The Georgia Senate announced a new subcommittee to probe severe overcrowding and dangerous conditions at the Fulton County Jail on Thursday, with news breaking on Wednesday that State Senators John Albers (pictured above, left) (R-Alpharetta) and Randy Robertson (R-Cataula) (pictured above, right) will lead the probe.
The probe was revealed as activists gathered to protest Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat’s plan to relocate inmates to other facilities, including ones in south Georgia and Mississippi.
Georgia state senators expect the panel to begin hearings as early as November, reported The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which added that local experts, officials, and judges may be called to testify about the conditions in the jail. Though run by two Republicans, AJC reports the committee is expected to include at least one Democratic state senator.
Fulton County Jail became the subject of national news after a detainee was found dead and covered in bed bug bites last year, and 10 inmates have died at the facility so far in 2023, mostly from violent altercations. Earlier this year, the facility held at least 3,200 detainees, which Fox 5 Atlanta noted is well over the facility’s capacity of 2,700.
In September, Labat requested $30 million from Fulton County to make emergency improvements and move up to 1,000 detainees to the D. Ray James Correctional Facility in south Georgia and the Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility in Tutwiler, Mississippi. The facilities are 300 and 400 miles away from Atlanta, respectively, and protesters warned that defendants cannot prepare an adequate defense if relocated.
Albers promised to investigate “the root cause of the challenges” faced by Fulton County Jail, per AJC, and cautioned that assigning blame would be “premature at this point.” He stressed the probe “will follow the facts” and clarified that it will specifically investigate “the conditions and deaths at the jail.”
Fulton County Jail became the subject of intense criticisms by Republicans after District Attorney Fani Willis required former President Donald Trump and other defendants she indicted in a racketeering case surrender at the facility.
After Trump and his allies had mugshots taken at the jail, State Senator Brandon Beach (R-Alpharetta) compared the facility to a “concentration camp” and blamed Willis for “not doing her job” and prosecuting cases quickly. Similarly, former Republican Georgia Senator Kelly Loeffler said Willis’s backlog of cases means “[w]e don’t really have the rule of law” in Fulton County because Willis is “going after Trump” to “interfere in the 2024 election.”
“In Fulton County, the case backlog is 40,000.” Loeffler added, “We had 10 inmates die in Fulton County Jail waiting for their own case to be heard.”
The jail has also been the subject of several lawsuits, with the latest legal threat launched by the family of a detainee who was fatally stabbed at the facility in 2022. The family gave the jail until October 22 to rectify the situation at the jail or face a lawsuit.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Georgia Star News and a reporter for the Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Randy Robertson” by Randy Robertson.
