<p>The Georgia Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the murder and racketeering convictions of former DeKalb County Sheriff Sidney Dorsey, who was sentenced to life in prison for arranging the assassination of the man who defeated him for re-election in 2000.</p><p>The state's highest court said the evidence was sufficient to find Dorsey "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt" of malice murder in the killing of Derwin Brown, who was gunned down after defeating Dorsey but before taking office.</p><p>The court found no merit to his appeal of the racketeering charges.</p><p>Brown had campaigned on a platform of rooting out corruption in the sheriff's department. He was ambushed in his driveway three days before he was to take office.</p><p>Prosecutors charged that Dorsey recruited men to kill Brown, 46, so he could retake the sheriff's post in a special election.</p><p>The murder case was based chiefly on the testimony of two men, Patrick Cuffy and Paul Skyers, who said they helped carry out the slaying. Both men struck immunity deals with prosecutors.</p><p>Two other men, Melvin Walker and David Ramsey, were acquitted of murder charges in a separate trial but were later indicted on federal charges.</p><p>The corruption counts alleged that Dorsey accepted bribes, demanded sex from a female bonding agent, and ordered deputies to work for his private security company and run family errands.</p><p>In challenging the murder count, Dorsey's lawyers claimed the state misled the jury by theorizing that Dorsey killed Brown to prevent his rival from investigating and uncovering Dorsey's corrupt activities.</p><p>There was no corruption, they argued, because as sheriff, Dorsey had sole discretion to allocate the funds and resources of the sheriff's office.</p><p>The court dismissed that argument, saying it was Dorsey's responsibility "to protect county property from injury and waste; he was not empowered to use the sheriff's department as if it were his own personal domain."</p><p>Dorsey's lawyers also challenged his racketeering convictions, arguing before the court in May that the prosecution improperly cited such activities as asking deputies to pick up his children at school and asking them to work for his private security company as part of the alleged racketeering activity.</p><p>The court found no merit to the argument, but retiring Chief Justice Norman Fletcher wrote a special concurring opinion expessing reservations.</p><p>"The evidence unmistakably shows that Dorsey treated the DeKalb County sheriff's office as his own personal fiefdom," Fletcher wrote, but he said the state, "in its unbridled zeal to convict Dorsey," failed to distinguish between actions that would constitute a legitimate theft of services and those less troubling, like asking an employee to mail a Christmas package.</p><p>"Without such limitations, any public officer risks a politically motivated prosecution merely for asking his assistant to help him with a personal task, even if it allows the employers to dedicate himself more completely to his official duties," he said.</p><p>Even so, Fletcher joined five other judges in upholding the convictions. A seventh judge, Carol Hunstein, who previously was a superior court judge in the county where the killing occurred, did not participate in the case.</p>
