Lowndes County will have two new public defenders heading into the new year after District 16 circuit judges did not reappointment Carrie Jourdan and William Starks back to the posts.
Circuit judge James Kitchens confirmed to The Dispatch this week that he and fellow District 16 circuit judges Lee Coleman and Lee Howard did not reappointment the attorneys.
The judges instead appointed Rhonda Hayes Ellis and Brandon Langford. They join Collen Hudson, Donna Smith and Steve Wallace as the public defenders for Lowndes County. Hudson, Smith and Wallace were each reappointed by the judges.
Ellis was an assistant district attorney under longtime District 16 DA Forrest Allgood, who lost that post during November’s general election to Scott Colom. Langford is a Columbus-based attorney.
Kitchens said the decision not to reappoint Jourdan and Starks came primarily as a result of their failure to visit clients at the Lowndes County Adult Detention Center.
“A couple of years ago, we told all them they need to start going to jail and visiting their clients,” Kitchens said. “We were getting complaints from inmates that they were not being seen in the interim periods between terms. That was a requirement we put on all of them. That was a motivating factor in not reappointing the people we didn’t reappoint.”
Officials at the Lowndes County Adult Detention Center declined to release to The Dispatch the jail’s visitor log.
Jourdan told The Dispatch on Thursday that she routinely visits with her clients at the Lowndes County courthouse. She said that in 18 years as a public defender she has always done that because it is more convenient and more effective than visiting them at the jail.
But Jourdan said not getting reappointed did not come as a surprise. She said she was told a month ago by a colleague that Kitchens was not going to reappoint her because of her vocal support of Colom in the DA’s race. The evening before the Nov. 3 election, Jourdan posted a comment on Facebook endorsing Colom.
Kitchens told The Dispatch the decision to not reappoint Jourdan had nothing to do with support for Colom.
“It’s not because of anything that anybody published,” he said.
Kitchens said public defenders visiting with the jailed clients is “a big deal.”
“Especially here, because the docket is fairly congested,” he said. “We get lots of complaints from inmates — they’ll write us and say, ‘I’ve not seen my lawyer,’ or ‘My lawyer hasn’t been down to see me.’ That was a requirement. We wanted to cut down on complaints and, quite frankly, letters to the bar and things such as that.”
Starks declined to comment to The Dispatch on Thursday.
The five public defenders in Lowndes County operate on one-year terms. Kitchens told The Dispatch that public defenders used to serve four-year terms that aligned with the DA’s terms, but that state statute was done away with a few years ago.
“The statute that used to say they were appointed during the term of the district attorney’s office was not reenacted,” he said. “That was about four years ago. For the last four years they’ve been on a yearly appointment.”
Current appointments expire Dec. 31.
Lowndes County Administrator Ralph Billingsley said each public defender makes $37,728 a year, plus benefits.
Other public defenders in Golden Triangle
Clay County has two public defenders. They are Mark Stewart — who recently replaced Mark Cliett — and Kristen Wood Williams. They earn $3,090 per month, according to county officials.
Noxubee County has two public defenders. They are Tina Ferrel and Shane Tompkins. County officials did not respond to messages from The Dispatch regarding their salaries.
Oktibbeha County has three public defenders. They are Ben Lang, Stephanie Mallette and Mark Williamson. They earn $37,040 a year, according to county officials.
Dispatch reporters Slim Smith, Carl Smith and William Browning contributed to this report.
Alex Holloway was formerly a reporter with The Dispatch.
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