented Rutherford in earlier cases, when he was a private attorney, including the sexual assault of a 16-year-old girl and the aggravated battery of a 49-year-old woman. Rutherford is facing seven years in prison on his various charges. (RC/Decatur Herald & Review) ...Her wedding day is supposed to be the best day in a woman’s life. For once, it really was.