COLUMBUS, Ga. (WRBL) – A notable Columbus felony defense lawyer who was as soon as a prosecutor has been chosen by Gov. Brian Kemp to fill the vacant Chattahoochee Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s position.
Stacey Jackson, 47, has been tabbed to exchange Mark Jones, who is presently serving a jail sentence just after a November public corruption conviction.
Kemp’s place of work verified the alternative to News 3 late Monday night. It is not obvious but when Jackson will think his new duties. He is presently symbolizing Tommie Mullins Jr., in the 2018 murder of rapper Branden Denson. The case is becoming prosecuted by Performing DA Sheneka Terry, who also sought the long term work. She notified her staff by way of e-mail on Friday she did not get the position.
Any situation Jackson is currently concerned in will have to have to go to an exterior legal professional, a process that is normally referred to as conflict council.
Jackson has been in non-public exercise given that 2008. Working as a lover at Hagler, Jackson and Walters, Jackson has turn into one of the region’s major criminal protection attorneys.
Prior to that he used virtually 8 a long time as a prosecutor in the Chattahoochee Circuit District Attorney’s Place of work.
Jackson will provide out the remainder of Jones’ expression. The business will be on the ballot in 2024. Jackson said he options to request election at that time.
Jackson will try to provide stability to an workplace that has been in flux for practically two decades.
In Could 2020, Jones ran a non-standard campaign centered on social media and defeated a few-phrase incumbent Julia Slater. A single of Jones’ campaign platforms was to deal with the backlog of scenarios that experienced amassed in the place of work.
Jones’ 1st transfer was to fireplace most of the senior prosecutors in the office environment.
But he ran into authorized problems of his nearly quickly. Jones fell underneath a GBI investigation in the early months of his tenure. That investigation heated up when a Columbus Law enforcement Section bodycam video surfaced showing an seemingly intoxicated Jones inquiring a detective to lie beneath oath so that a manslaughter cost could be upgraded to the more severe charge of murder.
Jones was eliminated from office environment in November after he pleaded responsible to 4 counts of community corruption as a jury was deliberating his fate.
Terry, Jones’ leading assistant, has been serving as acting district attorney considering that October when Kemp suspended Jones subsequent a September indictment.
Terry used to exchange Jones and was interviewed by the governor past month.
On the defense aspect, Jackson has gained a selection of significant-profile cases, but possibly none extra high profile than the 2014 chilly-circumstance acquittal of Jackson’s customer Kareem Lane. He was acquitted of the 1992 murder of Jim Burns, then the superintendent of Muscogee County educational institutions.
Jackson is a native of Harris County, who attended higher education at Albany Condition University and gained his law degree at the College of Dayton.
Pete Temesgen has been appointed by Governor Brian P. Kemp to serve on the Point out Courtroom of Muscogee County. Temesgen has beforehand been an assistant district lawyer in Columbus and a regulation clerk to the Honorable Benjamin Richardson and Honorable John Allen.