Dougherty County’s District Attorney seat contested for the first time since 2008. Here’s who you’ll see on your ballot

ALBANY – District attorneys represent the government in criminal cases and are the chief law enforcement officer and top prosecutor of the state’s jurisdiction. The office prosecutes those charged with criminal violations within the county Judicial Circuit and represents the state when involved in certain civil actions.

The district attorney must prosecute fully those who have committed criminal violations based on best evidence, and the officeholder must also serve in the interest of the people by protecting victims of crimes.

Gregory Edwards has been Dougherty County’s DA since 2008 and was re-elected without opposition in 2012, 2016 and 2020. In May’s primary election, Elizabeth Gibson, a local attorney who previously worked in the DA’s office, is contesting Edwards.

Get to Know Elizabeth Gibson

Gibson is an Albany native. She’s a Dougherty Comprehensive High School, Albany State University and University of Georgia alum. After graduating from UGA’s law school, Gibson returned home to care for her sick parents and worked as a lead educator and coach in both the Dougherty County and Mitchell County school systems.

She became a licensed attorney in December 2020. Her first job was as an assistant district attorney in the Dougherty County DA’s office.

Gibson said within her first 60 days on the job, she cleared 500 cases from the backlog and began taking on other caseloads that needed attention due to a lack of ADAs in the office.

She said by the time she left the DA’s office, she had experience working in Juvenile Court, had cleared more than two State Court caseloads, felony caseloads and assisted in the indictments of more than 150 cases for two ADAs. She’s gone to trial several times and also has worked with a grand jury.

“Everything in the DA’s office that could have been touched, I touched,” she said. “When I think about experience, I don’t think it’s about the length of time you’ve been in a position but what you do with the time that you’re in the position.”

In 2023, Gibson left the DA’s office and began private practice with the Brimberry Kaplan & Brimberry PC firm. She said she saw how failure to bring cases forward in the DA’s office impacted defense attorneys, victims and accused defendants.

“I realized that because there was such a heavy backlog that … peoples’ lives were on hold,” she said.

So Gibson said she decided she would be more of use as a prosecutor and, even further, fulfilling her college dream of becoming a district attorney to have a greater impact on how the criminal justice system affects her community.

She said her primary goal is restoring community trust in the DA’s office by addressing the existing backlog.

Her first order of business, she said, would be conducting an internal audit of the office. She said in her first six months she would focus on getting the office fully staffed or as close to full as possible. She said the DA’s office is operational but needs more assistant DAs.

Next, Gibson said she wants to streamline processes, opening a direct line of communication with law enforcement, victim advocates and prosecutors.

She said she wants to be more efficient in getting cases on the calendar ahead of time so that prosecutors are prepared when they get to trial. One way she wants to do this is taking a look at resources and budget allocations and getting better technology for the DA’s office so that information is “transmitted seamlessly.”

“There’s technology that we’re not using,” she said. “We’re still putting evidence on CDs and DVDs, which means that we’re about 10 to 20 years behind everybody else.”

Gibson said she will take a proactive vs. a reactive stance as DA. She said right now, most people don’t interact with the DA’s office unless they’ve committed or are a victim of a crime.

She said she wants to see the DA’s office more involved in the community – attending local events and giving county residents the opportunity to meet those that make up the office. She said she believes DAs must take the time to know their community and know the people that they are prosecuting.

Gibson said her deep ties and involvement with the community allow her to keep her hand on the pulse of Dougherty County.

“I’m not afraid to ask questions,” she said. “As a leader, you have to ask those tough questions, even if you don’t get the answer you want, even if it implicates you as the issue. You have to be strong and bold enough to take ownership and accountability of what you have done to contribute and how you can fix it.”

Meet Gregory Edwards

Edwards’ law career spans 41 years. He’s worked with the Georgia Legal Services program, in private practice, as an assistant district attorney and as Dougherty County’s Chief ADA. Edwards also has served as a Special Assistant United States Attorney.

His work earned him a number of accolades, including the Georgia State Prosecuting Attorney Council’s “Assistant District Attorney of the Year” in 2006.

Edwards became Albany’s first African American district attorney in 2008. He was named the Georgia District Attorney of the Year by the Georgia District Attorney’s Association in 2023.

Edwards said all of this experience came from right here, in Dougherty County.

“I consider myself an investment by Dougherty County into me, and I want to continue making good on that investment for my career for the people of the county,” he said.

Edwards began his career as a prosecutor in the Dougherty County Judicial Circuit, working with children and victims of sex crimes. That, he said, instilled a passion for victims’ rights.

He said one of the most impactful things he’s done as DA is streamlining the system, which helped lower the Dougherty County Jail population. During his second term, Edwards said the jail’s population was too high relative to the county’s population. It was housing around 1,200 people – about 2.5% of the population.

“The system wasn’t moving efficiently enough,” he said. “There was not enough communication.”

So Edwards said he worked with different divisions of the judicial system to better speed up the process – getting bonds, negotiating cases or sending them to trial with greater speed. Now, there are about 600 people in the jail, on average no more than 1% of the population.

Beyond his extensive experience, Edwards has been recognized for his service to the community and to the state, including his selection as the winner of the Robert H. Benham, State Bar of Georgia, Community Service Award in 2018.

Edwards has strong local ties — he is a graduate of Monroe High School – and also has received a number of local awards for his community service.

Edwards said he knows the county’s backlog of cases is a major concern for the community. However, he said he is the best person to help resolve it. He suggested one reason for the county’s backlog is that Dougherty County is the hub of southwest Georgia – there are thousands of people that come to Albany for working, shopping and entertainment, but they don’t live here. Crimes that occur in the county must be prosecuted in the county, even if the defendant and victim live elsewhere, resulting in higher crime.

He said this was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the courts being shut down. Edwards said the best way to address the backlog is addressing the cases that his office has been prioritizing – serious, violent offenses.

“We need to keep the community safe in that way,” he said.

He added that his office has been trying to move nonviolent cases, using community supervision and pretrial intervention to keep nonviolent defendants who are not accused of serious crimes, out of jail.

Something that has always been a priority for him, and he said will continue to be, is the growing problem of child abuse and molestation as well as elder abuse. He said the DA’s office is also growing its use of modern technology and artificial intelligence to help manage caseloads.

In the future, Edwards said he is advocating for a forensics teaching Crime Lab at Albany State University that would provide not only a learning experience but a crime lab to serve the area and further speed up processes.

Edwards said right now, the DA’s office has a well-experienced staff that’s leading to increased efficiency.

“We have on average about 15 years experience among the prosecutors here now, and that certainly is a great asset,” he said.

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