COLUMN: A Legacy Cut Short, But a Legacy Indeed

The following article is an opinion piece and reflects the views of only the author.

On Friday, District Attorney Robert Busbee died unexpectedly.

The news of his death traveled faster than most things, which says a lot about the speed given the South Georgia ways. After the initial shock, for most it was an overwhelming sense of sorrow for his family that followed – his wife, young sons, and the rest of his loved ones. Not far behind that was the grief of many over the community’s loss, as the transformation underway had just come to a screeching halt.

I met Busbee not long after I moved to South Georgia. We had a mutual friend in Eric Cumbee, who works with me, and we all frequented the same coffee shop. Small talk, politics, and the occasional gossip filled the time between coffee orders and “orders up!” We all shared a lot of the same ideologies and were annoyed by the same people…and isn’t that how so many friendships begin?

At various times, I saw Busbee take on what seemed to him like small battles but were a much bigger deal to those he helped. And when I decided to branch off and launch my own media outlet in 2021, with Eric in tow, Busbee was one of the first to emphatically support it. He believed in the cause and wasn’t afraid to say so.

Over the years, we talked infrequently. Eric was more or less our communication liaison – often sharing information back and forth and I mostly worked with his wife, Erika. I’d see Busbee in passing or in court, but it was usually pleasantries.

Every so often, we’d all converge on the coffee shop for the latest “Did you hear about [insert any given local thing]?” We’d commiserate about the state of affairs, the judiciary, and government generally and then opine on how we’d fix it, given the chance.

On one occasion, he told me about a case he had involving a marine who was falsely accused of a crime. I was still in the shallow end of my court coverage then, but what he shared was a repulsive injustice. It was obvious that the case had become incredibly personal for him.

It wasn’t long after that conversation that he went to trial and secured a NOT GUILTY verdict for his client. He issued a press release about the case, detailing at length what had happened, how the system had wronged his client, and how detrimental the impact was on his client’s life. The case was over, but Busbee was adamant that his client’s name be cleared and that the public hear the truth about how the case came to be. I later spoke with his client and his client’s family and it was obvious that Busbee’s commitment to the case had a lasting impact on them. At times, his commitment was the only thing they clung to as the case dragged on for 38 months.

On another occasion, we talked about the bond issue in Bulloch County – the one that, at the time, unnecessarily left people behind bars for months due to a standing order from the judges essentially barring the magistrate court from setting bond.

He urged me to look into it and then told me he’d already called “dozens of magistrate courts” across Georgia to inquire about their practices and obtained a copy of the coveted standing order document that everyone else had been too afraid to request. I laughed because who else would do that?

When he decided to run for office, it was an obvious YES for me.

By that point, I would have supported just about anyone against the former DA and Busbee was willing to do what many others knew was necessary, but were unwilling to do. He also had a platform that resonated with me and one I’d already seen him put into action.

Follow the facts. Seek justice. Treat people with dignity.

He was underestimated, but he outworked the expectation and he was victorious in an overwhelming fashion. It was glorious.

Some tried to diminish the WOW factor of his victory, chalking it up to “anti-incumbent momentum in Bulloch County,” though that was easily nullified by the victories in three other counties, some with greater margins. A lot of people really wanted to see his plan come to fruition and were excited by the opportunity for change.

But the campaign was only the tip of the iceberg.

Busbee quickly got to work, trying to overhaul an office with a problem in every department, from case load and budgeting to culture and morale. It didn’t take long for people who work in and around the system daily to notice a difference. Most embraced the changes with open arms. For others – those who felt threatened by the lack of control – the change was difficult to accept. He didn’t care.

Like any elected official, he wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but for certain, he did everything he said he was going to do.

In his 17 months in office, he made difficult, and at times unpopular, decisions in the same manner as the ones that yielded praise. He also knew that in “our system,” no one gets 100% of what they want 100% of the time.

We didn’t agree on everything, but I respected what he did because I knew that on any given decision, he was doing it because he believed it was the best decision at the time based on the information he had and the ideologies he held.

I don’t know what else you can ask of someone who is serving in public office.

Busbee was laser focused on seeing the system work. He wasn’t distracted by the posts of employees past, the not-so-secret office leak, or the critics angered by his assertion of autonomy as a duly elected constitutional officer.

In February, I wrote about a case that brought some heat to one of his ADAs. He told me the article was fair and he respected that I had a job to do.

He also had a job to do and he wanted to do it well. He wanted those he employed to take pride in their workplace while seeking justice with balanced scales. He didn’t shy away from answering questions and he had no issue with putting things on the record.

I think one of the things I appreciated most was his willingness to say the same thing no matter who was in the room. I think that bothered some people, as did his aversion to using the system to settle scores or make examples out of people.  

As a cynic myself, it almost seems laughable that someone in elected office could accomplish enough in a year and a half to leave a legacy, but he did. I interviewed him earlier this year and he was so proud to report on interagency trainings, personnel growth, policy changes, wasteful spending cuts, and all the ways different facets of the system were streamlining and working together.

Not in an audacious way, but in the way a kid tells his class about his completed project, poster and diorama style. There were other victories claimed behind the scenes for which he had no problem letting someone else get the credit. He just wanted the change and for all the right reasons.

On Friday, as I typed a headline to describe what had just happened, I ruminated over which words to use. Four sentences seemed so inadequate. How do you report that someone has died but omit all of the above?

I don’t think you do, nor do I think we should.

Not many people leave an imprint in such a short amount of time. The imprint isn’t a big building with a plaque or a long list of cases he personally tried and it isn’t there because he catered to the powerful or became part of the machine. It’s a stamp of conviction – of the principled variety – etched in the confidence of doing what he promised to do. He was doing it.

Of course, Busbee was more than his job. He was a man who adored his family, a colleague to some, and a friend to many. But the office is where his work intersected with our lives and that crossroads is where the difference was made.

It’s a legacy cut short, but it’s a legacy, indeed.