Pubdate: Sun, 25 Jan 2004
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution (GA)
Copyright: 2004 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Contact:  http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/28
Author: David Simpson, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

DEPARTING DA PULLS NO PUNCHES

Dekalb's Tom Morgan Set to Exit Saturday

As he ends a 21-year career as a prosecutor, DeKalb County District 
Attorney J. Tom Morgan offers some blunt warnings:

. People increasingly don't trust cops, leading to juries that won't convict.

. Frustration of victims who don't see offenders held accountable could 
invite vigilante justice.

. Many citizens regard the war on drugs as misguided and hypocritical.

"I think our whole war on drugs needs to be looked at," Morgan said as he 
prepares to leave office Saturday. He said people see crack cocaine users 
being sent to prison "and on the other hand you've got Rush Limbaugh 
getting thousands of [prescription pills] and he's making millions of 
dollars and he's out on the street."

The result, he said, is that "juries will no longer hold individuals 
accountable in drug cases. . . . Juries are telling us that prosecution is 
not the answer."

Morgan has spent most of his adult life putting criminals behind bars. He 
is nationally recognized as an expert on child abuse. He lost big and then 
won big in the case against the suspects in the 2000 slaying of DeKalb 
Sheriff-elect Derwin Brown and became a pain for county Chief Executive 
Officer Vernon Jones.

Morgan has received praise from prosecutors -- who gave him a prestigious 
award last year -- and defense attorneys. Dwight Thomas, who represented a 
defendant in a DeKalb death penalty trial last year, calls Morgan "a worthy 
adversary and professional friend" whose office is regarded by defense 
lawyers as one of the best in the state. Now Morgan, a Democrat who started 
in the DeKalb district attorney's office in 1983, is leaving, 11 months 
before his third term as district attorney was to end. He will work on 
civil litigation and white-collar crime cases with Balch & Bingham, a 
Birmingham-based law firm with an office in Buckhead.

During a recent interview, Morgan's office already showed the signs of his 
departure. Walls were stripped bare except for a dozen or so hooks; shelves 
were half-empty.

There was a time, he said, when a police officer's word was like gold to a 
jury. Today, he said, some jurors seem to distrust all officers -- perhaps 
because of highly publicized police misconduct, including the conviction of 
former DeKalb Sheriff Sidney Dorsey for ordering the assassination of 
Brown, his elected successor.

Morgan said the public should understand that "99.9 percent of our police 
officers are good people."

Jurors' distrust of police leads to more acquittals, which Morgan said 
could one day so much undermine confidence in the criminal justice system 
that people pursue vigilante justice.

"We're a long way from that, but I see victims and victim advocates very 
frustrated," he said.

Few Political Dustups

Morgan has largely avoided political conflicts. But as three successive 
grand juries last year delved into county finances in a noncriminal 
investigation, CEO Vernon Jones complained that Morgan was conducting a 
"witch hunt" to tarnish his reputation.

In his State of the County address this month, Jones accused Morgan of 
"convening several grand juries for the sole purpose of public 
embarrassment" and of making "misguided and uninformed allegations."

Morgan insisted citizens on the grand jury drove the investigation, and 
that two reports that contained criticism of Jones -- including a finding 
that his security detail was "a very expensive decoration" -- were written 
by grand jurors, not the district attorney's office.

After the State of the County speech, Morgan called Jones "paranoid" and 
accused him of trying to mislead the public.

That spat was far from the most trying moment of Morgan's career. The low 
point, he said, was in March 2002, when his office failed to win 
convictions against two defendants in the December 2000 assassination of 
Brown. Morgan had agreed to give immunity to two admitted conspirators in 
the murder in exchange for their testimony, but a DeKalb jury did not 
believe them. So at that point Morgan had zero murder verdicts out of four 
suspects in a case that drew international attention.

"District attorneys from around the country told me this could be a 
career-ending case," Morgan said at the time.

Things had changed by 2003. Morgan won guilty verdicts against Dorsey, who 
was sentenced to life in prison for murder, racketeering and theft. In 
recognition of that victory, the International Association of Prosecutors 
made Morgan the first American district attorney to receive its annual 
Special Achievement Award.

Also last year, Gov. Sonny Perdue appointed Morgan as special prosecutor in 
the case against Bobby Whitworth, a former parole board member and 
Corrections commissioner. In December, Morgan won a jury verdict in Fulton 
County convicting Whitworth on a felony charge of accepting money while a 
state official in exchange for influencing legislation.

One thing Morgan never did as district attorney was have a defendant 
executed. DeKalb juries have been reluctant to impose the death penalty, 
and Morgan has founddefendants and victims' families receptive to plea 
bargains for life without parole.

Morgan sought a death sentence last year against cop-killer Bautista 
Ramirez, but a jury gave Ramirez life with the chance of parole.

Tom West, one of Ramirez's lawyers, praised Morgan. His infrequent use of 
death penalty prosecutions "means a great deal and demonstrates his 
character as a prosecutor," West said.

As he leaves office, Morgan gives a flat answer to the question of whether 
America needs the death penalty: "No, we do not. We need life without 
parole and to be able to get that with the use of aggravating circumstances 
[such as torture] and without the cost of a death penalty case.

"It's not the severity of the punishment, but the certainty of the 
conviction that changes behavior," he said.

Morgan's last act as district attorney may be to witness the execution, 
scheduled for Tuesday night, of Willie James Hall, who was convicted of 
murdering his estranged wife in DeKalb before Morgan took office.

Perdue, a Republican, will appoint a temporary successor to Morgan. Voters 
in heavily Democratic DeKalb will have their say on a full-time successor 
in November. Morgan hasn't endorsed anyone, but had some pointed advice 
about the "very talented pool of lawyers" in his office.

"I would hope the people will elect a district attorney who would recognize 
how talented these people are and would keep them on staff," he said. 
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