DA is named “Prosecutor of the Year”
♦ Browning honored by arson council at annual conference
Tallapoosa Circuit District Attorney got a special award from one organization during a recent meeting on Jekyll Island for his work on a murder-arson case in Haralson County.
Browning said he put behind bars “one of the most dangerous men” in the area who was convicted in the shooting death late last year of Natoshia Smith.
Randy Leon Pittman Jr. received a life sentence with an additional 20 years for the 2015 death of Smith, along with the attempt to burn down an abandoned house to cover up the murder, connected to a relationship the two had at the time.
For the long hours and subsequent trial and conviction of Pittman, the Georgia Arson Control Board named Browning the Prosecutor of the Year.
He received the award during the Prosecuting Attorney Council of Georgia’s annual training conference on the Georgia Coastline on July 25.
Browning said without the help of his staff and Haralson County law enforcement and ¿UH GHSDUWPHQW RI¿FLDOV KH wouldn’t have been able to spend the time he needed to win the case. It took hundreds of hours of interviews of 40 people to give him the needed information to win in court.
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He also added his thanks WR VSHFL¿F SHRSOH RQ )DFHbook, including: the Haralson &RXQW\ 6KHULII¶V 2I¿FH DQG Fire Department, Bernie Reece, Teresa Pilcher, Sonny &KHU\O $SULO *ULI¿WK %ULDQ / Walker, and “a host of other folks, too many to name.”
Browning added with Pittman’s conviction last year, Haralson County became a “safer place.”
“He had his fingers in a lot of criminal pies,” Browning said.