Shelby Co. (ECWd) –
The Shelby County State’s Attorney, Ruth Woolery, appointed a Special Assistant State’s Attorney related to four child sex-related cases. A copy of the appointment documentation was obtained through the Freedom of Information Act process. (Appointment Letter at this link). Once again, we had to redact a signature that Woolery failed to redact before sending the record. It was the signature of the circuit clerk at the time, Kari Kingston.
- People v. Christoper Elliot. 2023CF52; 2023CF153
- People v. Jason Roberts, 2023CF76
- People v. Clinton Miller, 2023CF120
- People v. Justin Shoemaker, 2024CF10
The appointment of the state employee to take on these cases came just over a month after Woolery was appointed. Many have raised the concerns of her lack of experience and some even argue this particular appointment indicates she is not prepared to prosecute these types of crimes. We do not know the reason for her not handling those cases herself, but if it was because of her lack of experience, at least she took appropriate steps to appoint competent counsel, unlike what happened with the appointment of counsel process for the county chairman and county board in the farm ground TRO case.
While we can only imagine the outrage that would have been raised had the prior State’s Attorney done this, we appreciate the fact the actual process of the appointment was actually documented and followed, unlike the hiring of Ed Flynn in the past. In this case, the appointment and the oath are actually on file. Maybe there is hope things will be done properly rather than ignoring the applicable laws as was done in the past.
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