An Atlanta judge has eliminated the backlog that for a year dogged him as the federal jurist carrying the most civil case motions pending more than six months.

James Hatten, the chief clerk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, said Judge Michael Brown has leveled a mountain of old motions that last September reached as high as 204. That is when the most recent caseload data were collected by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts as required by the Civil Justice Reform Act of 1990.