ATHENS — On one side stands an incumbent district attorney who insists another term will allow her to fulfill her ambitions for taking a progressive approach to crime and punishment.
On the other, there’s a political newcomer who contends that his opponent is ineffectual and the time for her to introduce meaningful reform has run out.
Voters will decide Nov. 5 if they’re willing to be patient with Democrat Deborah Gonzalez or if they’re ready for a change in independent Kalki Yalamanchili.
Gonzalez and Yalamanchili met last week in the first of a series of debates scheduled to help voters decide who should lead the Western Judicial Circuit district attorney’s office, which covers Clarke and Oconee counties.
Gonzalez has come under fire from Republicans who have attacked her prosecutorial record and approach to immigration cases. A group called Safer Georgia said in March that it planned to spend more than $100,000 to unseat her.
Four years ago, Gonzalez became the first elected Latina district attorney in Georgia. Voters bought into her approach to criminal justice, which included more diversion programs and shorter sentences for nonviolent offenders. She promised to put resources toward root causes that lead to criminal behavior, with an emphasis placed on marginalized communities.
At Tuesday’s debate at Hill Chapel Baptist Church, about a mile from the University of Georgia campus, she asked voters to stay the course, saying the COVID pandemic hamstrung her office and reform efforts.
“Anything worth it means we have to fight for it,” said Gonzalez.
But Yalamanchili has called Gonzalez’s term a failure. He cited staff shortages, courtroom losses and repeated violations of the mandate to keep victims informed about their cases and notified of their rights. All of that, he said, is evidence that Gonzalez can’t properly manage the office.
Credit: Courtesy photo
Credit: Courtesy photo
In the 2020 runoff election for district attorney, 76% of conservative Oconee County voted for Gonzalez’s opponent James Chafin. Meanwhile, 67% of left-leaning Clarke County, where voters outnumber their neighboring county 2 to 1, opted for Gonzalez.
This time around, Kelly Girtz, the mayor of Athens who supported Gonzalez in the 2020 election, has endorsed Yalamanchili.
Girtz said he’s still aligned with Gonzalez philosophically but that her office lacks functionality, which creates long lags between arrest, arraignment and pleas and verdicts.
“What that means on the ground is victims have longer to wait for resolution,” Girtz said. “Or people innocent of crimes are hanging out in jail longer, and people guilty of crimes are waiting longer until a trial happens, where evidence grows cold and a conviction is less likely.”
He said that early in Gonzalez’s tenure that she could have hired an experienced prosecutor to essentially act as the office manager.
“It’s often the case that you might have somebody who makes a good argument, but they can’t fulfill that argument,” Girtz said. “I would say that’s been the case with Deborah.”
Gonzalez admits that she underestimated the challenge she undertook in 2020 and the impact that the pandemic would have on her office.
“If I was naive in the beginning, I thought with prosecutorial discretion that we would be able to get a lot more done in a lot quicker time,” Gonzalez said during last week’s debate.
Gonzalez said the pandemic created a backlog of cases and prevented her from hiring and maintaining a full staff.
Still, she defended her term as district attorney. If her office “was that dysfunctional,” she said, “then crime wouldn’t be down two years in a row. If it really was that dysfunctional, we would be having a very different conversation.”
Matt Pulver, who previously ran for Athens-Clarke County commission, intends to vote for Gonzalez because he wants to see a reduction in incarcerations. Though she made “rookie mistakes,” he said, he believes she can carry out her vision for the office with another four years.
“It’s hard for me to trust these folks who say the jurisprudence sky is falling because of a few mistakes,” said Pulver, a longtime Athens resident. Pulver added that he views Yalamanchili as accomplished, smart and ready for the job but that he “represents the past” way of doing things.
“If you would like to make the police and prisons great again, Kalki should get your vote,” Pulver said.
Yalamanchili worked in the Western Circuit DA’s office for six years and left before Gonzalez was elected. He said he would build a well-trained and experienced staff to aggressively prosecute violent offenders. He also said he’ll explore resources for nonviolent offenders to receive support for addiction and mental health issues.
“We can have both,” he said. “We deserve both.”
The next debate is scheduled for Tuesday.
This story has been updated to correct the timing of Yalamanchili’s departure from the Western Circuit DA’s office.
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