A Fulton County j udge ruled on Monday that Sheriff Pat Labat (D) cannot transfer jail detainees from Atlanta to a private prison in Mississippi. Labat previously indicated he would move up to 1,000 inmates to facilities in south Georgia and Mississippi to ease overcrowding.
In a mixed ruling, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee determined Labat (pictured above) does not have the legal authority to transfer inmates to other states but also dismissed allegations that he was violating his official duties by considering the transfer.
McAfee ruled that Georgia law “does not permit the sheriff to transfer detainees outside Georgia,” explaining that “the most natural and reasonable reading” of Georgia law “is that the Sheriff lacks the authority” to make such transfers.
The lawsuit was brought by Atlanta Judicial Circuit public defender Maurice Kenner, whose office Fox 5 Atlanta reported represents most Fulton County Jail inmates. In his ruling, McAfee revealed Kenner said he believed Labat’s transfers to Mississippi were imminent and that his lawsuit was necessary to stop them.
McAfee explained this “argument was negated by sworn testimony that” transferring detainees to a Tallahatchie, Mississippi facility “is not actively being considered by the Sheriff’s Chief of Staff.” The judge noted that “Petitioner’s counsel conceded this opinion was ‘new information,’ and the Petitioner’s belief before trial was that the transfer was imminent.”
Because McAfee determined that Labat has no current plans to move detainees out of state, and both “parties agree that the Fulton County Jail is in an ‘unsafe condition,'” he determined to dismiss the case because it was “based on an anticipatory failure of Sheriff Labat to comply with his statutory duties, and the evidence presented at trial fell short of demonstrating a failure to perform an official duty.”
A spokesman for the Fulton County Public Defender’s Office told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution they are “very pleased” with McAfee’s judgement, and claimed it successfully stopped Fulton County detainees from “being disappeared into a private prison in Mississippi.”
Labat responded with a statement calling for a “true partnership” with the public defender’s office and promised to “implement visionary measures to reduce the jail population by outsourcing inmates within the State of Georgia.”
The facility, which was designed to hold about 1,000 detainees or inmates, currently houses over 3,000 individuals. So far this year, 10 deaths have been reported at Fulton County Jail, including several from a violent incident that occurred just before former President Donald Trump and his co-defendants were ordered to surrender at the troubled jail.
Fulton County Jail is currently under investigation by the Department of Justice and the Georgia Senate. It is facing a potential lawsuit from the family of a man who was stabbed to death at the facility in 2022.
Eight Georgia State Senators blamed District Attorney Fani Willis for the conditions. They alleged she “cherry-picked” cases based on her political views in a complaint they filed against her with the state’s new Prosecuting Attorneys Qualification Commission.
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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].
