A seven-and-a-half year delay could prevent justice being served in the 2015 homicide of Davyn Dixon.
Richmond County Superior Court Judge Jesse Stone heard arguments Monday in a motion to dismiss filed on behalf of Jasmine Nicole Green, the state’s only suspect in the case, due to the length of time that has passed.
Dixon, 24, graduated from the Youth Challenge Academy. He was killed at his home on Fox Den Road in Hephzibah Nov. 25, 2015.
Prosecutors initially charged Green along with another man, Mandley Stewart, who Green told authorities had pulled the trigger, according to previous reports. But prosecutors never indicted Stewart.
Jacque Hawk, who has represented Green since 2017, blamed prosecutors for most of the delay in getting Green’s case before a jury. Prosecutors would say it was the other way around.
“We’re going on seven years and five months,” Hawk said. Aside from the 2020-2021 year of no trials due to COVID-19, the remainder is “well on the state,” he said.
Hawk cited Doggett v. U.S., the 1992 U.S. Supreme Court that found the government’s negligence in locating and prosecuting Doggett violated his right to a speedy trial, whether or not it was intentional.
Hawk acknowledged another big factor in the delay, Jared Williams’ 2020 election to Augusta Circuit District Attorney.
Williams, who was formerly with Hawk’s firm, in February 2021 recused the circuit from some 68 cases in which the firm had represented a party.
Seventeen months later, the Prosecuting Attorney’s Council of Georgia last July appointed Columbia County District Attorney Bobby Christine as District Attorney Pro Tempore in the case.
Speaking about a case she prosecuted while Augusta Circuit District Attorney, Natalie Paine, now Chief ADA in Columbia County, said Doggett did not anticipate COVID-19 nor the record number of conflict cases.
Statewide there were approximately 300.
Columbia County ADA Jordan Hanson, the cases’s lead prosecutor, broke the delay down into approximately 89 months.
For the first year, Green was represented by another attorney, Randy Frails. The case would appear on a jury trial calendar more than 20 times while Hawk waited 25 months to file a Jackson Denno hearing, Hanson said.
The hearing, held to determine if Green’s confession to sheriff’s deputies was voluntary, was held in June 2019.
As the parties awaited the court’s ruling on the hearing, COVID-19 happened, then the “unusual circumstances” of the record need for conflict attorneys, he said.
Hanson said unlike Daggett, Green appeared to benefit from the delays.
Stone did not rule on the motion Monday and said he’d take their arguments under advisement.
