At a lunch-time gathering last week, District Attorney Joe Hendricks had the opportunity to discuss the DA’s Office with his constituents at the June installment of the Popcorn and Politics program.Held at the Pickens County Chamber of Commerce, his talk focused on the challenges, successes and future of the office.

To start with, Hendricks explained the function of the office. As Constitutional Officer and elected official, the district attorney is the chief prosecuting officer within the state’s each 49 judicial circuits, he said. The District Attorney’s Office is responsible for the trial and appeals process of felony and misdemeanor cases out of superior courts. He also explained the differences between the appellate and trial courts. The appellate courts include the State Supreme Court and the Georgia Board of Appeals, while trial courts are courts of general jurisdiction, meaning the local superior courts of the circuit.

“In terms of case numbers…I’ve seen it anywhere between the high 1600s to low 2000s,”

Hendricks said,

“in terms of superior court cases, new superior court cases that come into our office each year.”

Hendricks said the number of cases was previously higher, but his office was able to reduce the number over time. This range, he indicated, is only for Pickens County, while similar numbers are reflected in the other two counties The DA said the case load for the entire district has come down too. At the high point, he noted, between July and October of 2008, the case load for the entire circuit was approximately 4300.

“At the end of 2011,”

he emphasized,

“we’re down below 3600.”

Hendricks’ opponent in the District Attorney Race, Harry Doss previously criticized the DA on the number of pending cases in the superior court. In an August 2011 interview with FYN, Doss said the current number of pending was between 4000 and 5000 for the entire circuit. In his talk last week, though, Hendricks said some of these cases (450 in Pickens) were dead docketed, not active on the docket for various reasons. He said Pickens currently has about 800 active cases pending, adding that approximately 100 of these cases will go to the Grand Jury with misdemeanors.

For Hendricks, one of the challenges of the office is the budget. He called the budget cuts in recent years difficult. Due to these cuts, he noted employees in his office were forced to take furlough days. Even with holding off on purchases for the office, like a new computer, and using the operating money the DA’s Office receives from the counties to use to pay Assistant DAs, they were still furloughed, he explained. Budgets cuts also hindered Hendricks giving the Assistant DAs pay increases.

“I’ve got Assistant DAs that were hired back in 2008,2009,”

he explained,

“who were hired in as entry level assistant attorneys making in the upper 40s to low 50s. Five years later they’re still making what an entry level Assistant DA makes.”

As a manager, he said the problem he faces is that after five years these assistant attorneys become marketable and could take another position somewhere else for higher pay. This hurts productivity, he said, and cost money to find, hire, and retrain new assistant attorneys.

He also discussed some of the crime trends plaguing the community over the last few years. One of these trends is drug usage and trafficking. The meth amphetamine epidemic, he recalled, caused an explosion of cases, peaking between 2003 and 2006.

“One of the problems was the crime lab couldn’t get us a crime lab report back on meth amphetamine before the guy was out on bond and committed two other offences,”

Hendricks said. Since this time, meth crimes have receded. Hendricks credits the reduction in these crimes to the abrasive stance the law enforcement has taken on these crimes and the anti-drug-anti-meth campaign put forth by the chamber of commerce. He added that his office also

“took a very hard-line on meth labs and trafficking of meth amphetamines.”

According to Hendricks, the crack-down on meth has also caused a reduction in family violence and child abuse cases. The two latest drug issues facing the DA’s Office and the community are the abuse of prescription drugs and synthetic marijuana, which is usually coupled with bath salts. He called SPICE (synthetic marijuana) a big problem because it does not show up in criminal cases, due to the cat-and-mouse game played between legislators and the manufacturers of the drug.

“It (SPICE) was made illegal,”

he explained,

“they altered the chemical composition to avoid the statute; they passed a new statute that went into effect the first of April…(less than) a month later they came out with an entirely new chemical compound.”

The DA’s Office will keep chipping away at this problem, he said. Since most SPICE cases do not show up as criminal, the biggest drug problem facing the community right now is prescription drug abuse.

He also noted an increase in violent crimes in the circuit, but emphasized that the number of these crimes doesn’t have to be big to have a big impact on the community. A portion of the increase is due, he suggested, to the bad economy, but not all.

In the end, Mr. Hendricks asserted his philosophy, his overall operating approach of the office:

“Are the cases in general being resolved with an interest or not to justice? This is what we shoot for,”

he said.

Joe Hendricks is running for re-election for District Attorney in the July 31st Primary. He is running against Harry Doss and Alison Sosebee.