A judge has intervened in a feud between the Fulton County district attorney and sheriff over the DA's access to recorded calls and videotaped visitations at the county's jail facilities.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Gail Tusan on Aug. 29 issued an ex parte order directing Sheriff Ted Jackson to immediately restore access to the Securus Technologies database for District Attorney Paul Howard and his staff, saying “no reasonable justification exists” for barring them.

Tusan issued her order after reviewing a letter Howard sent to the sheriff on Aug. 16, the day after his office was locked out of the jail inmate monitoring program. Howard said in his letter that Jackson, “without notice or explanation,” denied him access to the security system's video platform and a portfolio of other tools that allowed the DA to monitor inmate calls and jail cells in real time. Howard said the ban also denied his staff access to notes dating back two years that they stored on one of the security system's programs.