By A.R. Shaw
Two Georgia district attorneys who promised criminal justice reforms are facing reelection races that will test whether progressive prosecutors in liberal pockets of the swing state can survive intense blowback from state Republicans and some prominent local Democrats.
Shalena Cook Jones of Chatham County and Deborah Gonzalez of Athens-Clarke and Oconee counties were elected in 2020 in the wake of nationwide protests against racial injustice. They, like dozens of other progressive prosecutors elected to office over the past decade, promised a holistic approach to prosecuting that offers diversion programs, rehabilitation and shorter sentences for nonviolent offenders.
Cook Jones and Gonzalez say the criticism is political and misleading. But opponents say they have led dysfunctional offices that let people convicted of violent crimes off the hook. Among their critics are Democrats including Athens-Clarke County Mayor Kelly Girtz and Savannah Mayor Van Johnson, a former police officer.
Pushback against progressive prosecutors is not new: Republicans in Texas, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Missouri and Florida have tried to remove those who they disparagingly call “woke prosecutors.” In Georgia, Republicans frustrated with Gonzalez passed legislation to discipline and remove prosecutors if they fall afoul of a newly created commission.
Political shifts
In 2020, Cook Jones unseated her former boss, Chatham’s tough-on-crime, Republican, incumbent district attorney, Meg Heap. Cook Jones was the first African American woman elected in a county that includes Savannah, which is over 50% Black. In May, she easily won her Democratic primary.
Gonzalez’s circuit includes Athens-Clarke County, which is mostly liberal, and Oconee County, which is mostly conservative. She didn’t face a primary challenger in May.
When Gonzalez took office, she released a memorandum detailing revised policies on prosecution, sentencing and rehabilitation programs. But she quickly retracted it because of intense backlash.
“I think part of it is because I’m outspoken and I am unapologetically a Democrat, and I consider myself a progressive prosecutor,” Gonzalez said of the criticism. “There are many prosecutors who don’t like that word — progressive — but to me, what it means is that we need to look at this differently. … We need to always ask ourselves, ‘Is this in the interest of justice?’”
In 2023, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp traveled to Savannah to sign a law creating a commission that he said could go after “far-left prosecutors” who are “making our communities less safe.”
Cook Jones said such rhetoric contributes to a “smear campaign” against reform-minded prosecutors who seek to reduce incarceration rates that skyrocketed since the 1990s because of punitive policies for low-level drug offenses that were disproportionately enforced for people of color.
Cook Jones also said people overlook mistakes made by other district attorneys.
“The progressives are under a microscope,” said Jessica Brand of The Wren Collective, a criminal justice group of former public defenders. “So I think people are looking harder for flaws.”
Former DeKalb County District Attorney J. Tom Morgan said Cook Jones and Gonzalez are under attack for the simple reason that they aren’t good at their jobs.
“When your district attorney is more political than prosecutorial oriented … you’re going to have problems leading the DA’s office,” he said.
Staff exodus
After Cook Jones and Gonzalez took office, dozens of staff left.
Though turnover is normal when new district attorneys enter office and offices across Georgia face staffing shortages, it is especially pronounced for progressive prosecutors.
The early exodus in Gonzalez’s office was driven by policy disagreements, said Patrick Najjar, a former prosecutor under Gonzalez. But it didn’t take long for the office to descend into a “downward spiral” due to poor management, he said, adding that he was overwhelmed by his caseload and left after five months.
June Teasley, who left Gonzalez’s office to work for Cook Jones until she had a child, said Gonzalez didn’t have the prosecutorial experience for the job.
“People left Shalena’s office because they didn’t like the idea of progressive prosecution,” Teasley said. “People left Deborah’s office because they couldn’t function under her disjointed attempt to be a progressive prosecutor.”
Girtz, the Athens-Clarke County mayor, supported Gonzalez when she ran for state House and for DA. But now, he is supporting her independent opponent Kalki Yalamanchili.
“Even if you call yourself a progressive, part of that is just making sure that the wheels of justice turn and don’t grind to a halt,” Girtz said. “And unfortunately, the wheels are not turning very smoothly these days.”
Yalamanchili has said he would clean up the “general dysfunction” in the office, including low conviction rates. Gonzalez blames staffing shortages and said she hired eight prosecutors in recent months.
Gonzalez also has faced legal reprimands, including having been cited at least four times for not communicating with victims about cases and sued for violating open records laws. She said her critics are trying to “distract” from her office’s accomplishments, which include expunging people’s records, resentencing five people and referring 15 juveniles to restorative justice programs.
Gonzalez and Cook Jones also had large case backlogs from the pandemic, which both have mostly cleared.
Tired of the criticism
Cook Jones has mostly restaffed her office. Still, safety concerns from residents led Cook Jones’ opponent, former employee Andre Pretorius, to run against her.
Johnson, Savannah’s Democratic mayor, criticized Cook Jones in August when, without notifying the mayor’s office, she publicly dismissed six murder cases involving two Savannah police officers who have been indicted on perjury charges.
“My expectation is that when my police make the arrest, this community has to have the assurance that they are going to be aggressively prosecuted,” Johnson said, referring to Cook Jones’ overall performance.
Cook Jones has said her office examined each case and determined they wouldn’t hold up in court.
“I’ve gotten a black eye for dismissing murder cases that should not have been murder cases,” she said.
Nathanael Wright, one of Cook Jones’ former prosecutors, called Cook Jones’ predecessor “prosecution happy” and said she left the office with “crappy murder cases.”
Brian DeBlasiis, Cook Jones’ chief assistant district attorney, is a Republican who worked for her predecessor.
DeBlasiis said Cook Jones is meticulous when she considers reducing a charge and has forged close relationships with law enforcement.
“If my wife was murdered tomorrow, I would want them trying the case,” DeBlasiis said of Cook Jones’ office.
Cook Jones hopes voters will dismiss “the political back and forth” and focus on her work, including attempts to expand diversion programs, expunge records and examine wrongful convictions. She said she concentrates legal resources on violent cases, since 80% of the cases that come to her desk are nonviolent while less than 1% are homicides.
In September, she announced a murder indictment against a former Savannah police officer who fatally shot a Black man in 2022. She explained that she has a “dual responsibility” to “cultivate good working relationships” with law enforcement and hold public officials accountable when they break laws.
Like Gonzalez, Cook Jones has faced her own legal woes, including an ethics complaint for not filing campaign documents. She also was sanctioned for unethical behavior, including missed court dates and “material misrepresentations” related to a workplace discrimination lawsuit a former staffer brought against her. Jones denies the allegations and said she was busy representing a rape victim when the judge called her for the deposition dates.
Cook Jones is used to public reprimands and said she is tired of it.
“I have suffered, bled and died for this DA office over and over and over again,” Cook Jones said in an interview. “If they don’t want me, I’m fine with that. That means I can go back to my family and raise my kids.”
