From Scott Ballard's personal website (www.GuardingWhatSours.org):

1) Does it really make a difference who gets to be district attorney?

Obviously, I think it does. Four years ago I left the partnership with my father that had been my lifelong dream to take less pay as District Attorney. The reason I did this is that I feel very strongly that this position matters. The best law enforcement in the world and the best judges can’t successfully protect the citizens if there is a breakdown in prosecution.

Since assuming office, I have learned that there are opportunities to partner with the schools and with other governmental agencies to work toward the betterment of the community. That, of course, requires an awareness of the needs of the community and a vision for its future. The district attorney should be such a person. I am pleased with the extent to which we have accomplished those partnerships in Fayette, Pike, and Upson Counties. We are just now reaching the point where we have a handle on the caseload in Spalding County to begin to explore such partnerships there and I look forward to the progress we will make in that regard in my second term.

2) In broad strokes, describe your philosophy of justice as the advocate for the people of this state and county against persons accused of crimes.

People have a right to pursue their lives without interference from criminals. When criminals break the law, the District Attorney’s Office should assist law enforcement in their efforts to catch and properly charge the criminals. We strive to be available to law enforcement for any assistance it needs at that stage.

After the arrest, it is up to us to be the advocate for the people. If we don’t fight for the victim and the public, nobody can. That’s why it is vital that we evaluate the case properly. We have to predict the likely result at a trial of the case if presented in its current posture and take the steps necessary to put it in the status that is most likely to result in success at trial. Does another witness need to be interviewed? Should additional scientific tests be done? When the case has been prepared as effectively as possible, we have to evaluate again what course of action will best benefit the public and the victims.

I believe that you hire the most capable prosecutors available and give them the freedom to use discretion free from political and other considerations that may interfere with the goal of enforcing the law in a way that protects the community.

3) How will you allocate scarce resources to best serve Fayette, Spalding, Upson and Pike counties? Will the biggest get the most?

I will follow the plan that I’ve been using. That means that we will assign workers to the areas where the most work requires their presence. Right now our heaviest crime is in Spalding, so we have more prosecutors and investigators and victim advocates there than anywhere else. Of course, when court is in session in a particular county, we often move personnel there temporarily to assist.

We will also continue to make good use of money received from sources other than taxpayers. For example, defendants pay a surcharge on top of each fine; we have used those receipts to fund the salaries of eight of our employees in the circuit.

4) What do you view as the chief weaknesses in your current office and how do you plan to address them?

I’d like for us to do a better job communicating with each other and with others. Most of the errors we have made have been the result of poor or ineffective communication.

We’ve already begun to address this issue. The position of Law Enforcement Liaison, which I created when I took office, is the model I would follow to improve communication in the other areas where communication is a problem. The Law Enforcement Liaison tries to stay in touch with law enforcement officers to discuss with them what they need from us and what we need from them. She schedules training sessions where the officers and prosecutors get together to discuss legal and procedural issues. She tries to convey information between the prosecutors and the officers as to the resolution of cases and the scheduling of appearances in court. Our victim advocates perform many of these functions with the crime victims.

Still, we are a long way from where I hope to be at the end of my next term. I plan to try to get a Law Enforcement Liaison to dedicate to the Spalding County law enforcement officers. Our communication with other governmental agencies, while much better than it was when I too office, still needs to improve. And, I hope to make use of the website from this campaign to provide better communication with the public in the future about our work in the DA’s Office.

5) Your opponent has criticized your leadership, alleging that you and your staff are often not prepared for trial, sometimes leading to “not guilty” verdicts and reverses on appeal. How accurate is this criticism?

It is a criticism I have only heard from him. If this were a problem, I would expect that law enforcement and court personnel would join him in raising those criticisms. If the voters ask those people, I’m confident that they will be quite proud of their District Attorney’s Office and the men and women who serve them here.

I always do some soul searching when there is a “not guilty” verdict. We don’t have many. The ones that come to mind were cases where the evidence was circumstantial and we knew it would be difficult to convict, but felt that the ends of justice required us to try the case. I think we have guessed incorrectly how a jury might view evidence, but I don’t think any of our prosecutors has lost a case because of being unprepared.

As for the appeals, my opponent has been alarmist and sloppy with the truth. He cites the reversal by the Court of Appeals in the Selfe case (a man had filmed himself over the internet masturbating and sent the image to a police officer he believed to be a 15 year-old girl). We indicted the case just as the statute was written. The appellate court’s gripe was really with the legislature and the way the statute is written. All we have to do is re-indict that case alleging a different part of the statute. We’ll do that with any of the internet porn cases that are affected by the ruling. Remember, internet porn cases are relatively new and we are pioneers in the field. Nobody knew that the Court of Appeals would object to the wording of the legislature as they did. One adverse court ruling will not stop us from leading the state in this effort to protect our children.

Moreover, my opponent fails to mention that Selfe is not free. We convicted him for obscene internet contact and that conviction was affirmed. That is not the only thing that is misleading about my opponent’s discussion of our appellate record. He counts against us a reversal of one of the counts in Middlebrooks v. State, but fails to mention that the other twenty-one counts were affirmed. Some of the convictions that were reversed were cases tried before I was DA and one case was reversed because the evidence was insufficient to reverse; that means the prosecutor got a conviction on evidence too weak to allow a conviction to stand.

In short, the criticism is not very accurate.

6) Some have criticized you for testifying on behalf of a convicted child molester at a hearing where a south Georgia judge was to determine whether or not to revoke his probation. You are the DA, 24 hours a day. Why should voters not consider this a prime example of how you are “soft on criminals”?

You’re being kind by saying some have criticized me. Many people have criticized that decision. I suspected they would and it was not an easy decision to do what I did. I had been served with a subpoena, because I was the prayer group leader for a man who had, 18 years earlier, been placed on probation for child molestation. He was now facing probation revocation proceedings in Bainbridge because he got drunk, failed to pay his cab driver and scuffled with officers. We have to rely upon subpoenas to do our work in Fayette County and I decided out of respect for the court in Bainbridge not to resist the subpoena. I thought it would be a service to the court for me to share with the judge what I knew about the defendant. I told the judge that, whatever other punishment he ordered, I hoped he would require alcohol treatment, because when the defendant drinks, he causes trouble for others.

I understand why people would criticize that decision. But, it is inaccurate, and even offensive, for people to claim that my decision to honor a subpoena and assist a judge in a sister circuit with a decision he had to make proves I’m soft on crime. I’m a father. I’m an uncle. I’ve demonstrated my devotion to children by coaching ball teams, teaching Sunday school classes and Vacation Bible School, participating in youth organizations, coaching mock trial teams, attending career fairs, speaking to classes and clubs at school, prosecuting and convicting five child molesters personally and cheering on our ADAs as they prosecute many others. I’ve scheduled and led classes for investigators of crimes against children to strengthen those cases.

Moreover, my record for cooperating with the schools to deter gang activity and to preserve the resources of taxpayers so that they are available for students who are legitimately in our schools speaks clearly on my commitment to our children. Perhaps you’ve noticed that for that stance I have been accused of being too hard on criminals.

7) Your opponent has criticized the amount of details you released to a TV network on the deaths of the family of pro wrestler Chris Benoit and your stance not to release details on plea negotiations on closed cases involving child molestations out of sensitivity to the victims. That seems to be having it both ways. How do you respond to that criticism?

In child molestation cases there is always the possibility that a child will have to testify. That process can prove very psychologically damaging to some children; it is therapeutic to others. Some children feel guilt, because they have been made to believe that by revealing that they have been molested, they are breaking up the family unit. Some blame themselves, because they think they should have done more to stop their abusers. When we decide to plea a child molestation case, these are just some of the factors that we must consider. To splash all over the public our rationale for reaching the decision to plea certain cases would be very injurious to the victims.

The Benoit matter didn’t involve a plea, or even an arrest. My role was to reassure the public that a killer was not on the loose and to shield the sheriff’s office from the national media so that the investigators could do their jobs. If I had not talked, someone from Los Angeles or Chicago would have been on the news speculating in such a way that I feared would distort matters and open our county to unjust criticism.

The Benoit matter and child molestation pleas are too dissimilar to compare.