Georgia district attorneys file new lawsuit challenging state oversight panel
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Three Georgia district attorneys have filed a new lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of legislation creating an oversight board with the power to discipline and potentially remove prosecutors.
The Republican-controlled General Assembly passed a bill last year creating the Prosecuting Attorneys Qualifications Commission (PAQC) to handle complaints against local prosecutors. The panel can remove district attorneys it deems guilty of a variety of offenses including mental or physical incapacity, willful misconduct or failure to perform the duties of the office, conviction of a crime of moral turpitude, or conduct that brings the office into disrepute.
The commission has been stalled since the state Supreme Court ruled last November that it does not have the authority to review the rules the commission adopts, as the 2023 bill had provided. GOP lawmakers responded during the recently concluded legislative session by passing a follow-up bill giving that authority to the commission itself, which Gov. Brian Kemp signed last month.
The suit alleges the legislation violates the constitutional separation of powers by giving the General Assembly authority over duly elected prosecutors and violates district attorneys’ free speech rights.
“Governor Kemp and the state lawmakers who supported this measure willfully ignored the concerns raised by the Georgia Supreme Court and did the absolute minimum to force the PAQC into existence,” said DeKalb County District Attorney Sherry Boston, a Democrat and one of the prosecutors who filed the suit.
“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.”
Besides Boston, the other district attorneys filing suit are Democrat Jared Williams of Augusta and Republican Jonathan Adams of the Towaliga Judicial Circuit in Butts, Lamar, and Monroe counties.
“The lawsuit marks a crucial step in fighting back against a growing national trend of states threatening the independence of local DAs,” said Josh Rosenthal, legal director of the Public Rights Project, a nonprofit representing the prosecutors in the suit.
“Georgia communities elect DAs to pursue the solutions that will keep them safe and promote justice, and this new commission aims to take that power away.”
During the legislative debate over this year’s bill, Republican lawmakers argued a commission is needed to act as a check on what they called “rogue” DAs who refuse to prosecute certain cases.
