Ex-Savannah Cop’s Legal Argument

– Thursday, Aug. 8, 2024 –

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Good morning. I hope you’ve found ways to stay dry and stay sane during Tropical Storm Debby’s many rains, winds, warnings and watches.

In this week’s newsletter, we recap some of Debby’s damage across the coast, look to federal court statistics to learn more about crimes in Southeast Georgia, and examine the legal argument and new attorney for a former Savannah Police officer sued in a fatal shooting.

Questions, comments, story ideas? Send all feedback to jake.shore@thecurrentga.org.

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NEWS: PUBLIC SAFETY

Debby, by the numbers

Tropical Storm Debby gushed water on Coastal Georgia this week after carving a path through Florida. While the storm and its effects weren’t as catastrophic as initially predicted for our region, it still had some big impacts. Here is some of that aftermath:

• 10 inches of rain on average, 37 homes flooded in the Tremont Park neighborhood, and 18 water rescues by Savannah firefighters, city public safety officials announced at a Wednesday press conference recapping damage from Debby.
• 37 dogs, 53 cats and one rabbit from the Humane Society for Greater Savannah found temporary shelter thanks to many Good Samaritans who took the adoptable animals in as Debby approached, The Current‘s Serra Sowers reported.
• Three dozen trees downed across Glynn County plus minor flooding, according to Glynn County public safety spokesperson, Lawton Dodd. He said the county was spared the worst of the storm.
• 20 county roads considered impassable as of Wednesday in Effingham County, according to local emergency management director, Clint Hodges. He said public works has begun work to repair them.
• One wall of the Old Darien Theater on Broad Street collapsed during the storm, according to the City of Darien Public Works Department.

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ANALYSIS: COURTS

Southeast Georgia’s federal crime stats

Federal judges in the Southern District of Georgia, the court circuit encompassing all of Southeast Georgia, sentenced nearly twice as many people for gun crimes compared to U.S. courts nationally last year.

The data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission, released in the spring, shows not only crime trends in our swath of the state, but also what types of cases the local U.S. Attorney’s Office prosecutors are bringing to court and which cases make it to the finish line for sentencing. The fiscal year 2023 data says there were 371 such cases from the SDGA — encompassing federal crimes in the areas surrounding Augusta, Brunswick, Dublin, Savannah and Waycross — compared to a total of over 64,000 cases nationally.

While immigration crimes made up 30% of all federal sentences in U.S. courts in FY2023, those offenses made up only 1.9% in Southeast Georgia.

Takeaway: It’s not as simple as there are more illegal gun crimes and less illegal immigration in Georgia. For example, the districts of Western and Southern Texas made up over 20% of the entire national caseload in FY2023, and immigration cases represented around three-fourths of the cases sentenced in those two districts, according to the data.

NOTE: If the charts look too small on mobile, you can look at an enlarged version here.

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ANALYSIS: COURTS

ICYMI: Federal courts data, plus an update

In fall 2022, The Current reported on other federal court data that showed SDGA granted the second fewest “compassionate release” requests from prisoners by percentage of any district court in the nation.

Compassionate release requests are motions to release a convicted federal prisoner early for an “extraordinary and compelling reason,” according to federal law. The law is designed to release prisoners with terminal illnesses or those who are advanced in age and no longer pose a threat to the public.

The trend of denying these requests has largely held up in SDGA, according to data released in June. The district granted zero in FY2023 and denied 15 of 16 received during the first half of FY2024.

The First Step Act expanded these requests in 2018 by allowing prisoners to file them themselves instead of requiring the prison warden to file them — which was the previously rule. During the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, requests and granted requests spiked, as prisoners feared for their health while incarcerated.

But in the ensuing years, fewer compassionate release requests have been granted by judges and fewer requests have been filed, as the large-scale effects of Covid continue to fade from view. Look at the data for yourself here.

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NEWS: COURTS

Legal argument from ex-Savannah cop

Former Savannah police officer Ernest Ferguson denied all wrongdoing in the killing of Saudi Lee in Carver Village and claimed qualified immunity, according to a legal filing on Monday.

Lee’s family filed suit against Ferguson and the City of Savannah for the June 2022 officer-involved shooting, alleging Lee’s rights were violated by Ferguson and the city wrongfully hired Ferguson, who racked up disciplinary infractions in his past job as a prison guard. The Current first reported those infractions back in 2022.

Ferguson, no longer working in law enforcement and living in another state, is being represented by Savannah-based lawyer Malcolm Mackenzie. The attorney has successfully defended the City of Savannah and its police department against multiple civil rights lawsuits over the years. He was also one of the attorneys who represented chef Paula Deen in her racial discrimination case.

Ferguson’s claim of qualified immunity is a common legal refrain for police officers who have been sued.

It’s meant to protect civil servants from liability for doing their jobs. But the court-created legal doctrine has also been criticized for shielding police departments from accountability. The doctrine is the target of two pending U.S. House bills introduced in 2020 and 2021, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act and the Ending Qualified Immunity Act.

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