By Alva James-Johnson
Columbus Ledger-Enquirer
COLUMBUS, Ga. — A group of public officials asked grassroots activists on Friday to get behind a plan that would help reduce overcrowding at the Muscogee County Jail.
Steve Craft, Muscogee County’s chief assistant public defender, made a presentation to a group of community leaders who were attending a meeting hosted by Chief Superior Court Judge Gil McBride III. Craft said the Rapid Resolution Initiative, as the plan is now called, has the backing of McBride, District Attorney Julia Slater and Public Defender Moffet Flournoy.
It went before Columbus Council in 2014 and was denied, he said. But the public defender and district attorney’s offices are already in budget talks with city officials for fiscal year 2016, and they plan to submit the plan for council approval in March.
The proposal calls for local authorities to allow some defendants to plead guilty earlier in the judicial process to expedite those cases and move others more quickly to trial. Craft said complicated cases involving multiple defendants and charges, as well as extensive criminal records, wouldn’t qualify.
Craft said it would cost about $500,000 to fund the proposal, which would require three additional assistant public defenders, two assistant district attorneys, one district attorney investigator, one district attorney clerk and one senior judge to work on the expedited cases. Additional Columbus Recorder’s Court expenses were not included in the figure.
When activists asked what they could do to move the plan forward, Craft and Clerk of Superior Court Linda Pierce suggested they mobilize and urge council to support the proposal.
“You help us get the people and the resources and the physical space to have those things happen,” Craft said. “This will make a difference, but the only way it can make a difference is it has to be funded.”
Edward DuBose, a board member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, suggested that McBride and other public officials at the meeting draft a letter on behalf of groups in attendance showing solidarity between officials and the community. Craft and McBride said they would look into the possibility.
Those in attendance included representatives from the local branch of the NAACP, Project Rebound, the Southern Anti-Racism Network and other organizations. Muscogee County Sheriff John Darr, Mayor Pro Tem Evelyn Turner Pugh, Slater and Flournoy were also in attendance. It was the third meeting of its kind held to address jail overcrowding.
At the start of the meeting, McBride said there were 1,091 inmates at the jail when a census was taken Jan. 1, 2014. By Dec. 1, 2014, the number had reached 1,162. About 121 of those inmates had been there at least a year.
“It is not a prison, it’s a jail,” McBride said. “And it’s designed to be strictly a place for relatively short-term confinement when a person is either awaiting trial or when they have been sentenced and waiting to be transferred to the state department of corrections.”
Theresa Al-Amin of the Southern Anti-Racism Network said people’s constitutional rights were being violated, and the community needs to know exactly who those people are being incarcerated without being tried or sentenced.
Craft said public officials have been overwhelmed trying to keep up with all the cases coming into the system, and implementing the Rapid Resolution Initiative would help.
“It’s not a simple process,” he said. “All of these agencies have finite resources.”