Presiding Judge Edward H. Johnson is a native Georgian born in Newnan, Coweta County. He served as Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals from January 1, 1999 until December 31, 2000. Before being sworn in as the 59th Judge of the Court of Appeals of Georgia on February 28, 1992, he served as a judge on the Superior Court, Atlanta Judicial Circuit, and as a judge of the State Court of Fulton County. Presiding Judge Johnson has also served as an adjunct professor of law at Emory University School of Law; an adjunct professor of law at Mercer University School of Law; an instructor for the Institute of Continuing Judicial Education; and on the faculty of the National Institute of Trial Advocacy.

Presiding Judge Johnson served as State Senator for the 34th District from 1977 to 1980. He served as Vice-Chair of the Fulton County Senate Delegation. His other public service includes a term as a member of the State Crime Commission; service on the Georgia Educational Improvement Council; membership on the White House Conference on Regulatory Reform; membership on the Georgia Commission on Gender Bias in the Judicial System; and service as the first Chair of the Supreme Court's Gender Equality Commission. He also served as a member and committee Chair of the City of Atlanta Mayor's Task Force on Youth. He was a search and rescue mission pilot in the United States Air Force Auxiliary Civil Air Patrol.

Presiding Judge Johnson is a member of the American Bar Association, the State Bar of Georgia, and the Atlanta Bar Association. He was the first Chair of the Judicial Section of the Atlanta Bar Association. He is a past Chair of the Georgia Law Related Education Consortium and a past Chair of the Law Related Education Committee of the State Bar of Georgia. He is a past Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Institute of Continuing Judicial Education, and has served as a member of the Board of Visitors of the Georgia State University College of Law.

Presiding Judge Johnson has been published in the Georgia State Bar Journal and The Atlanta Lawyer. Presiding Judge Johnson received his B.A. and M.A. degrees in history from Georgia State University, a J.D. degree from Vanderbilt University School of Law in Nashville and a LL.M. degree from the University of Virginia School of Law. He studied constitutional law and American legal history at Harvard Law School and completed a course of study for general jurisdiction trial judges at the National Judicial College.

Presiding Judge Johnson is married to Carolyn Starnes Weeks. Judge Weeks was the first woman to serve as President of the Atlanta Bar Association. He has two sons, Bryan and Michael.