Supervisor, sheriff commend DA for clearing backlog

NATCHEZ — Adams County Board of Supervisors President Kevin Wilson complimented Sixth Circuit District Attorney Tim Cotton on Monday for the number of cases he is closing that have been open for several years or more.

Closing those cases saves county dollars because taxpayers foot the bill for housing accused subjects until they are adjudicated.

“It seems like a lot of cases have been finished recently. One guy had been arrested 35 times for burglary. Little by little, we are getting a lot of money off the county budget because we have been taking care of these inmates. They are on the state dime now,” Wilson said.

Adams County Sheriff Travis Patten echoed Wilson’s remarks.

“I am so happy that the backlog of cases are getting run through. I have to commend District Attorney Tim Cotton and his office. On some of these cases, they are actually pushing us. They are in court right now. He is really trying to get that backlog taken care of. Some of our worst of the worst are getting sent off to prison now,” Patten said.

“It is definitely helping over across the river and it will help everyone who is dealing with them. When you have someone who is violent and just doesn’t care, it is hard to keep your workers wanting to come up and deal with them. My hats off to them,” he said.

Wilson said it’s proof the justice system is working again in Adams County.

“Our justice system is starting to work again here. People who are thinking about committing crimes, if they know they are going to go to state custody eventually, they will be more apt not to commit those crimes,” he said.

Patten said getting through the cases that have been waiting for years and years to get to court is detrimental to the families of victims.

“When something happens, and you have to wait two or three years or more for that stuff to get to court, it’s like an eternity. It’s an eternity for a family who has lost a loved one,” Patten said.

In other business, Joyce Arceneaux-Mathis, president of the Natchez branch of the NAACP, read a letter on behalf of the NAACP urging supervisors to deny Complete Oilfield Disposal’s request to amend or modify the county’s solid waste plan to operate an oilfield waste landfill in the county.

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