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By Christian Brown Bryant – Chief Assistant District Attorney

The Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia selected Cordele Judicial Circuit District Attorney Bradford Lee Rigby as the District Attorney of the Year for 2024. Rigby was presented with the award on July 21, 2024 at the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council’s annual summer conference in Jekyll Island, Georgia. Rigby was selected for the top award out of the district attorneys for the State’s 50 judicial circuits.

After graduating cum laude from the Lamar School of Law at the University of Mississippi, Rigby began his lifelong career in prosecution. He has worked as a Special Assistant District Attorney for the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council and as an Assistant District Attorney for the Tifton Judicial Circuit. He was hired as an Assistant District Attorney in the Cordele Judicial Circuit and was then named Chief Assistant District Attorney. In March of 2016, he became Acting District Attorney for the Cordele Circuit, and on May 19, 2016, Rigby was appointed District Attorney for the Cordele Judicial Circuit by then Governor Nathan Deal. Rigby has served the State of Georgia for the past 24 years, with 16 years as an Assistant District Attorney, and 8 years as the District Attorney for the Cordele Judicial Circuit.

In addition to his duties as District Attorney in the four-county Cordele Circuit, which includes Crisp, Ben Hill, Dooly and Wilcox counties, Rigby trains new prosecutors at the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council’s annual Basic Litigation course. He was the recipient of the Thompson-Jones Award for Faculty Member of the Year in 2014 for the Basic Litigation course. Rigby regularly teaches at legal conferences, including providing instruction in prosecuting gang and murder cases. He is a member of the Georgia Commission on Family Violence, and was
appointed to the Absentee Ballot Fraud Task Force in 2020. Rigby has served as Secretary, Vice Chair, and Chair of the District Attorneys’ Association of Georgia. He currently serves as a Council Member of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia.

Rigby has successfully tried numerous murder cases throughout his career, including the gang-related murder of Jasperin “Baby J” Armstrong, who was shot and killed in 2014 when he was just 20 years old after breaking up a fight with a rival gang. Rigby obtained justice for 72-year old Mamie Wright, who was shot and killed in her home by an armed intruder in 2011, as well as Tellis Fort, who was murdered in 2015 by two codefendants. Rigby held accountable the individual responsible for the 2014 murder of 27-year old Ashley Garry, who was shot and killed in her own home by an armed intruder. He also successfully tried multiple codefendants for the January 2016 murder of Craigory Burch, Jr., who was targeted and killed while holding his infant son after winning $400,000 in the Georgia Lottery. Rigby is currently seeking the death penalty for the 2018 double- murder of Sheena Latoya Jones and Shawna Marie Ware in Crisp County.