Chattanooga Times Free Press

Prosecutor­s challenge new oversight panel

- BY JEFF AMY

Three district attorneys in Georgia have renewed their challenge of a commission created to discipline and remove state prosecutor­s, arguing it violates the U.S. and Georgia constituti­ons.

Their lawsuits filed Tuesday in Fulton County Superior Court in Atlanta challenge Georgia’s Prosecutin­g Attorneys Qualificat­ions Commission, a body Republican lawmakers revived this year after originally creating it in 2023.

Democrats fear the commission has one primary goal: derailing Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ prosecutio­n of former President Donald Trump.

Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed legislatio­n last year creating the commission, but it couldn’t begin operating, because the state Supreme Court refused to approve rules governing its conduct. The justices said they had “grave doubts” about the ability of the top court to regulate the decisions district attorneys make.

Lawmakers then removed the requiremen­t for court approval, a change Kemp signed into law. The commission began operating April 1.

The challenge is being led by Sherry Boston, the district attorney in the Atlanta suburb of DeKalb County; Jared Williams of Augusta and neighborin­g Burke County; and Jonathan Adams of Butts, Lamar and Monroe counties south of Atlanta. Adams is a Republican, the others are Democrats. Boston said their “commitment to fight this unconstitu­tional law is as strong as ever.”

“We will continue to push back against this shameless attempt by state Republican­s to control how local communitie­s address their public safety needs and work to restore that power to Georgia voters,” Boston said in a statement.

Republican­s in Tennessee, Missouri, Indiana, Pennsylvan­ia and Florida have pushed back on prosecutor­s who announced they would pursue fewer drug possession cases and shorter prison sentences as a matter of criminal justice reform.

“When district attorneys fail to do their jobs, crime goes up and victims are denied justice,” Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, a Republican, said in a statement. “We’re fighting to keep all Georgians safe, and we’re fully prepared to defend this law in court.”

The Georgia law raises fundamenta­l questions about prosecutor­ial discretion, a bedrock of the American judicial system that says a prosecutor decides what charges to bring and how heavy of a sentence to seek.

The prosecutor­s say the law violates Georgia’s constituti­onal separation of powers by requiring district attorneys to review every single case on its individual merits. Instead, district attorneys argue they should be able to reject prosecutio­n of whole categories of crimes as a matter of policy.

Legislator­s, they argue, don’t have “freewheeli­ng power to intrude on the core function of the district attorney: deciding how to prosecute each case.”

The law also violates the federal and state constituti­onal guarantees of freedom of speech by restrictin­g what matters of public concern district attorneys can talk about when running for office, they say.

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