Meet the Houston County District Attorney candidates – Houston County District Attorney George Hartwig

While George Hartwig is not a native of Houston County, he has lived in central Georgia since migrating to Macon to attend law school in 1988. As a child, Ohio was his home, and at the age of six, his parents relocated to south Florida where he grew up down in Broward near the Palm Beach County line and attended and graduated from Boca Raton High. One of Hartwig’s schoolmates was former Georgia Bulldog coach, Mark Richt.

Law was something that Hartwig was drawn to early in life, but over the years, his place in law changed.

“Shortly after I graduated from high school, I became a police officer in Deerfield Beach, and I served about six and a half years there in south Florida,” Hartwig stated. “I really enjoyed law enforcement and thought that was going to be a career, but then I started getting more and more interested in becoming an attorney in law school. I was going to junior college while I was an officer, and I was getting really good grades there. And then when I moved to Gainesville and attended the University of Florida, I had a professor there that really encouraged me to go to law school where I received good grades as well. That professor knew about my law enforcement background and kind of encouraged me to go and look into law school, which I did.”

Hartwig’s pursuit to be an attorney eventually led him to the Houston County District Attorney’s office where former District Attorney Kelly Burke hired him.

“I joined the D.A.’s office in July of 2001; about two months before 9/11,” he recalled. “He (Kelly Burke) stepped down in March of 2010, and at the time, his chief assistant, Jason Ashford, was running for state court judge. I was the next in line in seniority, so Jason Ashford kind of became the acting D.A. according to statute, and I became the chief assistant for about six months in 2010,” Hartwig went on to say, “During that time, I qualified, and I was running in a special election that was being held to replace Kelly Burke. There were three of us back in 2010: myself, Arthur Creque—who ran again this year, and I beat in the primary—and Rabb Wilkerson. The three of us were running for D.A., and I ended up winning that election in 2010.”

With 10 years of experience as D.A. under his belt, Hartwig feels that he is the better candidate for the position.

“I think a combination of who I am and what I believe in, along with my experience and background in law enforcement and my time in the D.A.’s office, including almost 10 years now as the district attorney makes me clearly the best person to continue being the D.A. in this county.”

Sharing more about himself, Hartwig said, “I’m a born again Christian. I believe in Jesus Christ and He has forgiven me of my sins and saved me by dying on the cross. I am a conservative Republican. I’ve been a Republican my entire life. I am unapologetically pro-life and pro-Second Amendment and pro-gun. I believe that I’m a law and order candidate; a tough-on-crime D.A.”

Believing that his record speaks for itself, Hartwig stated that it is the platform on which his campaign is based.

“I’m running on my record. Anybody who wants to look at what I accomplished on my record as a police officer and as a prosecutor and as a D.A., can look. It’s there for everybody to see. When I got elected in 2010, I campaigned on being tough on crime and targeting the most violent serious criminals in our community, and we have done exactly that since I’ve been the D.A.,” Hartwig pointed out. “We have a great record of prosecuting folks in this county who commit murders, armed robberies, aggravated assaults and aggravated batteries; who shoot, stab, rob and rape people. We’ve targeted those serious violent criminals and gang members and made them a priority. We’ve got several cases where we’ve prosecuted high profile gang members, so I think we’ve got a proven record of keeping Houston County safe, and I’m running on that record. I’m going to continue to target and prosecute aggressively the serious violent criminals and gang members in our community and keep working hard to keep our community safe.”

As for new initiatives or new priorities going forward should he be re-elected, Hartwig said he has none.

“What I campaigned on in 2010, I’ve done over the last 10 years. It’s been successful and it’s worked. It’s been proven to keep our community, year after year, a safe and good community. I’m not looking at a whole lot of new initiatives or doing something new for the sake of change. I think what we have done has been successful, and I think we’re going to continue what we have done, which is to be tough on crime and target those serious violent felons that are out threatening our community with guns. We’re going to continue making that our priority. So, no; I really don’t have any big new initiatives or anything like that.”

One thing that Hartwig does plan to do, however, is to work as quickly as possible to unbury the county from the cases that have stacked up since courts closed down in the first quarter of 2020 because of COVID-19.

“We’re really in kind of a hole and behind because of the pandemic. We have not had any grand jury meetings or any jury trials since March of this year, so we have not been presenting cases. We have not been to a grand jury, we have not been indicting people; we haven’t been able to try cases. Everything has been on hold because of the statewide judicial emergency. So that has caused us to have a few hundred cases just pile up where we have indictments drafted and prepared, and we have cases that are ready to present to a grand jury, but we’ve been unable to do so.”

One of the things that Hartwig said he would do to address that problem is use the code section in Georgia that allows him, as the D.A., to apply to superior court judges to select more than one grand jury.

“Normally, we only have one grand jury operating at any given time,” explained Hartwig, “and that grand jury will serve for a six-month period. Well, since we haven’t had a grand jury convene and sitting to present cases to since March, that law allows us to pick more than one grand jury. So, right now we anticipate that we will be selecting a new grand jury late this month (October), and so the plan is to, on the same day, select two separate grand juries. What that’s going to do is allow us to—instead of having the grand jury meet every other week on Tuesdays like they traditionally have since I’ve been here—we’re going to have two grand juries going on simultaneously and those grand juries will alternate. So, we will have grand juries meeting every week alternating back and forth between grand jury one and grand jury two.”

By having a grand jury meet every week instead of every other week and running two of them at the same time, Hartwig said it will give double the number of grand jury days and hopefully, it will allow them to present twice as many cases as can be presented to one grand jury. His hope is that by the end of the year or by early next year, the D.A.’s office will be caught up with the backup caused by COVID-19.

“I would like the citizens of this county to know that it’s been an honor and a privilege of mine to serve as their District Attorney for the last 10 years,” Hartwig said. “I believe I’ve done a really good job and I have kept this county safe. I’ve said this several times recently, but Houston County, since I’ve been the D.A., has been averaging seven or eight murders a year. I think we’re on pace to end up this year right around there.”

He went on to say, “The next county to our north, Bibb County—I think they’re going to have somewhere around 50 or 60 murders this year. That’s a huge difference. Our counties are about the same size in population, and we’re adjoining counties. I think the citizens of Houston County need to really look at that,” Hartwig stressed. “We’re not crime free here. We still have robberies and murders and all the crimes that any city or town in this nation has, but Houston County, all in all, is a safe place to live and have a business. I’m just proud of the record I have as the D.A. here, and I will continue to serve the citizens well and I will continue to work hard to keep the community safe.”

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