Judge Christian Coomer’s voluntary suspension while he fights ethics charges has led the state Court of Appeals to ask Senior Judge Herbert Phipps to put on his black robe and get back to work.

Phipps officially retired from the Court of Appeals in 2016, but this is the third time since then he will hear and decide cases while the court is temporarily short-handed. He served the court in 2018, after Judge Elizabeth Branch left for a federal appeals post, and he did so again in 2019 after the death of Judge Stephen Goss.