Local & State Headlines

Cooper announces run for third term

• A southwest Georgia district attorney seeks a third term in the office.

Joshua Brown

AMERICUS — Southwest Judicial Circuit District Attorney Cecilia Cooper has announced that she is running for a third term as the six- county circuit’s district attorney.

Cooper, who will be running as a Democrat, said she hoped voters would look at her record as a district attorney.

“I hope that the citizens will look at my record — the eight years I’ve been in office — and based on the work I’ve done,” she said Monday. “If they do that then yes, I feel that I’ve got a very great record during my eight years.”

The Southwestern Judicial Circuit covers six Southwest Georgia counties: Sumter, Schley, Lee, Stewart, Webster and Macon, with each of the counties having two trial terms each year except for Sumter, which has four, she said.

Cooper said she “saw no point” in announcing she was running again for the office until qualifying for the race approached and will probably kick off her campaign after the primaries, barring any Democratic competition.

The primary election is scheduled for July 15.

Qualifying for the district attorney’s race is April 28 through May 2, said Matt Carrothers, media relations director for the Secretary of State’s office. If a candidate runs as an independent, the qualifying dates are June 23-27, he said.

Americus lawyer Plez H. Hardin and Lee County attorney Ramon Fajardo have both announced their plans to run for the office as Republicans.

Cooper, a Pennsylvania native, said she works on behalf of the “good citizens” of the six-county circuit.

“I firmly believe that it is my job to stand between the good, law-abiding citizens of this circuit and those that would do them harm,” she said in a statement Friday. “Whether that harm comes in the form of guns, thieves, sexual predators, or drug dealers that prey on our children, I will fight against them with everything in me.”

Cooper said that as crimes are being perpetrated by younger offenders than ever before. “Now is not the time to take a kinder, gentler approach with criminals,” she said.

Cooper received her law degree from Atlanta’s Emory University in 1991 and moved to Southwest Georgia to work as a law clerk for the circuit for which she now serves as district attorney.

She opened a private practice two years later and worked in that capacity until she was elected in 2001 as the Southwestern Circuit’s district attorney.

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