UPDATE: Another interesting development.  The DeKalb Officers blog calls out the AJC and GBI and defends their department.

Everybody starts jumping on the bandwagon accusing Whittington and others of making the wrong decisions and showing favoritism toward Commissioner Sutton. Un-informed buffoons from the GBI and the Gwinnett Sheriff’s Office (click here for AJC article “GBI, sheriff question DeKalb handling of wanted commissioner”) jump in and give their two cents worth.

Small problem though. See, the warrants were issued on January 8, 2008. According to O.C.G.A. 17-3-1 (2009), there’s this little ole sentence that reads: “Prosecution for misdemeanors must be commenced within two years after the commission of the crime.” So, if Commissioner Sutton had been arrested, then that could have caused big problems for all involved. (Also see Pickens v Hollowell and Opinion of Thurbet E Baker, Georgia Attorney General).

This story continues to develop in truly odd ways, so it felt appropriate to give it a new post.

The AJC reports the story of the DeKalb Commissioner with four outstanding warrants NOT being arrested by DeKalb Police after a traffic accident has now attracted the attention of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, who says they might want “to look at [DeKalb's] procedures and process to see if there were extenuating circumstances or retraining was needed for the officer.”

And that’s the latest piece of the “Why didn’t the police arrest DeKalb Commissioner Sharon Barnes Sutton?” puzzle.

But what about the “Why did the judge recall warrants?” question?  In this latest article, Gwinnett majistrate judge Gene Cantrell told the AJC that the merchant [Costco] asked for the charges to be dropped and that they didn’t know “who is person was.”  So why was Costco so eager to recall warrants that sat open for years?  Still no answer on that front.

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Emily sends along this email from Agnes Scott College’s Michelle Hall announcing the return of “a pioneer of the campus sustainability movement”, David Orr.

According to a press release sent along with the email, Orr’s visit “is the inaugural event for Agnes Scott’s Environmental and Sustainability Studies program created in 2009. In addition to his lecture to the wider community on January 26th, Orr “will teach an introductory environment and sustainability studies class and have a roundtable discussion with faculty.”

After the jump, read Michelle’s full message, which includes the date and time of Orr’s lecture along with a brief bio.

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Things are slowly beginning to take shape in the race to fill the 42 District GA Senate seat being vacated by David Adelman, who is scheduled to become President Obama’s Ambassador to Singapore in the coming weeks.

Jason Carter and Tom Stubbs have already officially announced, but are there other candidates waiting in the wings? In an overview of the race thus far, the Decatur News Online e-pub drops this interesting tidbit…

Acting Chair of the DeKalb Libertarian Party, Chris Barber, told Decatur News Online that his camp will announce a candidate for the seat in the very near future. Barber says that the candidate is a long-time Decatur resident and small business owner that will “reach out heavily to the gay and lesbian community.” “His platform will be based on human rights and fiscal responsibility,” Barber said.

And shifting the focus back to the known candidates, David writes in to DM with a report of a polling call from Jason Carter and a question for his fellow readers…

Got a polling call from what was never explicitly identified as — but very clearly was — the Jason Carter campaign for the Adelman seat. It was remarkably thorough and long (i.e. expensive), it might be interesting to post a “have you gotten any polling calls? if so from whom?” question in the next few days.

Use this post to make comments and ask questions about local issues not discussed here in the past week.

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