Jurors get ethics case against Columbus, Ga., D.A.

COLUMBUS, Ga. — A prosecutor asked jurors in closing arguments Thursday to convict a Georgia district attorney on charges that he acted unethically, saying the acts imperiled justice, while his defense lawyer argued that none of the acts violate any laws and prosecutors didn’t prove their case.

Jurors got the case against District Attorney Mark Jones on Thursday, and must decide whether he tried to influence a police officer’s testimony, offered bribes to prosecutors and tried to pressure a crime victim to drop a complaint.

Jones took office in January overseeing a circuit including Muscogee, Harris, Chattahoochee, Marion, Talbot and Taylor counties in west Georgia. Gov. Brian Kemp suspended Jones after he was indicted and he would be removed if convicted.

Local news outlets report testimony in the trial began Tuesday, with witnesses including two assistant district attorneys who said Jones improperly offered them $1,000 bonuses if they won murder convictions or took murder cases to trial.

Jurors saw video of a profanity-laced argument Jones had with a Columbus police detective over the detective’s conclusion that a shooting death was an accident and not a murder.

A district attorney’s investigator said Jones prepared, but did not seek, an indictment against a witness in a murder case because he wanted the witness jailed.

Jurors also heard from the nephew of a shooting victim who filed a complaint against Jones for violating the Georgia Crime Victims Bill of Rights for not notifying relatives before a man charged with involuntary manslaughter in the uncle’s shooting was released on bail. Prosecutors argue Jones improperly pressured the man to drop the complaint.

“Prosecutors must be above-board. Otherwise, bad things happen,” Deputy Attorney General John Fowler, who is prosecuting the case for the attorney general’s office, told jurors according to the Ledger-Enquirer.

Fowler, said “justice is for everyone,” but argued Jones was not motivated by the impartial pursuit of justice.

“For Mark Jones, it’s not about justice,” Fowler told jurors. “It’s all about him.”

Jones did not testify and his defense called no witnesses. Attorney Katonga Wright argued that prosecutors had not proved their case.

“If the facts don’t fit, you must acquit Mr. Jones,” she said in closing arguments, repeating a line from her opening statement Tuesday.

Wright argued Jones was not trying to pressure the nephew, and said he was too distant a relative to file a complaint under the law anyway. She said Jones was new to the job when he offered the prosecutors $1,000 bonuses and had a different understanding of how prosecutors may be compensated for their work. She said the argument with the detective was not an attempt to get the officer to lie under oath, but simply an conversation she characterized as “drunk talk.”

Charges against Jones for damaging government property in a May 2020 campaign video were already dismissed. The video included stunt driving moves, including cars driving in doughnuts with smoking tires in the parking lot of the Columbus Civic Center.

Jones is charged in another unrelated case with DUI, reckless driving and causing injury following a November 2019 crash in which police said Jones was driving drunk.

That case is pending.