(The Center Square) – A Fulton County Superior Court judge upheld a state law that created an oversight commission for Georgia’s prosecutors.
Senate Bill 92, passed by state lawmakers in 2023, established the Prosecuting Attorneys Qualifications Commission that would investigate local district attorneys. The public can file complaints on the commission’s website.
DeKalb County District Attorney Sherry Boston, Augusta Judicial Circuit District Attorney Jared Williams and former Towaliga Judicial Circuit District Attorney Jonathan Adams filed a challenge in Fulton County Superior Court. Adams was elected to a Superior Court post and Adams’ successor withdrew from the lawsuit, according to the court document.
The commission has only brought one action since it began, and it does not involve Boston or Williams, according to the commission’s website.
“Plaintiffs have not shown that the rules interfere with or impair their legal rights in any way that is different from the injuries allegedly resulting from the statute itself, thereby severing any causal connection between the commission’s rulemaking procedure and plaintiffs’ alleged injuries, and the court has already rejected plaintiffs’ claims of injury allegedly stemming from the statute itself,” Fulton County Superior Court Judge Paige Reese Whitaker said in the ruling. “Plaintiffs have not made a sufficient showing that the interest is actual as opposed to merely academic, hypothetical or colorable.”
A spokesperson for Boston’s office said they are reviewing their appellate options.
“Although we disagree with the Superior Court’s order, we appreciate its consideration of our legal arguments challenging the constitutional structure of the PAQC and its current rules,” they said in a statement to The Center Square.
Attorney General Chris Carr called the ruling a “strong decision.”
“When an elected prosecutor fails to do their job, crime goes up and victims are denied justice,” Carr said in a statement. “With this win, we have made clear that DAs who choose to ignore the law will not be immune from accountability.”
