Candidates for Hinds district attorney spar over corruption, dysfunction and jail crowding

By Molly Minta | Originally published by Mississippi Today

RAYMOND – Five candidates vying to become Hinds County district attorney pondered questions about corruption, managing public money, jail crowding and persistent case backlogs at their first forum ahead of a Nov. 3 special election. 

One question raised at Thursday’s forum summed up the enormous tasks that lie ahead to restore trust in the office after former DA Jody Owens pleaded guilty to a federal conspiracy charge earlier this summer and resigned. 

Asked to describe a situation in which they had to navigate “significant operational challenges,” each candidate pledged to run an office free of mismanagement and dysfunction and to rid the county’s justice system of problems that have persisted for decades. 

Some candidates trumpeted their experience working in the Hinds DA’s office, while others took pains to emphasize their outsider status.

“I haven’t really had an opportunity to be in dysfunctional organizations,” said Marvin Sanders, a defense attorney who worked under former DA Eleanor Faye Peterson in the early 2000s. “I avoided those situations.”

In response to a later question, Sanders assured the audience he would not commit crimes as district attorney.

“You don’t have to worry about me doing something like that, ‘cause I like my freedom,” Sanders said.

As a member of the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office in 2016, he took part in the failed prosecution of former Hinds DA Robert Schuler Smith, who was accused of conspiring to hinder a criminal prosecution.

Owens faces up to five years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery. He awaits sentencing in November. A son of a prominent family from Terry in southern Hinds County, Owens had been caught up in a wide-ranging FBI probe that also ensnared former Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba and City Council Member Aaron Banks, who also await sentencing.

The nearly two-hour forum hosted by the Hinds County Democratic Executive Committee in a church auditorium provided sparse details about how each candidate would handle the nonpartisan post, if elected.

Gwen Agho, a current Hinds prosecutor, said the office was in disarray when she joined in 2016. In one example, Agho said the office wasn’t tracking whether prosecutors reached out to victims, so she created her own spreadsheet to hold herself accountable. 

Agho touted this practice as contributing to the happiness of victims whose cases she’s prosecuted. She also described problems she has witnessed in the county’s grand jury process and claimed the office lacks a functioning victim’s advocate. 

“There can be a streak of laziness in some people,” she said. 

Some of the candidates floated solutions that past DAs have tried.

Agho and Greta Mack Harris, an attorney practicing in Madison and Rankin counties, advocated for returning to a caseload management system known as vertical prosecutions, which requires one prosecutor to oversee a case across each stage of the process, from grand jury to trial and sentencing. 

Noting the persistent crowding at the Hinds County Detention Center, Mack Harris, a former Hinds assistant district attorney, said she wanted to create panels that would move cases more swiftly. She did not elaborate on how the panels would work. 

“There is absolutely no excuse for the level of pretrial detainees in Raymond,” she said, referring to the jail, which is currently over capacity. “There’s absolutely no excuse for that grand jury system to be as complicated and disorganized as Mrs. Agho alluded to.” 

Less alarmed was Wendy Wilson White, a Hinds prosecutor who currently handles probable cause hearings for defendants who aren’t indicted. She pushed back against suggestions from other candidates that the DA’s office was indicting defendants without receiving investigative files from local law enforcement. She blamed the current backlog on multiple actors within the justice system, such as law enforcement. 

“The DA’s office has no real control over the speed of investigations,” she said. 

Multiple candidates promised to establish stronger accounting over the office’s self-generated funds, which are subject to patchwork accountability from other government agencies.

Mack Harris, an attorney who previously ran unsuccessfully for Hinds County youth court judge, said she would hire an independent auditor to review the audit requested by interim DA Brad McCullouch, who was appointed by Gov. Tate Reeves to replace Owens. State law bars McCullouch from the special election ballot because he is not a Hinds County resident. 

A fifth candidate, Darla Palmer, left the forum after opening remarks, saying she was double-booked. 

“Nobody is talking about violent crime,” Palmer said before departing. She is running for the post for a third time after losing to Owens in 2019 and 2023. 

The forum, attended by a few dozen potential voters, left some like Doug Williams dissatisfied. The self-employed Jackson resident who works in real estate asked the candidates what they would do to improve the reputation of the Hinds DA’s office, which he contended does not garner the same respect as prosecutorial operations in Rankin and Madison counties.

Mack Harris said that Hinds needs to have higher standards. Sanders said such comparisons are unfair because Hinds County prosecutors handle more criminal cases than neighboring counties. Agho said she would put more pressure on prosecutors to be productive. Wilson White spoke about the no-snitch culture in Jackson in which witnesses do not want to cooperate with prosecutors. 

“It’s going to take all of us to take a stand and fish out these criminals and let them know that we mean business,” she said. 

Williams, 54, said he plans to attend another forum to ask more questions. This Sunday, local political organizations including Women for Progress of MS and the League of Women Voters will host a forum at the Mississippi Public Broadcasting Auditorium at 5 p.m. 

This article was originally published by Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Source: Original Article