ABBEVILLE - A second Cochran police officer was arrested today for an incident involving a girl under age 16 in Pineview last year, according to a news release from the GBI in Perry.

Corporal Morris Ross turned himself in to the Wilcox County Sheriff's Office this morning upon being charged with enticing a child and interference with custody.

The arrest stems from the same incident for which Cochran police corporal Brent Powell was arrested April 10.

Ross, 29, of Cochran, was once a police officer in Pineview but no longer was employed there when the incident occurred, according to officials.

Powell, 25, also of Cochran, was then the Pineview police chief.

Ross was released from custody at the Wilcox County Jail after posting a $6,000 bond earlier today. Powell posted a $51,000 bond the day after his arrest.

The charges resulted from a GBI investigation requested by Wilcox County Sheriff Stacy Bloodsworth in March.

The investigation is ongoing. Anyone with information is asked to call the GBI office in Perry at (478) 987-4545.

Ex-police chief charged with child

molestation

The former Pineview police chief in Wilcox County, who also has served as a police officer in Cochran, has been charged with child molestation and other crimes, authorities said.

Brent Powell, 25, was arrested Thursday during a traffic stop in Cochran, said Gary Rothwell, special agent in charge of the GBI office in Perry. Powell was released on a $51,000 bail bond Friday.

Powell also is charged with enticing a child and interfering with custody, Rothwell said.

Rothwell said GBI investigators were contacted by the Wilcox County Sheriff's Office earlier this year to investigate an episode involving Powell and the use of force.

"This developed as a result of that," he said.

Leroy "Spud" Collins Jr., 20, was sentenced to 20 years in prison, according to the release.

Video surveillance showed a masked man with a gun enter the fast food restaurant at about 5:21 a.m., strike a female clerk on the head with the gun and rob another female employee of the store's cash at gunpoint, according to the release.

Darius Walker, 25, of Cochran, was an employee at the McDonald's who was at the store at the time of the robbery and left a back door cracked open, according to the release.

Walker entered a guilty plea last year and is serving a five-year prison sentence, according to the release.

To contact writer Amy Leigh Womack, call 744-4398.

Fishing area recovers from water

woes

By Chuck Thompson

3/3/08

1/26/2008

Semi-Truck Hits 7 Vehicles
 

Rebecca Stewart
 

The Bleckley County Sheriff's Office and Cochran-Bleckley Emergency Management Agency responded to an eight vehicle accident Friday afternoon.

According to Lieutenant Kris Coody with the Bleckley Sheriff's Office, a man was driving an 18-wheeler truck on Highway 87 in Bleckley County when he suffered a medical emergency that caused him to pass out while at the wheel.

Lt. Coody says just before 3:00 p.m., the truck crossed the road and struck 7 vehicles that were parked in the RideShare Parking lot.

He says the driver was not injured in the incident and that no one was in the parking lot when the accident occured.

It is not known what caused the driver to black out.


 

Bleckley County Forestry

Pageant

Pageant is Feb. 2, Bleckley County-Cochran Chamber of Commerce, 318 Second St., Cochran. Applications accepted from girls and women birth-24 years. 284-2350. www.
 

midsouthforestrypageants.com.

Nick White is passionate about defending people who cannot afford legal representation. But pursuing a career as a public defender isn't what he thought he'd be doing when he first entered law school.

Today, the 39-year-old Bleckley County native heads the Houston County Public Defender's Office, a post he was tapped to fill by the Houston County Board of Commissioners. White, who replaced long-time Public Defender Terry Everett upon her retirement, has been on the job for about three months.

But back in his days at Mercer University's Walter F. George School of Law in Macon, White recalled, he was probably like a lot of his colleagues who had traditional conservative values and thought that the best way to practice those values was to be prosecutor.

After all, White said, he believed - and still believes in limited government, protection of individual rights, gun ownership, property rights and similar values.

But when he got into the practice of law, he said, it wasn't long before he realized that his core beliefs worked well with his role as defense attorney.

"I have really found my niche with defense," White said in a recent interview. "It complements my beliefs in keeping the government limited and protecting and defending individual liberties."

He first served as a clerk for Superior Court Judge Hugh Lawson - now a federal judge in Macon - in the large six-county Oconee Circuit that includes White's home county. He next served as an associate with Hawkinsville attorney Genelle Jennings for three years before going out on his own in private practice. His law practice was mostly domestic and criminal defense.

"Through the years, I found out through private practice that I loved defense. The only thing I didn't like about private practice was I didn't like being a bill collector," White said. "I just wanted to take that part out if it."

He joined the Houston County Public Defender's Office as an assistant public defender from October 2001 to December 2004. He next went over to the eight-county Ocmulgee District where he also was an assistant public defender.

On Oct. 1, 2007, he became Houston County's head public defender, with staff of 20 and an annual budget of about $1.5 million.

By Amy Leigh Womack - awomack@macon.com

Beau Cabell/The Telegraph

The late Senior U.S. District Judge Duross Fitzpatrick in 2002 photo.

DUROSS FITZPATRICK FUNERAL

WHEN: 1 p.m. Wednesday

WHERE: Christ Church on Walnut Street in Macon The Rev. Wesley Smith will officiate. Visitation will follow the service. Burial will be held in Jeffersonville City Cemetery.

 

The flag will fly at half-staff at Macon's federal courthouse through Wednesday in honor of U.S. District Judge Duross Fitzpatrick.

Fitzpatrick, 73, died Sunday night at his home in Twiggs County after suffering from a rare neurological disease, said Greg Leonard, chief clerk for the U.S. District Court.

"His illness was so debilitating and progressive," Leonard said. "He was very stubborn in fighting the disease. There's no cure for it."

Fitzpatrick was appointed to the federal bench by President Reagan on Dec. 31, 1985. He became chief judge in 1995 and remained in that position until taking senior judge status in February 2001.

Fellow U.S. District Judge Hugh Lawson said Fitzpatrick tried cases until fall 2006 and continued to perform administrative tasks and take guilty pleas from defendants until he wasn't physically able.

"He fought (the disease ) like a tiger until the end and never gave up," Lawson said. "He wanted to come to work. He didn't want to give up his social contact, and he didn't want to give up on his church work. As long as he was physically able to drag himself to those places, he did."

Fitzpatrick suffered from progressive supranuclear palsy, which causes disability by impairing movement, balance, vision, speech and swallowing.

Born in 1934, Fitzpatrick called the Twiggs County crossroads of Tarversville home nearly all his life. He rode a Greyhound bus to school in Bleckley County, where he graduated from high school in Cochran, Lawson said.

After graduation, Fitzpatrick attended the University of the South at Sewanee, Tenn., from 1953 to 1954 before taking a detour to the U.S. Marine Corps from 1954 to 1957. He was discharged as a sergeant.

Afterward, Fitzpatrick attended the University of Georgia, where he graduated with a degree in forestry in 1961 and married his wife, the former Beverly O'Connor.

Fitzpatrick worked for a timber company in south Georgia and later took a forestry job on the West Coast.

"That's where he concluded his calling wasn't in the forestry service," Lawson said.

Soon, the family returned to Georgia, and Fitzpatrick graduated from the University of Georgia's law school in 1966.

He took his first job with the Elliott & Davis law firm in 1966 and worked there until he found his footing and started his own law office in Cochran.

Partner Sewell Elliott said Fitzpatrick came to him highly recommended.

"He was very serious-minded," Elliott said. "I felt he would be highly qualified to work with me, and that proved to be very true."

Lawson reminisced of many an hour that he and Fitzpatrick spent as young lawyers drinking coffee and talking about their dreams and aspirations.

"As the years passed, he developed into an outstanding lawyer," Lawson said. "He was the pre-eminent lawyer in his county."

In 1984, Fitzpatrick became president of the State Bar of Georgia. A year later Fitzpatrick received the call confirming his appointment to the federal bench from Reagan.

Donning his black robe for the first time, Fitzpatrick quoted former New York Yankees great Lou Gehrig.

"I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth," he said.
 

'COMPASSION FOR

THE INDIVIDUAL'
 

During the course of his time on the bench, Fitzpatrick left his mark on Middle Georgia.

He revived citizenship ceremonies in Macon after several years of absence.

In 1989, Fitzpatrick capped the Bibb County jail population until renovations were completed to provide space for more inmates.

Fitzpatrick sentenced Macon rapper and performer James E. Maxwell, aka Sonny Spoon, to serve 13 years in prison on drug and firearm charges in 2004.

In 2006, he approved the final portion of a promotions system for Macon's police and fire departments, ending a six-year promotions freeze prompted by federal discrimination lawsuits.

Fellow U.S. District Judge Ashley Royal described Fitzpatrick as "a great gentleman."

Royal was appointed to fill Fitzpatrick's position when he took senior status in 2001.

"He was a great guy and he was well-liked," Royal said.

Longtime friend and Macon lawyer Carr Dodson said Fitzpatrick was one of the fairest and most courteous judges he's ever encountered in court.

"He had compassion for the individual, but also saw that society needed order to it," Dodson said. "And he blended those two in fairness."

Dodson said he first met Fitzpatrick at a high school football game. Dodson was a tailback for Americus, and Fitzpatrick was a guard for Cochran.

Their paths crossed numerous times, and ultimately the two became close friends and colleagues.

Fitzpatrick served as Dodson's attorney when Dodson served as minority leader in the Georgia House of Representatives in the 1969 session. He was a groomsman in Dodson's wedding.

In Fitzpatrick's final months, Dodson and another close friend of Fitzpatrick's, attorney Jerome Strickland, made regular trips to Tarversville to pick up the ailing judge for lunch.

Although Fitzpatrick had been suffering from the debilitating symptoms ofprogressive supranuclear palsy for a few years, Lawson said his death came as a surprise.

"I don't think anybody would have anticipated it would have happened as quick as it did," he said.

Lawson said the mood at the federal courthouse was solemn Monday as court employees arrived and learned the news.

The American flag was lowered at the courthouse Monday, and a Marine Corps flag will be flown in his honor.

Leonard, the court's chief clerk, said a portrait of Fitzpatrick in his black robe soon will be hung alongside portraits of other senior judges on the second floor of the federal courthouse.

Although Fitzpatrick didn't live to see it displayed, Leonard said the likeness was delivered to his home in Tarversville before it was taken to the courthouse a couple of months ago.

"He liked it," Leonard said.

Leonard said the Middle District of Georgia won't be eligible for another judicial appointment by the president until December, when Lawson becomes eligible to take senior status.

Fitzpatrick is survived by his wife, Beverly, two children and two grandchildren.
 

Information from Telegraph archives was used in this report.

To contact writer Amy Leigh Womack, call 744-4398.