The indictment was longer than I expected.
Sixty-three pages.
I placed it on my desk and began reading with the same care I gave documents in my own courtroom.
I had to remind myself that I was not the judge in this case.
I was involved in the facts.
I had been injured by one of the defendants.
And I could not pretend the allegations were emotionally distant.
Still, I wanted to understand what prosecutors had charged.
Not what commentators thought.
Not what people on television predicted.
What the grand jury had actually returned.
Nine counts alleged that Sheriff Dalton Voss had violated constitutional rights while acting under the authority of his office.
The statute concerned deprivation of rights under color of law.
I knew it well.
It existed because people entrusted with government power could misuse that power.
And when they did, the consequences could be criminal.
My arrest was included.
So were incidents involving Deacon Earl Simmons and Rufus Tate.
The charges also addressed the death of Hattie Greene.
I stopped reading when I reached her name.
I remembered the first time I had seen it.
Not in a courtroom.
Not in a formal legal complaint.
But in a letter written by her seventeen-year-old great-grandson.
Jaylen Greene had used yellow legal paper.
His handwriting had been careful but uneven.
He explained that his great-grandmother had died in the county jail.
He said she had been denied medicine.
And he wanted someone to investigate.
I had read that letter in Atlanta months before meeting Sheriff Voss.
Now her name appeared in a federal indictment.
I sat quietly for a while.
Then I continued.
Other charges concerned the alleged financial scheme involving Pinecrest Holdings.
Prosecutors accused Voss and others of using official power to benefit private property transactions.
The indictment included conspiracy allegations involving wire fraud and honest services fraud.
The government alleged that public duties had been corrupted by private payments.
I remembered the amount Agent Greer had mentioned in the booking room.
$187,500.
Three transfers.
From Pinecrest Holdings to an account in the name of Voss's wife.
At the time, the sheriff had claimed the company was merely his brother-in-law's business.
Now prosecutors were alleging something much more serious.
They claimed his official conduct and the financial transfers were connected.
The indictment also contained a theft charge concerning government property.
Investigators had recovered $43,600 in cash from the locked gray cabinet in Voss's office.
I remembered hearing about the rubber-banded bundles.
And the folder marked Corridor.
But the presence of cash did not automatically prove where it came from.
That was a matter the prosecution would need to establish.
There were also two obstruction charges.
Those concerned allegations that deputies had been directed to produce false reports.
I read those sections slowly.
A false report can do damage far beyond the page it occupies.
It can influence charging decisions.
It can affect whether someone remains in custody.
It can shape what a court believes.
And it can keep a family from learning the truth about someone they have lost.
I thought about Hattie's relatives being told she had died because of her heart.
They had not been told about the four requests for medicine recorded by Caleb Miller.
I did not know whether those requests would ultimately be proved exactly as described.
But I knew why investigating them mattered.
The indictment did not name only Voss.
His brother-in-law, Wade Purcell, faced conspiracy and fraud charges connected to Pinecrest Holdings.
So did Darla Fenwick.
She worked in the tax commissioner's office.
Investigators alleged that Fenwick had warned Purcell about coming tax sales.
They also alleged that tax notices had been deliberately sent to incorrect addresses.
I reread that part.
It explained a piece of the property scheme that had troubled me since Agent Delgado described the land acquisitions.
A property owner could not protect a home or a farm if the required notice never reached the right address.
People depended on those notices.
They told families when payments were overdue.
They identified deadlines.
They explained when property might be sold.
If someone deliberately interfered with that process, the consequences could be devastating.
And those consequences might appear perfectly ordinary in the records unless someone examined them closely.
An unpaid tax bill.
A missed deadline.
A sale.
A new owner.
Each step might look administrative.
But the indictment alleged that some of those steps had been manipulated.
I thought about the eleven parcels.
Roughly 640 acres.
Timberland.
River frontage.
Property near a transmission corridor and planned highway bypass.
Land purchased cheaply before its value increased.
Then I thought about the families.
The people who had lived there.
The people who had inherited property.
The people who may not have understood how quickly they could lose it.
Those were the people I wanted remembered when the courtroom proceedings began.
Two deputies were also charged.
One was Briggs.
I remembered seeing him at the sheriff's office on the day of my arrest.
He had been near the computer.
The other was Hollis Tate.
He was not related to Rufus Tate, the elderly man whose arrest appeared in Caleb's notebook.
The indictment accused Briggs and Hollis of helping falsify the report concerning Hattie Greene's death.
Both were charged with obstruction.
I stared at their names.
I remembered how the deputies had avoided looking at me when Voss brought me into booking.
I had wondered what they knew.
Now prosecutors were alleging that two officers had participated in concealing important information.
Within a month, Briggs and Hollis pleaded guilty.
They agreed to testify.
I read about their pleas with mixed feelings.
Their cooperation could help establish what happened.
But it did not erase what they had done.
If the allegations were true, they had helped keep Hattie's family from receiving an accurate account of her final days.
I thought about Aunt Lorraine sitting beside Hattie's hospital bed.
Believing that her friend had died from a heart condition.
Not knowing that jail staff had reportedly heard repeated requests for medication.
That silence had lasted more than a year.
It had harmed people who were already grieving.
Then there was Caleb Miller.
His name appeared in the evidence.
But he was not charged.
I had wondered whether prosecutors would hold him responsible for waiting so long to speak.
He had witnessed troubling incidents.
He had written them down.
Yet he continued working under Voss.
I understood why people might question that delay.
I questioned it too.
But the law had to distinguish between being frightened and actively participating in a crime.
Miller had preserved evidence.
He had reported what he personally knew.
And he had done so while facing the possibility of retaliation from a sheriff who controlled his career.
AUSA Delgado later explained the distinction to me.
She did not pretend his delay was ideal.
She acknowledged that he would have to live with what he had not said sooner.
But she also recognized that the evidence he preserved had been important.
The investigation was directed at the people accused of committing and concealing crimes.
Not at punishing a young deputy simply for having been afraid.
I thought about his mother, Sylvia.
Aunt Lorraine had told me how Caleb sometimes sat alone in his truck after work.
I wondered whether those evenings had been filled with the same entries I had seen in the notebook.
The traffic stop.
The seized tuition money.
The false resistance report.
Hattie's medication.
Four requests.
Two pleas for help to the sheriff.
Then her death.
Those details would be difficult for anyone to carry.
Especially someone who had believed law enforcement was supposed to protect people.
As the criminal case moved forward, I continued working in Atlanta.
My wrist improved gradually.
I could use my hand more comfortably.
But a sudden twist still reminded me of the injury.
Sometimes I would reach for a file and feel a brief ache.
I would stop.
Flex my fingers.
Then continue.
I did not want the arrest to become the center of my professional life.
I had spent years building that life.
It mattered to me.
So I kept hearing cases.
I kept writing orders.
I kept listening to lawyers.
And I made an effort to apply the same standards to everyone who entered my courtroom.
Still, the Pell County case remained with me.
When I went home at night, I sometimes thought about the families whose property had been taken.
I imagined receiving a notice too late.
Or discovering that land held by a family for generations now belonged to a corporation.
I thought about the fear of challenging local officials when those same officials controlled arrests.
I had seen how quickly Sheriff Voss could turn an ordinary moment into a confrontation.
He had done it in a crowded diner.
In daylight.
In front of witnesses.
That made me wonder what he had been willing to do when fewer people were watching.
The indictment contained allegations.
Not final answers.
But it described a pattern that deserved a full hearing.
And a hearing was coming.
The case was assigned to a senior federal judge from Alabama.
That decision mattered to me.
I did not want any suggestion that my colleagues in Georgia had favored me.
The judge had no professional connection that would compromise the proceedings.
The trial would take place in Macon.
I would testify as a witness.
I would not wear my judicial robe.
I would not sit behind the bench.
I would answer questions like anyone else.
I found that prospect more difficult than I expected.
I had examined witnesses for years when I practiced law.
I had listened to testimony for years as a judge.
But this time, I would be the person under oath.
My memory would be questioned.
My judgment would be challenged.
My decision not to identify myself would become a central issue.
I knew Fontaine would return to that point.
He had already argued that I arranged the arrest.
The magistrate judge had rejected that theory in his earlier challenge.
But a defense lawyer could still test my account at trial.
I prepared myself to answer.
Not by inventing better explanations.
Not by rehearsing dramatic statements.
I returned to the facts.
I had gone to Pruitt's Pharmacy.
I had stopped at the Magnolia Diner.
I had ordered fried catfish.
Voss approached me.
I did not resist.
He handcuffed me.
He twisted my wrist.
The video showed much of what happened.
The medical records documented the injury.
And my own testimony would describe what I remembered.
I could not control what Fontaine asked.
I could control whether I answered truthfully.
Aunt Lorraine called a few days before the trial.
She wanted to know whether she could attend.
I told her the courthouse was in Macon.
It would require travel.
She would need to be careful with her recovering hip.
Lorraine dismissed those concerns.
She said she had spent months working through physical therapy.
She was not going to miss the proceedings.
I knew better than to argue for long.
She also told me Sylvia Miller planned to attend.
Caleb's mother wanted to support her son.
Lorraine said she would sit with Sylvia.
I pictured the two women together.
Lorraine in one of her Sunday hats.
Sylvia beside her.
Both watching a courtroom full of people discuss events their families had lived with for months.
I hoped Caleb would look toward them when he testified.
I hoped he would remember that telling the truth did not mean standing entirely alone.
The evening before the trial, I laid out a navy suit.
I chose not to wear jewelry.
I wanted nothing to distract from my testimony.
I placed the suit on a chair beside my bed.
Then I checked my wrist.
The swelling was gone.
The fracture had healed enough for ordinary movement.
There were still faint reminders of the cuffs.
I looked at them.
For a moment, I was back in the diner.
I could hear the scrape of chairs.
I could see the glass tipping.
I could smell fried fish and coffee.
Then I looked around my bedroom.
I was in Atlanta.
I was safe.
And tomorrow, I would enter a federal courtroom in Macon.
Not to seek revenge.
Not to demonstrate my authority.
But to describe what happened when a sheriff believed he could exercise authority without answering for his conduct.
I turned off the light.
The next morning, the evidence would begin being heard before twelve jurors.
They would have to decide what the prosecution had proved.
And I would have to trust them to do their work.
Click here to continue reading: PART 8: On the Second Day of Trial, the Sheriff’s Lawyer Asked Why I Stayed Silent, and I Had to Explain What That Choice Meant
I Went Into a Small Georgia Diner for Lunch, Never Expecting the Sheriff to Put Me in Handcuffs Before I Finished Eating
Part 7 of 15
