Georgia prosecutors renew challenge of a law they say undermines their authority
Three prosecutors in Georgia have again objected to a commission created to discipline and fire 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 that Republican lawmakers revived this year after originally creating it in 2023.
Democrats fear the committee has one main goal: to derail Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ prosecution of former President Donald Trump.
Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed legislation creating the commission last year, but it failed to launch because the state Supreme Court declined to approve rules governing its conduct. The justices said they had “serious doubts” about the Supreme Court’s ability to regulate prosecutors’ decisions.
Lawmakers then removed the requirement for court approval, a change that Kemp signed into law. The committee started on April 1.
The challenge is 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 its “commitment to fight this unconstitutional law remains as strong as ever.”
“We will continue to oppose this blatant attempt by state Republicans to control how local communities address their public safety needs and work to return 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 prosecute fewer drug possession cases and shorter prison sentences as a matter of criminal justice reform.
The Georgia law raises fundamental questions about prosecutorial discretion; a foundation of the American legal system says that a prosecutor decides what charges to file and how severe the punishment should be.
Prosecutors say the law violates Georgia’s constitutional separation of powers by requiring prosecutors to review each individual case on its individual merits. Instead, prosecutors argue that they should be able to reject the prosecution of entire categories of crimes as a matter of policy.
Lawmakers, they argue, do not have “unfettered power to infringe on the core function of the district attorney: deciding how to prosecute each case.”
The law also violates federal and state constitutional guarantees of free speech by limiting what prosecutors can talk about when running for office, they say.
“There is no valid governmental purpose for restricting prosecutors’ discretion regarding their prosecutorial approach, and that restriction undermines the core values of self-government by weakening voters’ ability to evaluate and choose candidates,” the lawsuit states, arguing that the law illegally discriminates in favor of positions that advocate more severe prosecution.
The lawsuit also argues that it is unlawful to ban prosecutors fired by the commission from returning to office for 10 years, and says the new commission illegally failed to consult with a state agency when writing its rules and made no public comment before adopting them.
Democrat Flynn Broady, the district attorney in suburban Cobb County, joined the first lawsuit but not the second after a staff member was appointed to the commission, setting up a potential legal conflict.
Efforts to rein in prosecutors in some other states have run into legal hurdles. Last year, a judge struck down a Tennessee law that allowed the attorney general to intervene in capital punishment decisions. And in Florida, a federal judge ruled that Governor Ron DeSantis illegally targeted Tampa District Attorney Andrew Warren because he is a Democrat who has publicly supported abortion and transgender rights. but did not restore Warren.