Chatham DA: Prosecutorial oversight law a tool 'politicians use to silence voters'

This commentary was written by Shalena Cook Jones, the Chatham County District Attorney in the Eastern Judicial Circuit in Georgia.  

Over the past few days, several people have reached out to ask how I feel about the governor’s recent visit to Savannah to sign Georgia SB 92 into law and create a Prosecuting Attorneys Qualifications Committee. This law, more widely known by its original name, “The Prosecutorial Oversight Bill,” is designed to keep reform-minded prosecutors in line by constraining their prosecutorial discretion.

Moreover, it is another tool certain politicians use to silence voters, keep them out of decisions about our criminal legal system, and undermine our democracy.

Since 1789, prosecutors in Georgia have had great latitude in determining who they would prosecute, how they would be charged, and how long their sentences should be. Because the District Attorney is an elected position, voters determine whether a prosecutor was “doing their job” effectively.

For centuries now, more than 97% of the prosecutors in this nation were white males, while more than 90% of those incarcerated in jails and prisons were people of color. Oddly, no one found this strange, even though studies have consistently shown that institutional racism, systemic bias, and economic disparities are primary drivers of mass incarceration.

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Georgia has had the highest rate of incarceration in the nation for many years. Of all 159 counties, Chatham County has the single highest rate of recidivism. Before the 2020 elections, and despite these abysmal statistics, no one batted an eye. Prosecutors were free to run their districts however they wanted.

But now that reform-minded prosecutors, who also happen to be people of color, are leading the largest and most profitable regions of the State, Georgia lawmakers have suddenly decided that a qualifications committee is necessary.

The situation seems absurd, considering there are already a host of agencies and protocols in place to hold prosecutors accountable. Still, proponents of this bill believe that these so-called “progressive” prosecutors are dangerous "rogues" and "radicals" to be feared rather than the credentialed, experienced professionals they are. Professionals, mind you, who are feared because they offer smarter, more effective strategies for addressing the ills of the American criminal legal system and threaten the existing power structure.

S.B. 92 ignores public opinion on reform and silences the voices of voters. Public opinion polls confirm that attitudes in Georgia and nationwide have evolved on criminal justice. A recent national bipartisan poll conducted ahead of the 2022 elections found that 8 in 10 Americans support criminal justice reform, including 74% of Republicans, 80% of independents, and 85% of Democrats.

Moreover, two-thirds of voters (66%) believe the criminal justice system needs a complete overhaul or significant reform. Here in Georgia, 86% percent of small business owners agree that criminal justice reform, such as Clean Slate policies, will open a pool of job applicants and help boost labor recruitment. The governor and his party in the state legislature are woefully out of step with Georgians and most Americans, who want innovation in the criminal legal system. Laws like S.B. 92 are anti-democratic and feed into a nationally coordinated effort to undo the will of voters.

What we are witnessing in this law is not a coincidence but another page torn from the partisan politics playing out across this nation. In Missouri, the legislature forced the resignation of District Attorney Kim Gardner by threatening to change her office to an appointed position rather than an elected one. Iowa just passed a law giving the Attorney General sweeping authority to prosecute criminal cases bypassing Kimberly Graham, the newly elected Polk County District Attorney. In Florida, State’s Attorney Aramis Ayala had all murder cases stripped from her office after expressing her opinion on the death penalty. Most recently, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis removed State’s Attorney Andrew Warren from office for simply sharing his prosecutorial priorities.

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Good laws target problems, not people. The more effective way to preserve public safety and prevent mass shootings is to enact smart gun laws that make it hard for certain people to access weapons, another public safety approach that Georgians support. A better way to break cycles of crime and intergenerational incarceration is to invest in the actual lives, education, and upbringing of the children who were legislated into this world by pro-life politicians.

The way to reduce recidivism is to establish re-entry programs that help returning citizens transition back into society. I welcome and look forward to future conversations with our Head of State and local reps to explore these ideas because we are "better together" in the pursuit of justice for all.

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Chatham District Attorney Shalena Cook Jones prosecutorial oversight