“That’s the whole point of this bill, is to restore public safety in places where you have rogue district attorneys who simply are not doing their job,” said Georgia Republican Rep. She's under fire for refusal to prosecute marijuana crimes, an outflow of prosecutors working under her, and failure to meet court deadlines. Instead, many Georgia Republicans are most angered by Deborah Gonzalez, a district attorney who covers two counties including Athens, Kemp's hometown.
Some have viewed it as Republican retribution against the Atlanta prosecutor.īut the energy behind the bill has not been against Willis, whom in addition to targeting Trump is pursuing a tough-on-crime offensive against alleged gang members. Willis pushed herself to the center of the controversy even as she's mulling charges against former President Donald Trump for interfering in Georgia's 2020 election. Georgia Democrats intensely oppose the measure, saying majority Republicans are seeking another way to impose their will on local Democratic voters.įulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has decried the measure, claiming it's a racist attack after voters elected 14 nonwhite district attorneys in Georgia in 2020. “That movement was successful in a lot of places.” “I think it's happened because several years ago, there was a push to try to use the office of prosecutor to address mass incarceration and injustices within the criminal justice system,” she said. Hessick, who directs the Prosecutors and Politics Project, said that for the first time voters are confronted with meaningful debate about prosecutors' policies. All the efforts raise the question of prosecutorial discretion - a prosecutor's decision of what cases to try or reject and what charges to bring.Ĭarissa Hessick, a law professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said the Republican push tries to reverse a sea change in prosecution. All continue anti-crime campaigns that Republicans ran nationwide last year, accusing Democrats of coddling criminals and acting improperly by refusing to prosecute whole categories of crimes including marijuana possession. The Georgia bill parallels efforts to remove prosecutors in Florida, Missouri, Indiana and Pennsylvania, as well as broader disputes nationwide over how certain criminal offenses should be charged.
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