Editor’s note: This column was written in response to a column by Pierre-René Noth that appeared in the “Our World” section on Sunday, Feb. 7, 2010.

A wise old judge once quoted Mark Twain to me when he said, ”Don’t pick a fight with a man who buys ink by the barrel.” For the past four years I have been a student of the sweet science of boxing. I didn’t pick this fight, but the time has come that I now step into your ring and finish it.

I find it very fitting that you have found your niche in opinion journalism, and I make the following observations:

1. Facts are not a requirement for you — you certainly don’t let them get in the way of your columns.

2. You ignore the law at will.

3. Accuracy means nothing to you.

4. The people you write about are mere words on a page to you — not living, breathing, dying, suffering human beings that you actually have to sit down with, face to face, and help with their terrible circumstances.

Thank you for this opportunity to clarify the many false assertions and uninformed speculations in your column, “Many issues to consider before the next big trial.”

1. You make the assertion that the decision to seek the death penalty in the Harper/Reynolds case was a purely emotional decision to play to the public. You assume a lot. Your statement that “one of the defendants had little or no provable involvement regarding premeditation” is your conclusion and clearly not based on any of the facts of the case. There was evidence presented at the many evidentiary hearings, at which I do not recall seeing you in attendance, that implicated Michelle Reynolds in the planning of the death of her husband Thad Reynolds. I would also like to point out that when you have two people who plan a crime and these two do not discuss their plans with anyone but each other — someone has to turn State’s evidence or you have a tough case. Nevertheless, there was evidence that went to Michelle Reynold’s direct involvement in planning her husband’s murder.

While Scott Harper did give us a statement, it was quite obvious that he still loved Michelle Reynolds and would try to “save her” by minimizing her involvement. Harper’s recent letter to the newspaper is the perfect illustration of the kind of witness he would have been at trial. For example, in his letter, he made the statement that he had initiated the affair, but his sworn statement indicates the exact opposite. In his statement, Harper told us his relationship with Michelle Reynolds changed when she sent him an e-mail telling him she was having “bad thoughts” about him. This soon progressed to a phone call between the two where they discussed the bad thoughts and she then sent him what was described as the “wheel of fortune” e-mail where he had to fill in the blanks with words describing what Michelle Reynolds wanted to do with Harper sexually. It is clear Michelle Reynolds initiated the affair. If even five years later, Harper still cannot face that one elementary fact, what kind of witness do you think he would have been at trial?

At the time this crime was committed, life without parole was a sentencing option only if the death penalty was sought. If we had failed to file a notice of intent to seek death, Harper would have been eligible for parole one day. You should consider the reaction of the “innocent secondary victims” to their father’s murderer maybe one day knocking on their front door. We did.

Also, if the death penalty had been sought against one defendant and not the other for the same crime, it would have created huge arguments for both defendants to use against the State in the motion hearings, not to mention the fact that I venture you would be the first to complain about the lack of consistency in how defendants are treated.

And finally, if you don’t like living in what you describe as the “hang ’em high, eye for an eye belt,” I have some advice for you. As the late great Lewis Grizzard used to say: “Delta is ready when you are.”

2. It is clear from your statements that you have not even a rudimentary understanding of the Unified Appeal — a process instituted by the Georgia Supreme Court to ensure fairness in a death penalty proceeding. The Unified Appeal requires the Supreme Court’s review of any and all matters that are certified by the Superior Court for pre-trial review at the request of either side. The Unified Appeal is long and cumbersome, but I venture to guess if we went any faster, you would be at the head of the line screaming that a defendant was being railroaded due to “justice being too swift.”

The Office of the District Attorney cannot by law be involved in the forming, selection, or maintenance of the traverse and grand jury lists. This is the responsibility of the Jury Commissioners, who meet in secret and are appointed by the Superior Court, and the Jury Management Office. Before this particular case, the notices for jury duty that were mailed out by Floyd County were never a problem until a fluke happened where a father and son with the same name and the same address were placed on the same jury list, which by the way, is randomly selected by a computer program. To make sure this issue does not occur again, the Office of Jury Management now has every juror’s birth date printed on their jury summons. Had you bothered to attend even one hearing on this issue or attempted to verify the facts, it would be apparent to even you that this is not an uncrossed T, an undotted I, or a “whoopsie.”

The fact that three police officers were fired is one of the realities of working on any criminal case. It is an everyday occurrence that witnesses move with no forwarding address, change their feelings and testimony about a case, become ill and die, or do something between the time of arrest and the time of trial that could affect their testimony. That is not an uncrossed T or an undotted I. The rest of us refer to this condition as reality.

You make the assertion “keeping defendants locked up in the County Jail at taxpayer expense for five and half years is unacceptable whether murder or shoplifting is involved.”

Both defendants had bond hearings —

Michelle Reynolds had two — and the standard the Court has to consider in deciding whether or not a bond is granted is not whether someone is a “homicidal maniac or suicidal.” By law, O.C.G.A. §17-6-1, the judge has several factors to consider:

“A court shall be authorized to release a person on bail if the court finds that the person:

(1) Poses no significant risk of fleeing from the jurisdiction of the court or failing to appear in court when required; (2) Poses no significant threat or danger to any person, to the community, or to any property in the community; (3) Poses no significant risk of committing any felony pending trial; and (4) Poses no significant risk of intimidating witnesses or otherwise obstructing the administration of justice.”

Both defendants were represented at their bond hearings by two attorneys (required by the Unified Appeal), and arguments were presented to the Court regarding electronic monitors and house arrest. The State presented evidence that both defendants were a flight risk and entered letters and e-mails into evidence to support this argument. The State also argued both presented a risk of intimidating witnesses and obstructing justice and the Court found these factors were also present and denied bond.

Since you simply adore to play the “what if” game, let’s indulge ourselves. What if the Court had allowed both defendants out on bond and they took the children of either marriage and fled to Portland, Oregon, as they wrote they intended to do in jail letters intercepted by the Floyd County Sheriff’s Office? Scott Harper was closely monitored and even moved to different jails due to his escape plans that were periodically discovered by law enforcement, but we will deal with that later in this column. What a field day the press would have had if these defendants had fled or harmed the children or any other witnesses involved in the trial because the State had agreed to an electronic monitor or house arrest or the Court had granted these requests made by the defense. And my goodness, the noise we all would have heard about how much money it would cost to extradite a defendant from another state and how all that money could have been saved if only the Court had denied bond.

Here is another issue for you to think about: Defendants cut ankle monitors every day while out on bond. In Fulton County, a defendant named Antoine Wimes was out on bond on an ankle monitor for murder and aggravated assault. He cut off his monitor on August 17, 2009, left his Fairburn home and shot a woman in the face and beat her 1-year-old son. Fulton authorities were notified 13 hours later — not by the monitoring company but by the defendant’s family. A judge denied Wimes bond the second time he asked.

And what about Derrick Yancey, a former deputy who was arrested in Dekalb County for the murder of his wife and a day laborer? Yancey was granted bond, placed on house arrest and fitted with an ankle monitor — which he promptly cut and fled the jurisdiction. After an extensive manhunt ranging across the United States, Yancey was eventually extradited from Belize in Central America. Wonder how much all that cost?

You opine the Sheriff “spied on the defendants with nary a qualm.” The State law is crystal clear that a defendant has no expectation of privacy while being housed in a jail. And surprise, that is federal law, too! The telephones at the jail are posted with signs notifying inmates their calls are recorded and there is a recording that plays over the phones to notify the parties the call is subject to being recorded. If an inmate still chooses to talk after being made aware of this, whose problem is this? But I guess you are okay with inmates using the jail phones to threaten witnesses so they will not testify, encouraging others to destroy evidence, or telling witnesses to change their testimony — because all of these things happen every day in phone calls from the Floyd County Jail made by those you refer to as the unconvicted. Perhaps in your world, we should place them all on ankle monitors and let them make these threats in person and destroy the evidence themselves.

Without the ability to intercept mail, monitor phone calls, or search jail cells, the Sheriff’s Office might easily have missed the multiple escape plans hatched by Scott Harper. But they didn’t miss because they were watchful, vigilant, and did the job the taxpayers expected them to do.

The Sheriff also did not use inmates to spy on ether defendant. The Floyd County Police were approached by several inmates who had information on both defendants because they were housed in the same cell block.

No one recruited them — they came forward and volunteered. And no one cut them a lesser sentence for their cooperation, either.

Yet again, you do not concern yourself with the facts.

Let’s play the “what if” game again — what if we did not monitor these communications and an innocent person — a witness, a child (yes, I have had to call wardens of state prisons to restrict an inmate’s phone calls and mail from a child molester to his child victim), a jail officer or a deputy — got injured in some fashion or killed? I can already hear the shrill tones of your next “hang ’em high” column — only the person you will want to hang high will not be a defendant—it will be an elected official, a police officer, or a civil servant you will accuse of not performing their duties.

Scott Harper had appointed attorneys at the start of his case. Reynolds retained her attorney of choice and then another was appointed by the Court, as is required by the Unified Appeal. The State ended up paying for both of their defenses, as the State is doing for every single death penalty defendant in the State of Georgia and has done in the past. You want to speculate about “all the whoopsies” that came to light and how if these defendants had personal resources, they may have walked free. The evidentiary hearings involving this case were long and drawn out and very complete—these defendants received resources and expert witnesses that other defendants can only dream about—and there was still only one search that the Court excluded and the items excluded did not affect the case at all. Had you done your research, you would know the attorneys involved in this case were all “salaried” or paid a set hourly rate by the State and Floyd County.

The defendants in this case were given sentences considerably longer than the five years they have already served. By law, they automatically get credit for this time. The cost of incarceration is approximately the same pre-conviction as post-conviction. Either way, the taxpayers are footing the bill.

As to your contention regarding the cost of “legal gyrations,” please review the Unified Appeal and even you should be able to grasp that all those “gyrations” are mandated by law.

And while Georgia law does not call them “expiration dates,” it does set forth statutes of limitations for all crimes (with the exception of murder). This means all crimes must be prosecuted within the prescribed time limits. In 2009, this office was responsible for 5,229 filed cases and disposed of 5,513. Some cases, depending on their subject matter, take longer than others. But the numbers show the cases are being completed in a timely fashion. This information is readily available and easily obtained for people interested in the truth and facts.

Regarding your wild speculations as to the costs of the trial running more than a million dollars — save the drama for your mama. The Rome News-Tribune published an article that tallied some of the costs of the trial as well as the money saved by not having it. None of those numbers approached a million dollars.

Perhaps you should read your own newspaper.

I notice you refer to victims last in your column. Why are they last? They are not last for us. Their safety and well being were first and foremost in our minds throughout the entire case. The office of the District Attorney has a special division dedicated to serving victims of crime. And we have a victim’s compensation fund that helps pay for some of the expenses victims may incur. For example, burial costs, counseling, medical expenses, crime scene clean up, lost wages and economic support are all covered.

Your questions seem to be entirely based on the economics of justice. Here are some questions for you:

Have you ever sat down and met with this victim’s family?

Have ever spoken with this victim’s family over a holiday weekend or during the dead of night to help deal with their anxiety over one of the defendants possibly being granted a bond?

Have you ever spoken with any murder victim’s family? Or a child victim before they had to face their molester in open court?

Have you ever lay on the floor and interviewed a child victim who was so afraid to talk about what has happened to them, they hid under a couch?

Have you ever had to tell a rape victim that she would have to be tested for AIDS because her attacker was HIV positive?

Well, my staff and I have. This is the reality of working as a prosecutor or a victim advocate. The employees of the District Attorney’s Office do these things every day with compassion and without considering the economic cost of justice.

And they work hard and do these things while having to submit to current State and County furloughs of 12 days per year, with the possibility of more, with the current state of budget cuts. Meanwhile, criminals don’t take furloughs.

After every big televised fight or boxing match, lots of folks often show up at the gym where I work out and want to learn how to fight. They often talk big, but after one really hard workout — they are never seen again. Few actually stick it out, put in the hard work and long hours and eventually step into the ring. Theodore Roosevelt once gave a speech in which he stated:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat. “

These are the many issues you should consider before the next “big column.”

About the author: Leigh Patterson is district attorney for the Rome Judicial Circuit.