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The local race for District Attorney in the Chattahoochee Judicial Circuit is starting to become a whole MESS, and I would not be surprised if it became a national news story eventually. A thread:
Our current District Attorney is Julia Slater, who has created programs to reduce the jail population. One of the criticisms of her is that caseload has been backed up and it takes 2-3 years for some cases to make it to trial or plea bargain due to “lack of funding” and backlogs.
Challenging her in the Dem primary this year is Mark Jones, a local personal injury and criminal defense lawyer. He aims to fix the backlog, create a “self-defense court” (a pre-trial diversion program for felonies), and for higher bond for alleged murderers.
I was initially tentatively for him until recently. Mark Jones has mounted an aggressive social media campaign against Slater and accused her of avoiding an in-person debate, even though a Zoom debate was organized with both candidates since in-person is unsafe due to COVID-19.
This is where it gets interesting. 5 days ago, his campaign released a hip hop video with JawGaBoi where they did donuts in the parking lot of the Civic Center (our local equivalent of a convention center, if you will). Ppl were incredulous about it: https://www.instagram.com/p/CAWFJ_2g8HJ/?igshid=19wggd18mz0hq">https://www.instagram.com/p/CAWFJ_2...
Today participants in the video were arrested and booked for interference and destruction of government property for the donuts among other charged. The $200k bond was reduced later in the day down to $30k.
According to one of the detainees’ girlfriend, Black asked “isn’t it illegal” after Jones said to him “ready to burn some rubber today”? Jones replied, “Nah man you’re going to be okay”
Others also asked about the legality, but someone on Jones’ team said “Mark’s got everything covered. Nothing’s going to happen to you guys.”
According to our mayor, Skip Henderson, the campaign did not notify the city government or ask permission (the Civic Center is city property here).
The video alone isn’t enough to be sufficient evidence for a criminal case, as one of the witnesses who were there or shot the video would have to authenticate it.
Mark Jones has now issued a statement claiming that law enforcement is interfering with the campaign:
DA Julia Slater said this in her statement, indicating that her office had no involvement in any part of the case against these boys
It is worth noting, however, that the judge overseeing the case, Judge Jennifer Cooley, is a former assistant District Attorney. She has worked under Slater, and is said to be supportive of her candidacy and friends with her (though I can’t confirm that).
People here find it strange that the bond would be set so high in the first place over this criminal charge, while a murder suspect was given and released by a $50,000 bond.
As Mark Jones continues to assert that they’re coming after him, this entire affair does seem to stink to high heaven, even though I deeply dislike Jones’ style of political mudslinging and gaslighting, and the fact that he assured them that the donuts were okay to do.
More at 11.
Source: https://www.ledger-enquirer.com/news/local/crime/article242959836.html">https://www.ledger-enquirer.com/news/loca...
