CORDELE, Ga. (WALB) — In many places across the country, the wheels of justice are stuck in the mud.

Court cases are back-logged, and local jails are full. Because of that, many violent offenders get low bonds. Prosecutors are often compelled to offer plea deals. The result: criminals quickly return to a life of crime and victims’ families wait years for justice.

One South Georgia judicial district has a particularly alarming number of unindicted or pending criminal cases.

An open records request revealed that the Cordele Judicial Circuit, which covers Ben Hill, Dooly, Crisp and Wilcox counties, has more than 4,200 cases where the District Attorney’s office has not formally charged anyone. Many go back several years.

“That is not the way to run a public entity when the rest of us are depending on it,” Dooly County Commissioner David Mixon said.

Community concern: ‘Who is getting off?’

After law enforcement makes an arrest, it’s the duty of a district attorney to decide whether to bring formal charges either through an accusation or a grand jury indictment. Court records from the Cordele Judicial Circuit raise serious doubts over that process.

Commissioner Mixon said he has serious concerns about the impact unindicted cases have on the community.

“Who is getting off just because the DA’s office is backed up?” Mixon said.

Records show that as of February 2026, Ben Hill County has more than 1,400 unindicted cases. Crisp County has more than 1,800. Dooly County has over 500 and Wilcox has more than 300.

DA Rigby responds: Why some cases take time

Brad Rigby is the District Attorney of the Cordele Judicial Circuit. He works with 13 agencies in the four counties. He says those counties have a “high volume of crime each month.”

“Just because a warrant is issued doesn’t mean the case is ready to prosecute,” Rigby said. “There’s a lot of varying reasons for those cases to take time, but that’s what justice demands. It’s for this office to take an independent review of those cases to determine whether the case needs to be prosecuted or not.”

Court records show there are nearly 1,400 unindicted cases in that district that are subject to dismissal, because of the statute of limitations. Some of those cases have warrants that include aggravated assault, armed robbery and cruelty to children.

“Warrants get dismissed everyday. We decide which warrants to pursue, and which warrants not to pursue,” Rigby said. “We do an independent review of those cases to determine whether justice requires that case to go to court or not go to court. Then we make those determinations when the time comes, and we have all the appropriate information.”

Rigby says part of his backlog is due to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s (GBI) crime labs backlog.

He also cited a high volume of cases his office receives. In the month of February 2026, there were nearly 800 traffic stops made by deputies in Crisp County alone.

“If those traffic stops just generate one warrant, that’s 800 cases. That just shows us how much crime we have,” Rigby said. “I don’t control the amount of crime, the amount of warrants that we have, those things are just facts. They are what they are.”

According to the district attorney, the public defender’s office is the real issue in the circuit. He said it has only had two attorneys for the past two years.

“It should have five or six attorneys working in it for the four counties in the circuit,” Rigby said. “When you only have two people working in the four counties for the caseload that we have, you’re not going to get cases resolved.”

A spokesperson with the Georgia Public Defender Council responded with the following statement:

“The public defenders are not in charge of indicting cases. That is the sole and exclusive responsibility of the district attorney. If the district attorney’s office is behind in indicting and charging cases, that has nothing to do with the public defenders.

They are responsible for representing citizens once they are indicted."

‘Cardinal sin’: letting cases expire

“One word would be ‘surprising,’” criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor, Alex Kaplan, said when asked what comes to mind when looking at the number of unindicted cases.

Kaplan has been a criminal attorney for 23 years. He said it’s a “cardinal sin” for cases to be dropped due to the statute of limitations.

“Those persons will never be prosecuted because the statute of limitations has expired,” Kaplan said. “So you would’ve lost out on an opportunity to remove a serious criminal from the streets. Which is really the DA’s main job.”

The former prosecutor said the following is the message he feels the high backlog numbers are sending to the community:

“If I’m a victim, I’m concerned that my case is getting lost in the shuffle. If I’m a defendant, I’m hoping that my case gets lost in the shuffle. So it’s a no win scenario for the community as a whole.”

Commissioner Mixon said the county recently had to give back nearly $300,000 of confiscated money due to district attorney’s office not meeting filing deadlines.

“Eight total attorneys in the DA’s office, and we’re this back-logged,” Commissioner Mixon said. “Are we short staffed? Are we inefficient? It’s not just about trying the big murder cases.”

Proposed solution and recent case progress

DA Rigby said a private firm has already taken over Ben Hill County’s Public Defender’s office, with plans to take over Dooly County in the next month. He said he hopes the firm will eventually take over the entire circuit.

“That would help us getting moving these cases along, getting these cases resolved that the public needs,” Rigby said. “My office is in the interest of serving justice to the community. To the victims that we serve, as well as to protecting this community from these violent offenders.”

Rigby said his office resolved over 170 cases in less than three months and eight murder cases in the last year.

Rigby was appointed to his current position in 2016. He’s been unopposed in two elections since then.

In the May 2026 primary, Rigby is opposed by Lyndsey Walters.

After this story was published, Rigby refuted the number of pending or unindicted cases that WALB received and reported as part of an open records request.

You should correct your report in that warrants do NOT equal cases to avoid false reporting... As written, this is incomplete or incorrect.

WALB consulted legal experts and clarified that the figures we received as part of our open records request were accurate.

Have a news tip or see an error that needs correction? Let us know. Please include the article’s headline in your message.

To stay up to date on all the latest news as it develops, follow WALB on Facebook and X (Twitter). For more South Georgia news, download the WALB News app from the Apple Store or Google Play.

Copyright 2026 WALB. All rights reserved.