The dismissal of a 31-count racketeering and theft indictment against former Cobb EMC chief Dwight Brown over an access issue could put thousands of criminal proceedings in jeopardy, the district attorney for Cobb County said Wednesday.
That would include 15 indictments issued in the same new courtroom and on the same day as Brown -- that involved charges of rape, false imprisonment, child molestation, aggravated assault, armed robbery, illegal possession of firearms by a felon, auto theft and identity fraud.
Judge Robert Flournoy tossed out Brown's indictment when he ruled that the courtroom used was not open to the public, or accessible, as the law requires.
District Attorney Pat Head said thousands of other cases might be affected because they were conducted in courtroom facilities at the county jail, another potential access issue. The potential ripple effects of the ruling on the county's judicial system have caused Head's office to appeal Judge Robert Flournoy's ruling instead of re-indicting Brown.
"This decision has far-reaching ramifications," Head said. "It needs to be reviewed by the appellate courts."
Drew Findling, a local defense attorney, said he doubted the ruling would have a widespread impact, such as Head suggested, because of the unusual circumstances of the Brown indictment.
"I don't see this as a floodgate opening, "Findling said.
Findling said most indictments are handed down with no public present because no one knows when they're going to happen. The Brown indictment, though, was highly anticipated by the news media.
"What you had here is some highly skilled, highly intelligent and highly motivated attorneys who are going to do everything they can to get the indictment thrown out," Findling said.
A Cobb County grand jury indicted Brown on Jan. 5, alleging he had stolen from the Marietta-based electric cooperative and conspired to hide his actions from its customers, who double as owners. The indictment capped a more than two-year investigation by Head's office. It targeted a relationship between the non-profit co-op -- the power supplier for 200,000 customers in Atlanta's northwest suburbs -- and Cobb Energy, a company partly owned and led by Brown.
At the request of Cobb County Superior Court Judge George Kreeger, the grand jury handed down the Brown indictment in Kreeger's new courtroom, which was across the street from the old one and hadn't officially opened its front doors to the public.
On Wednesday, Kreeger would not comment on the dismissed case.
The public could access the new courthouse through a catwalk from the old courthouse, but only with an escort from court personnel. When the indictment was provided, members of the news media were in the courtroom, brought there by court staff.
Brown's attorney, former Gov. Roy Barnes, asked the court to throw out the indictments based on the escort requirement. He argued the general public wouldn't have been allowed across the bridge, therefore preventing the indictments from being handed down in open court as required.
Flournoy's ruling agreed, saying that the escort requirement had prevented one of Barnes' law firm associates from getting to the courtroom, which showed that the proceeding hadn't been open to the public.
A court administrator gave Barnes instructions to the new courtroom, and provided a cellphone to be used to call for an escort. However, the Barnes associate went to the locked entrance of the new courthouse first, before walking up the block to the proper entrance and using the cellphone.
Caren Morrison, a Georgia State assistant law professor who specializes in criminal procedure, said the ruling might have problems on appeal.
"This doesn't look like a deliberate attempt to keep anyone out," she said. "There was public access; maybe it was less convenient, but there was public access. I don't know that being slightly more difficult to get to means there is not public access."
Hollie Manheimer, Georgia First Amendment Foundation director, disagreed, saying, "Access must be meaningful access, and not just access in name."
Staff writer Rhonda Cook contributed to this article.
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