By Alan Mauldin

alan.mauldin@gaflnews.com



MOULTRIE — As a candidate for Georgia’s attorney general, former federal prosecutor Max Wood thinks his experience gives him an edge.

Wood, who was appointed by former President George W. Bush, was U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Georgia for eight years, a portion of which was spent working with the Justice Department in Iraq. The Republican is seeking his first elected office for the seat being vacated by Attorney General Thurbert E. Baker, who is running for governor.

“I’m the only candidate who has been a state prosecutor, a military prosecutor and federal prosecutor,” he said. “I think it (attorney general) has amazing similarities to what I did for eight years. I don’t think there’s any job more similar to being attorney general than being a U.S. attorney.”

Wood said he was encouraged by former colleagues who made the leap from his former position in other states to successful political bids, including New Jersey Gov. Christopher Christie, who was sworn in this week.

As attorney general, Wood said he would like the office to be a constitutional watchdog. He also would like to see the attorney general’s office become a storehouse of expertise that would allow the state to weigh in on federal issues that are playing out in courts around the country but also affect Georgia.

“If I was attorney general now I would be joining the 13 or 14 attorney generals in states challenging the unconstitutionality of health care (legislation),” he said. “What we’re having with that legislation, for the first time in history you have Congress forcing people to buy something. I think that’s unconstitutional.”

The biggest change Wood said he envisions in the office is in how the state handles appeals cases.

Georgia still uses the same system of 30 years ago in which attorneys who argued a case still handle the appeals, he said, a way of business that is “old fashioned.”

“Nowadays you need to go the way of 30 states and develop an appellate office,” he said. “Over 30 states have gone in this direction because the federal government is ignoring the 10th Amendment.”

The 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution reserves to individuals or states those powers not granted to the federal government or prohibited to the states.

Wood said that Southern states’ unsuccessful attempt to fight civil rights advances in the 1960s and 1970s led to a weakening of the amendment.

On the more common role of the office, Wood said that the office should be more aggressive in addressing information-age crimes that federal prosecutors do not get involved in except in large cases and for which local prosecutors often do not have the resources. Those crimes include credit card and online fraud, identification theft, child pornography and the use of computers in child molestation.

“We’re kind of losing ground on those nationwide,” he said. “I think the attorney general can fill the gap in some of that.”

Wood said he also would like to explore the possibility of opening satellite offices “if it’s cost-effective.”

Other candidates who have announced their intentions to seek the attorney general’s position are former Cobb County Commission Chairman Sam Olens, who also is a Republican, and Democrats Ken Hodges, former Dougherty County district attorney, and state Rep. Bob Teilhet, D-Smyrna.