Credibility of Sheriff Mitchell’s cases could be called into question

GOLDEN TRIANGLE AREA, Miss. (WCBI) – The recent arrest of Webster County Sheriff Tim Mitchell has led many locals to question the validity of the Sheriff’s direct arrests and investigations.

Many are wondering if cases will be reopened or tossed out altogether.

Sheriff Mitchell has been charged with tampering with evidence and intimidating a witness.

Local attorneys said this might not be enough to re-evaluate the department’s cases.

“On all kinds of levels, it’s an unqualified disaster. It destroys public trust in law enforcement,” said former District Attorney Forrest Allgood.

Allgood says a case like this would be any district attorney’s nightmare.

“Obviously the first thing you’d have to do is sit there and figure out which cases the man had and hand in and which ones he didn’t,” said Allgood.

Defense attorney Carrie Jourdan, on the other hand, thinks it may be harder to throw out the Sheriff’s cases.

“It’s not an automatic toss out because the Sheriff of Webster County has been indicted. But obviously, if he played a role, if a witness were encouraged or discouraged in a specific way that wasn’t factual…Obviously those things would play a role,” said Jourdan.

However, she says if it were her client, she’d examine every detail.

“He is charged with attempting to intimidate a witness. So, I would want to know, has that gone on in other cases? So that is one area that does very much concern me.”

There’s also a looming concern for the credibility of the entire department.

“There’s a residual effect that this leaves and it puts in people’s minds the notion that all officers are bad and all officers are tainted,” said Allgood.

“It’s a black eye — there’s no doubt about that… It’s going to take some real work to restore confidence. It’s not the death nail for the Sheriff’s department, but they’re going to have to work hard to get the confidence of the people back.”

Allgood says electing a new Sheriff will help relieve some of the tension in the community.

“When the boss changes, the culture changes. It would be unfair to say that the next man who comes in as Sheriff is tainted also. Now is he going to have to deal with a legacy? Yeah, he’s going to have to deal with a legacy, but it’s nothing that he can’t live down.”

Allgood also said he’s seen cases in the past that involved tainted witnesses and those cases had to be thrown out.