Following a request from temporary Hinds District Attorney Brad McCullouch, the Hinds County Board of Supervisors on Monday agreed to pay for a prosecutor to resolve cases that haven’t gone to trial.
McCullouch told the board that the new prosecutor would work to quell crowding in the Hinds County Detention Center in Raymond – a proposal that delighted some of the county’s five supervisors.
The new DA was appointed by Gov. Tate Reeves in July after former Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens pleaded guilty to federal charges of conspiracy to commit bribery and resigned.
“All I can say is, ‘outstanding idea,’” said District 2 Supervisor Tony Smith, who represents the county’s rural, westernmost district from Bolton to Utica.
One cause of overpopulation at the jail is that cases trickle through the county’s justice system, with some people sitting in jail for over a year before trial. As of Sunday, the jail, which has 594 beds, is overcapacity by more than 300 people, according to the county’s daily inmate count.
McCullouch argued that an additional prosecutor would allow the office to indict cases faster or offer defendants an alternative resolution more quickly.
Brad McCullouch, a Madison attorney who Gov. Tate Reeves appointed Hinds County District Attorney in July, discusses proposals he believes could reduce overcrowding at the jail. Credit: Molly Minta/Mississippi TodayThe county pays for salary supplements to each of the 15 state-funded prosecutors in the district attorney’s office, which prosecutes felony cases in the state’s Seventh Circuit Court District. The money for the additional prosecutor will come from the county’s “unappropriated surplus,” said Lynn Seals, the county administrator.
Seals said the county’s comptroller would know the total dollar amount of the county’s unallocated surplus, but the comptroller did not return an email from Mississippi Today by press time.
The boost to the DA’s budget comes after supervisors heard pleas from the Hinds County Public Defender’s Office earlier this year to increase the salaries of the county’s 23 public defenders.
For years, Gail Wright Lowery, the head public defender, has told the board that her office experiences persistent turnover because public defenders are not paid enough in Hinds County. Lowery has also argued that this turnover leads to jail crowding because indigent defendants lack an attorney who could seek their release.
At the time, the board told Lowery the county didn’t have the funds for a $350,000 across-the-board pay raise she had requested.
“If we can get these people out, then we can have extra money to give you guys a raise,” Smith said earlier this year. “So the problem is, I understand you need more money. I wish we had (it) to give it.”
Seals then found about $261,000 in leftover pandemic relief money the county had previously allocated to construction of a water tower at the new jail.
But the stopgap funding didn’t stop the turnover in Lowery’s office. On Monday, McCullouch attended the board meeting with a new prosecutor who recently left the public defender’s office, virtually doubling his salary overnight.
In addition to resolving cases of people who haven’t been indicted, McCullouch told the board the new prosecutor would work to reduce the number of people in Raymond on nonviolent charges or who need “expedited medical services.”
“We think it’s going to be dramatic savings to the county,” he said.
District 5 Supervisor Bobby “Bobcat” McGowan was the lone voice opposing the new prosecutor. He asked McCullouch: “My question is, do we got to pay for it? Is it in your budget, what you’re trying to do?”
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