Jody Owens, a civil-rights attorney running on a “decarceral” platform with national backing, will become Hinds County’s new district attorney following the Aug. 6 primary. Owens won with more than 52% of the vote against defense attorney Darla Palmer and long-time prosecutor Stanley Alexander.
Owens graduated from Jackson State University and earned his law degree at Howard University School of Law. He is the former director and managing attorney of the Mississippi office of the Southern Poverty Law Center, and he has litigated class-action lawsuits on behalf of children and adults on matters like mass incarceration, private prisons and the school-to-prison pipeline.
He ran on a SMART Justice platform, which includes a re-entry program for ex-offenders, mental health and rehabilitation treatment for those with addiction, support to the families of those affected by violence and collaborating with community organizations to find ways to reduce crime. He also pledges to prosecute violent offenders…