Brandon Hughes said he saw a need for change in the Lee County District Attorney’s Office, so he decided to take matters into his own hands by running for office.
“We’re going to create a culture of service in that office,” Hughes said. “Before you resolve a case, you talk to your victim, you talk to your law enforcement officer. You’ve got to keep them involved the entire time through the process, and that’s not going on right now.”
An Alabama native his whole life, Hughes graduated from Auburn University at Montgomery before attending law school at Jones Law School at Faulkner University. He has lived in Auburn since 2007. Safety and crime prevention is important to Hughes, especially because he is raising his two 16-year-old daughters and a 14-year-old son.
“I’m not leaving,” Hughes said. “Regardless of what happens, this is where we’re retiring.”
Hughes started his legal career with the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office in 2002. He prosecuted a variety of cases, from misdemeanors to homicides, until 2006, when he took a job with prosecution litigation. He said that involves training law enforcement, prosecutors and judges in criminal law, and he also helped with complicated cases or conflicts of interest throughout the state.
In 2014, he prosecuted one case in Lee County, and the person charged with the crime pleaded guilty.
“At the end of the day, that’s what the victim wanted to have happen,” Hughes said. “She was just ready for the case to be over with.”
Hughes said helping people is his favorite part of the job, and finding solutions the victims want is essential to him.
“We have got to put crime victims and law enforcement first when we are prosecuting these cases,” Hughes said. “That is absolutely not going on right now, and that’s going to be fixed.”
He also said being involved in the community is also important to him if he is elected district attorney.
“There is zero involvement in the community by the current district attorney,” Hughes said. “He is of the opinion that you should only see him if something bad happens to you.”
Hughes said he thinks being heavily involved in the community will help with crime reduction. He said he wants to bring educational programs to children in fifth grade all the way through high school. He said he wants to bring Project LEAD, which teaches about the criminal justice system, to elementary schools. He said he wants to bring impaired driving and distracted driving simulators to high school students. He said he also wants to improve Lee County’s pretrial diversion program for first-offense, nonviolent felonies.
“The DA, if they’re not interested in trying to make a difference, if they’re not interested in being involved in the community, if they’re not interested about doing something about the crime rate, then my question to them is, ‘Why do you have the job?’” Hughes said.
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