With Stacey Jackson out, prosecutor, defense lawyer vie for Columbus circuit DA
So much has changed in so few years.
The mood in a Columbus Government Center courtroom was giddy, the day Stacey Jackson was sworn in as district attorney.
It was May 20, 2022, and the six-county Chattahoochee Judicial Circuit based in Columbus had just weathered a storm of crises.
The last of them was the former DA, Mark Jones, who pleaded guilty to misconduct after 10 chaotic months in office that started with his firing the most experienced staff prosecutors.
The other calamities included a broken pipe’s flooding Government Center courtrooms, leaving them unusable, and then the COVID-19 pandemic that forced court lockdowns, causing a second backlog when trials and hearings had to be put off.
When Jackson, a top defense attorney known for taking cases to trial, accepted the governor’s appointment, it seemed the ship was back on course.
Then came November 2023, when he went on extended medical leave. He is too ill to seek election.
The day he was sworn in, in his speech joking with his audience, calling out old friends, tearing up when he talked about his parents and what they meant to him growing up in Harris County, he had Don Kelly stand, and announced that Kelly, whom Jones had fired, would return as his chief assistant.
Kelly now is the acting district attorney, running the office while Jackson is out.
He has qualified to run as a Republican, to be the chief prosecutor in the circuit that also includes the counties of Harris, Talbot, Taylor, Chattahoochee and Marion. Residents throughout the circuit elect the district attorney.
His opponent is Anthony Johnson, a Columbus criminal defense attorney.
Both Johnson and Kelly grew up here: Johnson graduated from Carver High School, and Kelly from Hardaway High.
Because neither has a party primary opponent, the election will be decided Nov. 5.
Don Kelly
Kelly qualified first, after meeting with Jackson and his parents, Arnold and Laura Jackson, who felt their son was too ill to run. Johnson qualified the next morning.
Kelly pledged to “continue to focus on public safety, especially violent crimes, by holding those who commit crimes in our circuit responsible for their actions.”
In a news release, he added: “I believe that my experience as a career prosecutor and my knowledge of our circuit make me uniquely qualified to lead the office as we deal with the surge in violent crime that followed the last election.”
He has 22 years of experience as a prosecutor, most of it in the local circuit, and has been running the DA’s office since Jackson went on medical leave Nov. 27.
Kelly graduated from the University of Georgia, and got his law degree from the Georgia State University College of Law.
Anthony Johnson
Johnson, 37, said he wants to focus on gangs and juvenile violence, which he feels “uniquely qualified” to address, with his experience representing young clients accused of serious crimes.
He also would employ the judicial system’s “accountability courts” more often to divert first-time offenders from serving extended jail or prison time, he said. Those courts specialize in cases involving issues such as mental health and drug addiction.
After graduating from Carver in 2005, Johnson joined the Air Force, where he gained an associate’s degree before earning a bachelor’s degree from Thomas Edison State University in Trenton, New Jersey. He got his law degree in 2012 from the Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Auburn Hills, Michigan, he said.
He was on active duty in the Air Force from 2005 to 2009, then served in the Air Force Reserves from 2009 to 2016, he said. He has been in the Army Reserves since 2016, he said.
He was licensed to practice law in 2012, and has worked as a public defender in addition to his private practice.
