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County urges judge to dismiss sheriff-marshal suit

By JOHN MUNFORD
jmunford@TheCitizenNews.com

Fayette County is again asking a judge to rule in its favor in a lawsuit against Sheriff Randall Johnson, who for a brief period in late 2003 stopped accepting prisoners at the jail who had been arrested by county marshals.

Johnson contends that the county commission circumvented a state law requiring that all county police departments created after 1992 be approved in a voter referendum. Thus, he has said, the marshal’s department should not be operating as a police agency.

The county contends that the marshal’s department was created in 1989 through a resolution of the Fayette County Board of Commissioners as a legitimate law enforcement agency and thus did not need voter approval.

The county is asking the judge to rule in its favor before the matter goes to trial, a legal maneuver called summary judgment.

In court documents filed recently, county attorneys argue that the marshal’s department was given more than $200,000 in the county’s 1990 budget, proving that it was created before the 1992 requirement for a referendum.

County attorneys also cited several cases made by one county marshal in the early days of the department, which included capturing a wanted suspect.

The county also counters the concept that its marshals are those as spelled out by Georgia law, which would severely limit their powers. Instead, these marshals were created by local law, the county argues.

The jail is currently accepting prisoners from the marshal’s department as part of a consent order temporarily reached between the county and the sheriff. Johnson contends that the status of the marshal’s department could put himself and the county at risk of lawsuits.

County marshals rarely make arrests compared to other law enforcement officers, but they are empowered to do so because they are also state certified law enforcement officers. Their main duties include patrolling county owned property, investigating county matters and enforcing county ordinances, which includes the writing of citations.

County attorneys argue that Johnson, by law, is required to take custody of all offenders “arrested on indictable offenses.”