Hundreds of accused violent felons in Georgia’s Fulton County could be eligible to be released from prison while awaiting indictment due to a backlog of cases that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic, county officials said.
Individuals charged with crimes in Georgia are entitled to bond if they are not indicted within 90 days due to a law that was initially suspended during the pandemic but reinstated earlier this year, CNN reported Tuesday. The backlog means hundreds of defendants, many accused of violent crimes, could soon be released from prison.
“We walked into an office with an excess of 11,000 unindicted cases,” said Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, according to CNN. “In addition to that, we already had another 12,000 that were indicted and were working their way through the court system.”
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis answers questions at a press conference on August 13, 2021 (Screenshot/11Alive via YouTube)
Willis said her office is working “around the clock” on serious cases, including accused murderers and sexual predators, but said there will be “four or five-hundred defendants” eligible to receive bond “without having the proper evaluation by law.”
Of the 224 murder defendants who have been charged but not indicted in Fulton County, more than 50 will need to be indicted by the end of the week in order to remain detained, CNN reported. Willis noted the county had a Tuesday deadline to indict murder defendants before they were eligible to receive bond.
“I can guarantee the public that there will not be someone that was charged with homicide that will not be charged,” she said. “We’re just working around the clock to make sure that I can make that guarantee. We also did the same thing with the sexual offenses and now we are working our way through other violent offenders.”
Critics slammed the District Attorney for potentially allowing hundreds of accused violent felons to be released, CNN reported. Atlanta Victim Assistance director Brenda Muhammad noted that many victims and their loved ones could soon see the people who committed crimes against them “out on the street.” (RELATED: Crime Is So Bad In Atlanta The State Might Ask Locals To Fund The Police For A Tax Deduction)
Manny Arora, a local criminal defense attorney, said the District Attorney’s office “had plenty of time to investigate the cases” regardless of the pandemic.
Authorities reported May 18 that there had been 52 homicides in Fulton County in 2021, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The number represents a more than 50% increase from that time in 2020, a year in which authorities reported a record-breaking 157 homicides.