‘I’m from here.’ The late Columbus DA Stacey Jackson was devoted to serving his home

No one knows how far Stacey Jackson’s star might have risen, had a killer disease not cast it into shadow.

The Harris County native serving as Columbus’ chief prosecutor has died of cancer, cutting short a career marked by his rapid rise from rookie prosecutor to top criminal defense attorney, before his appointment in 2022.

Born April 20, 1974, he was 50 years old.

Later known for his aggressive court tactics and spirited arguments, Jackson was the son of educators who set high standards for him early on.

He graduated from Harris County High School, got his bachelor’s from Albany State University, and his law degree from Dayton State University. After a two-year stint clerking for judges, he started as an assistant district attorney, in 2000, and in 20 years was at the top of his profession, regarded as one of Columbus’ most assertive and successful criminal defense attorneys.

He gave that up after a year of chaos in the local district attorney’s office led to the removal of District Attorney Mark Jones, who in November 2021 pleaded guilty to misconduct, after just 10 months in office.

When Gov. Brian Kemp came looking for a replacement, Jackson stepped up, and left his private practice behind.

It was a detour from his career’s apparent course: Jackson, a longtime Republican, was regarded as a top contender for the bench, to fill a judge’s vacancy.

When a friend asked why he deferred that to be DA, Jackson didn’t have to pause to answer, he told the Ledger-Enquirer.

“The unique thing about this position is, see, I’m from here. I grew up here,” he said. “I chose to make this my home and to practice here. I care about the community.”

When he was sworn in, in May 2022, some people who’d known him since he was a child joined those packing the Columbus Government Center courtroom. Among them were his parents, Laura and Arnold Jackson.

In an otherwise lively and jovial speech, their son fought back tears when he talked about what they meant to him.

His mother taught school in Harris County, and his father both in Harris and in Talbot County. Their son graduated high school in 1992.

Thirty years later, as he prepared to lead a fractured district attorney’s office marked by discord, confusion and the loss of experienced prosecutors Jones had dismissed, Jackson recalled that he started there. He was an assistant district attorney from 2000 to 2008 before going into private practice.

He didn’t need the job, but the job needed him.

“I saw that there was a need for someone to come in an provide stability and credibility to the DA’s office,” he told the newspaper, “and I’m just sitting around, and I said, ‘Well, why not me? I’ve been there before.’”

As he took the helm at the six-county judicial circuit that besides Muscogee, Harris, Chattahoochee, Taylor, Talbot and Marion counties, his sons Andrew and Aiden held the Bible, and then-Chief Judge Gil McBride administered the oath.

Jackson announced then that he had appointed Don Kelly, a senior prosecutor Jones fired, to be his chief assistant. Kelly, who had worked 17 years as a prosecutor in the circuit, became acting district attorney when Jackson’s health worsened.

He now is in line to succeed Jackson, whose declining health kept him for seeking election this year.

Kelly qualified March 7 for the office, running as a Republican. The party primary will be May 21, and the general election on Nov. 5.

His opponent will be Anthony Johnson, a Columbus criminal defense attorney. The election is Nov. 5.

Aggressive advocate

Aside from overseeing nearly 70 staffers in the circuit prosecutor’s office, Jackson didn’t think going from defense attorney to district attorney was a big switch.

“It’s kind of like playing football: you’re on offense one minute, then you switch over to defense, or vice-versa,” he said. “The game is the same..... It’s not like something I haven’t done before.”

But in a city plagued by gun violence, he went from defending young people to prosecuting them.

When he was still a defense attorney, Jackson for a 2020 Ledger-Enquirer profile talked about the socioeconomic factors at play in crimes involving young offenders. He repeatedly mentioned one in particular: Parents trying to raise kids alone, without a spouse.

“I’d have to say that a good majority of my clients are from single-parent households,” Jackson said. “That is a reality that can’t be ignored.”

He cited his parents as the guiding forces that forged his character, and said he still carried the rural values of having grown up up in the country in the 1980s and 1990s, with strong family ties.

Back then guns were for hunting game, not for settling disputes, he said. If two teens had an argument at school, they’d go down to the old dump in Hamilton and have a fistfight.

“That’s about the worst thing that you had to deal with as a teenager,” he said. “You didn’t have to worry about someone who lost a fight coming by your house and firing shots into where you live. Those things just did not happen.”

At the time, his two sons were 13 and 20.

Teens typically lack the experience and judgment to make life or death decisions, he said:

“You’ve got to understand that even though you’ve got a lot of smart teenagers, their decision-making skills haven’t matured yet.”

Kids don’t think through the consequences of their actions, he said. They may think an armed robbery will get them quick cash, and not consider that with “the twitch of a finger” on a trigger that requires only 3.5 pounds of pressure to pull, a robbery becomes a murder case.

When Jackson was a child, his media influences were characters on TV shows such as “L.A. Law” and “Law & Order,” some of whom looked like him.

On “Law & Order,” the district attorney had an assistant prosecutor who handled many of the trials.

“He was a Black male, and he was a really good prosecutor on the show,” Jackson recalled. “That was a particular character that I kind of keyed in on, because it was one of the few shows where you saw a Black male attorney and then also a prosecutor…. It would just be something that as a young Black male, young teenager, being able to see that and say, ‘Well, that’s what I want to be.’”

It was not what his mother wanted him to be.

“My mom wanted me to go to medical school, but I didn’t like all the blood and guts and stuff,” he said. “That wasn’t my thing.”

His younger brother, William, pursued a career in medicine.

Jackson said he knew from the time he was a young prosecutor that the courtroom was his arena. He never wanted to just sit in an office, handing paperwork, but to look jurors in the eye and argue.

“That’s just where I feel comfortable, in front of a jury, arguing a case, in front of a judge, versus just being behind a computer, typing and reading transcripts,” he said.

He compared it to being a boxer: “The system is adversarial. It’s set up that way,” he said. “It’s just like two boxers. When you go in the ring, you try to hurt each other. That’s the sport.”