Then, in June, Aunt Lorraine sent me something that wasn’t a clipping. It was a manila envelope holding thirty-one handwritten letters from people in Pell County. Some were on lined notebook paper, and some were on church stationery. One was written on the back of a feed store receipt.
All of them were about Sheriff Dalton Voss.
“These folks wrote to the GBI,” Aunt Lorraine said on the phone. “To the governor. To the county commission. Nothing happened. Some of them got visits from deputies the next week asking why they were making trouble.” Her voice shook. “Amara, I know you can’t do anything. You’re a judge. But somebody in Atlanta needs to read these. Somebody who’ll know where to send them.”
She was right that I couldn’t do anything as a judge. But I could do what any citizen can do, and what the law expects a judge to do when credible allegations of federal crimes land on her desk.
