J. Tom Morgan
 DeKalb County (Decatur, Georgia) District Attorney J. Tom Morgan serves a jurisdiction that is as unique as his name.
With a population that is 44 percent white, 44 percent black and a remaining mixture of Hispanic and Asian residents, DeKalb is the most culturally diverse county in the Southeast. Everyone in the jurisdiction calls the DA "J. Tom." His first name, John, is never used.
With a population of 700,000, DeKalb County is the second most populous county in Georgia. The county seat, Decatur, has a population of approximately 18,000 and shares a boundary with Atlanta. The Georgia State Capital is less than seven miles from Morgan's office.
Morgan has managerial as well as administrative responsibilities in supervising a staff of 127, including 45 lawyers and 22 investigators in a large jurisdiction that handles some 7,000 cases a year. He also manages to be an active hands-on courtroom prosecutor.
As the DeKalb Bar News explained in a profile of Morgan, "J. Tom Morgan often faces situations considered distasteful by most (prosecutors), such as child molestation, rape and gang-related murders. Mr. Morgan personally tries some of these cases, not because he likes to keep the high profile cases for himself, but because he expects no less of himself than he asks of his staff attorneys."
Morgan admits his love for trying cases and for the courtroom. "Most prosecutors in offices this size do not try cases . . . I don't think I could be boss of this staff if I didn't go into the courtroom." With a staff of 15 lawyers who have at least 10 years' experience and several with 20 years' experience, Morgan believes he is very lucky to have an unusually experienced staff who make it possible for him to delegate some of his administrative duties to them.
The loyalty in Morgan's office works both ways. Members of his staff know that Morgan will do whatever it takes, including spending his own money, to provide the tools they need. When the county commission appropriated only $300 for equipment, Morgan purchased computers for his employees. Even as an assistant DA prosecuting child abuse cases, he bought a set of children's furniture and a supply of crayons out of his personal funds to equip an interviewing room for abused children. He explained, "Interviewing children in adult-sized furniture made them uncomfortable and I also found that they talked to me better if they were drawing."
In 1992, after a re-election campaign in which he ran without opposition, Morgan donated approximately $14,000 from his unexpended campaign funds to two Decatur organizations that help children. Then Georgia Lt. Gov. Pierre Howard called this gesture "extremely rare for a candidate," but in J. Tom Morgan's case, "not a surprise."
Morgan's primary interest as a prosecutor is the protection of children. In 1984, one year after joining the DA's office as an assistant DA, he became the first prosecutor in Georgia to specialize in the prosecution of crimes against children. He has since prosecuted more than 500 cases of child abuse and child murder and has won national recognition and many awards for his work in this field. He is also a frequent writer and lecturer on the subject.
Morgan says his office tries to be on the cutting edge in the child abuse field. "We established the first child death investigation protocol in Georgia, where prosecutors work on rotation and are on call 24 hours a day to assist an investigation any time a child dies from unexplained circumstances. Our protocol mandates that a prosecutor attend the autopsy." Morgan's office also keeps up to date with what prosecutors are doing in this field throughout the country and shares information with other prosecutors.
Morgan, who was elected DA in 1992 after the then DA quit to run for Congress, faces the usual problems that most of his counterparts face in large urban, inner city jurisdictions: violent crimes, drug-related crimes, gangs, domestic and child abuse, etc. But, he also faces the additional challenge of multi-culturism.
"What we have to do is work continuously toward having a community that trusts law enforcement," he said. "As the DA, trying to bring together all these different cultures in a jury pool can be very interesting."
The one major challenge facing all prosecutors, in Morgan's view, is recruiting and retaining assistants, primarily because of low salaries.
"We're seeing a lot of young people coming out of law school whom we'd like to hire, but they can make so much more money in the private sector. If we could have a program of forgiveness (of their student loans), I think we could attract more minority lawyers in public service."
As for himself, Morgan says he and his assistants believe that being in prosecution "Is the most rewarding job you could have." He recalls going back to his law school's 20th anniversary reunion and realizing that, "The one thing that I could say that most of my classmates could not was that I had the best and most satisfying job. My classmates agreed."
The reason, Morgan explains, is that he knows there is no better way to spend the day. "I'm thrilled to be able to go to the office and start another day as a prosecutor," he says. "Most lawyers cannot say that. [Prosecution] is the most satisfying job that anyone can ever have in public service." Morgan adds that he went to law school to make a difference but not to be a prosecutor. "Once I joined a prosecutor's office, I knew that this was how I could realize my goal and make a difference."
In an article several years ago, the DeKalb Bar News returned the compliment, stating: "J. Tom Morgan envisions DeKalb County as a safe haven for his two small children and all the other children of DeKalb County, and he is doing his part to see that vision become reality. DeKalb County is home for J. Tom, and he is determined to make home safe for all its residents."
Morgan's Memorable Cases
One of J. Tom Morgan's most memorable cases was a death penalty case involving a 19-year-old youth who had been thrown out of a bar. The angered youth went back, opened fire with a gun he had been carrying, killing one person and wounding another, leaving the second victim with paralyzing injuries.
It was during the trial that Morgan realized for the first time that this young man actually had testified for him years earlier in a case where his sister had been brutally raped and sodomized by their foster parents. "As a young boy he had seen this happen. And so here we were, almost 10 years later this young man who had witnessed this horrible crime was now involved in a terrible crime himself," Morgan said. "And I was thinking: What could we have done with this very traumatized child to have prevented him from becoming a defendant in a death penalty case?"
One of Morgan's most difficult cases involved an emergency medical service paramedic who responded to a call after a physician accidentally shot himself. According to witnesses, the paramedic, seeing that the victim was obviously dying, squeezed the man's nostrils, cutting off his breath and hastening his death.
"He (the paramedic) was a good person," Morgan says. "The grand jury indicted him on an involuntary manslaughter charge and the jury acquitted him. It was a very difficult case, but we did our job and tried our case. The jury had a very difficult time. We were understanding of the jury's verdict."
More recently, the murder of DeKalb County Sheriff-elect Derwin Brown must be considered one of the most sensational cases to face DA Morgan. Brown was shot to death in his front yard last December 15 as he returned home from a party celebrating his completion of sheriff's training. During his campaign, Brown had promised to reform the sheriff's department and had planned to fire 38 deputies. In addition to Morgan's office, 34 full-time investigators are working on the case, including the DeKalb County Police Department, the FBI, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Georgia Crime Lab.
In January, at Morgan's request, the DeKalb Superior Court judges ordered two special grand juries impaneled. The first grand jury is investigating the murder of Sheriff-elect Brown. The second is investigating allegations of violations by the former DeKalb County sheriff, Sidney Dorsey, employees of the DeKalb Sheriff's Department, persons and entities doing business with the DeKalb Sheriff's Department and related conditions and operations of the DeKalb County jail.
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