Under the JFP Endorsements for the primaries, user Leroy challenged that statement that Peterson "created" the court facilitator position for her office. Leroy wrote, part: "One of the reasons you list for endorsing Faye Peterson for district attorney is that she created the court facilitator position to move the cases and ease the backlog of the court dockets. Faye peterson's claim that she created the court facilitator position is completely disingenous. When the sitting county court judge who handled criminal matters in 2004 tried to meet with court officials to come up with solutions for the backlog of cases and cure the ills of the system (defendants sitting in the Raymond jail for over a year with no indictment in sight) she challenged the county judge as well as the circuit judge (who had jurisdiction over the county jail) all the way to the Supreme Court to keep information about the status of her cases secret (status meaning how much longer was it going to take her to indict cases that had been pending for too long. . . nobody was wanting secret grand jury info). She did not creat this position. She fought very hard against it until the supremes bounced her. See opinion 2004-m-02264. Wish you guys would run a nice story about this disturbing and bizarre position she took in 2004. It was a good idea to have this position then and now, but she certainly didn't create it."

Here is the district attorney's response, verbatim:

The criminal court facilitator was funded through federal grant money, a portion of which was set aside to my office for me to use to fund any program or position in the criminal justice system. I could have used the money to fund an attorney, but I chose to use the portion of the money directed to my office to fund the salary of the criminal court facilitator. In developing the spending plan for the position, there was an interlocal agreement between the city of Jackson and Hinds County that set out the duties of the position and where the position would report etc., etc. In November 2004 there was an Order issued by Judges Delaughter and Parker that interfered with the agreement and the spending plan that would have moved the position from my office and placed it under the supervision of the Courts. In the mandamus that was filed, the issue was whether the Judges without a matter pending before them could direct the Board of Supervisors and the City Council on how to spend federal money. I also stated that since this was money allocated to the district attorney's office for needs of my office, that if the facilitator position was removed from my office, then the Courts would have to find a method to fund the position and I would revisit designating the portion of the funds allocated to my office to an attorney or investigator rather than allow them to create a super-DA position.

The Order would have placed the facilitator in some type of a supervisory capacity over my office, and no elected official would allow that to happen. The reason I filed the mandamus was not to destroy the position but If they were going to remove it from my office then they needed to find a method to fund the position.

Bump. I finally got the D.A.'s attention long enough to respond to Leroy's post right after the primaries. (His post and her response are pasted above).

Prior to Peterson's tenure, no such position existed. I do know that both of the individuals that have held the position ( the late Doug Jones and currently Kenneth Lewis) have offices on the fifth floor of the courthouse which houses the DA's office exclusively. Jail overcrowding did not originate in 2001 when Peterson took office. It was a problem during the previous administration as well. However, I don't think Ed Peters ever took money from his office to fund such a position.

You can quibble over which came first the chicken or the egg, but one thing is certain. Peterson has cooperated with the facilitator to keep the numbers down in the jail, as well as to expedite cases to the grand jury which concern individuals that are held in the jail. We also know that without funding from her office, the position would not exist.

Bump, considering that chatter has turned back to the DA's race. Leroy, are you out there? I'm wondering what you think of this response, and whether you have more concerns/questions on this.