Jeff Jones, candidate for Attorney General of Oklahoma District 10 in the November 2010 election. Photo Courtesy of Jeff Jones

By Benny Polacca
Osage News

An Osage attorney announced March 3 he is running for District Attorney of Oklahoma’s District 10 which covers Osage and Pawnee counties.

Jeff Jones, 51, is currently the First Assistant District Attorney for District 10 and will be running for the post in the November election against an Oklahoma state representative and whoever has yet to announce their interest in the post.

“I think the (District Attorney’s) office has to cooperate with law enforcement, with (the Department of Human Services), with the Court Clerk, with the judges. We’re all in this together, we’re all doing the same thing” Jones said during his candidacy announcement in Pawhuska. “That’s one thing I’ve really strived to do is to create a strength of cooperation.”

Jones noted the majority of crimes committed in District 10 stem from illegal drug possession, manufacturing and usage. He said in a news release he “plans on aggressively prosecuting drug crimes in Osage and Pawnee Counties in a continuing effort to address the growing problem.”

Jones, who was born and raised in Skiatook, touted his efforts to remain in touch with local law enforcement as a strategy to keep strong communication with his office.

“All the deputies have my cell phone number. They call me day and night… and that’s the way it ought to be,” he said. “If I can spend two minutes on the telephone and save them two hours of work or get a good arrest, that’s one good group – we’re all in this together.”

“Whenever the Sheriff’s Office is out there in the middle of the night and make an arrest, When I get ready to file charges the next day, it’s up to me to look at that and make sure the person’s constitutional rights were not violated,” Jones said. “It needs to be a good arrest, we don’t need to turn into criminals just to get an arrest.”

If Jones’s office declines to file charges in a case, he said he discusses the case with the workers involved, which covers “this is how we’re going to do it better next time,” he said. “So I see the DA’s office as an important part in a bigger scheme to protect people’s constitutional rights.”

Jones told the 20-plus attendees at his announcement he is “very proud to be Osage, but I work for you all. I work for everybody in Osage County, not just one group or another group.” He also held a candidacy announcement for Pawnee County residents later that day.

Jones previous worked as a UPS truck driver for 18 years before getting “burnt out. There’s got to be more to life than this.” He then entered the University of Tulsa’s law school where he earned his Juris Doctor degree in 1999. Jones graduated from Skiatook High School in 1976 and also holds two business degrees from Oklahoma State University.

Jones worked in the private law practice field before joining the District 10 DA’s office as an assistant district attorney in 2002. He has served as First Assistant District Attorney since 2006.

Helen Norris, project director for Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) attended Jones’s Pawhuska announcement and praised his work with clients in Pawnee County where her office is located. “He’s nice, he’s honest, he’s a great guy,” said Norris whose organization works to find volunteers to be court advocates for abused and neglected children in the court systems for Pawnee and Osage counties and the Pawnee Nation.

Kalyn Free, Choctaw and a Tulsa-based attorney, also attended the event and said her organization, Indigenous Democratic Network List (INDN’s List), is endorsing Jones for office. INDN’s List is devoted to recruiting and electing Native American candidates and mobilizing the Indian Vote nationwide on behalf of those candidates, according to its Web site.

Larry Stuart, the current district attorney, announced last month that he will not seek re-election and plans to retire after 30-plus years in office. He’s held the DA’s post since he was first elected in 1978.

Stuart told The Bigheart Times he is supporting Jones’s run for his post. Jones will be running against State Rep. Rex Duncan of Sand Springs, who has also expressed interest in running for the district attorney post. Duncan, a Republican lawyer and Oklahoma National Guard officer, represents District 35 which covers Noble, Osage, Pawnee and Payne counties.

Oklahoma’s District 10 covers Osage and Pawnee counties. As of 2008, the district comprised about 61,800 residents with 45,489 living in Osage County and 16,307 in Pawnee County, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.