Coger Announces For Prosecuting Attorney

FAYETTEVILLE — Stephen Coger has announced his intention to run for prosecuting attorney in the 4th Judicial District, saying he’d focus more on putting violent offenders behind bars while saving the county money by getting nonviolent, pretrial detainees out of jail.

The district includes Madison and Washington counties.

Mat t Durre tt , the current prosecutor, has not announced his plans but is expected to seek reelection. The nonpartisan general election for judges and prosecutors is May 24. Filing begins Feb. 22.

Coger, 37, is an attorney from Fayetteville. He’s a former Fulbright Scholar who grew up in Danville and runs a law practice that specializes in helping women and child survivors of human trafficking and sexual abuse.

“I just believe that we all need to be involved if we see a place that could use improvement,” Coger said.

“I think there was a time in my younger days where I would just want to organize a protest or event to highlight a situation and now, at this point in my life as a citizen and an attorney, I feel like I don’t want to be on the outside, I want to be on the inside making the change.”

Coger said too often he sees criminals face no consequences for their actions.

“I want to see my community safe, and I think I could really focus the office on violent crime in a new way,” he said.

“There are so many cases, and we’ve only got a $ 1.5 million budget. I think there has to be a focusing on crimes that pose a danger to people and their property. I really believe we could do more to make sure that violence is curbed.”

Coger points to a situation in Washington County in which a murder charge was dropped against a defendant whose case was not brought to trial in the time required.

“That can’t be allowed to happen,” he said. “We’ve got plenty of prosecutors that have tons of experience in trials and I want to make sure that we’re using them wisely.”

Coger said 80% of the people in the county jail are pretrial detainees.

“Plenty of them are there because they can’t afford the $250 or $500 piece of their bail that they need to pay a bondsman,” he said.

Coger said the annual jail budget is more than $12 million, and he thinks it’s possible to save $1 million a year by releasing those who pose no danger to the public, have no prior violent offenses and show up for their court dates.

“I’m afraid I’ll scare some voters when I say release people from jail, but I’m not going to release dangerous people,” he said.

Prosecuting attorneys earn $171,122 per year and serve four-year terms.