A panel created by Georgia lawmakers last year to field complaints about “rogue” prosecutors can soon begin its work.
Gov. Brian Kemp on Wednesday signed Senate Bill 332, which aims to fix a law Republican lawmakers passed to create the Prosecuting Attorneys Qualifications Commission and tasked it with investigating complaints and potentially disciplining state prosecutors.
“As we know all too well, crime has been on the rise across the country, and it’s especially prevalent in cities where prosecutors are giving criminals a free pass or failing to put them behind bars due to lack of professional conduct,” the governor, flanked by Republican leadership, said during a private bill-signing ceremony in his office.
“When out-of-touch prosecutors put politics over public safety the community suffers and people and property are put it at risk,” Kemp said.
Last year, lawmakers created the commission and empowered it to sanction prosecutors once the state Supreme Court approved rules to guide the panel.
The law was challenged in court, and the Supreme Court said it had “grave doubts” about whether it had the constitutional authority to approve rules and standards of conduct for the commission as required by the law.
SB 332 would remove the required Supreme Court oversight, allowing the commission to begin its work.
Republicans have singled out Athens-Clarke County District Attorney Deborah Gonzalez, whose critics accuse her of being incompetent and ineffective. They have criticized her decision not to prosecute certain low-level crimes.
Democrats say the commission is not needed because there already are ways to discipline prosecutors through the state bar, the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia and state voters. They also say prosecutors are elected by the communities they serve, and those voters should determine whether they want their prosecutors to be removed.
Augusta District Attorney Jared Williams was one of three attorneys who successfully challenged last year’s law, causing Republican lawmakers to come back and try again this year.
“I will challenge this law just like the previous,” he said in a statement. “I am licensed to practice law in three states, and I swore an oath in all three of them to support and defend the U.S. Constitution. When a law violates the Constitution, especially a law that threatens the voice of voters, I will never back down from that fight.”
The battle over the commission is also being closely watched partly because Donald Trump’s allies aim to use the law to punish Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis after she sought election interference charges against the former president and more than a dozen others in their efforts to reverse the results of the 2020 election in Georgia.
After Kemp signed the bill, House Speaker Jon Burns of Newington said the purpose of the legislation was to focus on the few prosecutors who he says are not doing their jobs out of the many other prosecutors in the state. When asked by an Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter whether he thought Willis was one of the few who were not doing their jobs, he sidestepped the question.
“She does her job as she sees fit. There can always be questions (of her work), and none of us are above reproach when it comes to looking at how we do our jobs,” he said. “This is about asking folks that are elected, just like me, to do their jobs and protect the citizens of this state. And that’s what our focus has been.”
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