ATLANTA – Legislation creating a state commission with the power to investigate complaints against prosecutors and remove those guilty of misconduct cleared the Georgia House of Representatives Thursday.
The measure, which passed 101-66, stems from last year’s shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man, near Brunswick. Three white men have been charged with murder.
While the killing too place in February, District Attorney Jackie Johnson didn’t recuse herself from the case until June, disclosing that she knew one of the suspects. She drew heavy criticism for the delay, and lost her bid for reelection last November.
While judges in Georgia must answer to the state Judicial Qualifying Commission, no such oversight exists for prosecutors, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Efstration told his colleagues Thursday.
“Elected prosecutors across the state by and large are doing hard work,” said Efstration, R-Dacula. “But when there are circumstances where prosecutors are not doing that, there needs to be accountability.”
But many House Democrats opposed the bill as unnecessary and questioned majority Republicans’ motives for bringing the legislation.
Rep. Erica Thomas, D-Austell, said elected prosecutors already are subject to oversight by county elected officials, the state attorney general, the Georgia Bar Association and local voters when they seek reelection.
Thomas charged Republicans with seeking to establish an oversight commission to ensure they have a check on the eight newly elected Democratic prosecutors across Georgia.
“Political oversight! That’s where this is headed,” added Rep. Stacey Evans, D-Atlanta.
But Rep. James Burchett, R-Waycross, said the current oversight of elected prosecutors Democrats cited is inadequate. He said the state bar only has the authority to disbar prosecutors, not remove them, while elections are not an immediate solution to a prosecutor guilty of misconduct.
“We’ve seen specific and concrete examples of the need,” Burchett said. “The solution makes sense.”
Thursday’s vote marked the second time the House has passed the bill this year. After it failed to make it through the Senate before the Crossover Day deadline, House leaders attached it another bill banning local elected officials suspended following a felony indictment from being paid while their case is adjudicated.
It now moves over to the state Senate for consideration during the final two days of the 2021 legislative session.