The Georgia State Capitol building in Atlanta, ornamented with gold leaf from Dahlonega, Ga. (Mary Silver/The Epoch Times)
Posted on 03/09/2023 8:42:49 PM PST by SeekAndFind
The Senate of Georgia passed a bill last week that aims to toughen up oversight measures on the state’s prosecutors, after a special purpose grand jury counsel wrapped up investigations into alleged election interference by former President Donald Trump and his allies.
The Georgia State Capitol building in Atlanta, ornamented with gold leaf from Dahlonega, Ga. (Mary Silver/The Epoch Times)
The bill, SB 92 (pdf), would create a Prosecuting Attorneys Qualifications Commission, which would “have the power to discipline, remove, and cause involuntary retirement of appointed or elected district attorneys or solicitors-general.” The Republican-majority Senate passed the bill in a 32 to 24 vote on March 2.
Republicans introduced the bill in the House in February 2021 as HB 411. The House passed the bill by a 104 to 61 vote in March 2021. but it was held off in the Senate. It was revived in the Senate in March 2022.
The bill introduces several grounds for disciplining a state district attorney or solicitor general, including mental or physical incapacity, willful misconduct, willful and persistent failure to carry out his or her professional duties, the conviction of a crime involving moral turpitude, and conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice. Disciplinary measures include removal or involuntary retirement.
The bill would “protect the citizens of Georgia and clean up the criminal justice system where it needs to be cleaned up,” Georgia Republican Sen. Randy Robertson (R-Catula), the bill’s sponsor, said on the upper chamber’s floor on March 2.
“We have, in a community near our state university where somebody who’s an elected DA says they can choose—not based on evidence but based on how they feel and what their political leanings are—as to who they will prosecute,” Robertson added. “In order to solve this problem, there needs to be oversight.”
Meanwhile, the opposition party warned that the state might use the proposed commission to target prosecutors who differ politically.
“We’re going to use a commission like this, potentially, to harass or put the fire under prosecutors of a certain party in certain urban areas that don’t align with what state government wants,” said State Sen. Josh McLaurin (D-North Fulton) on Thursday.
The Epoch Times has contacted the Georgia Senate for comment.
The Peach state’s GOP lawmakers in the lower chamber are also working to pass House Bill 231 (pdf) to mirror the upper chamber’s oversight body, which, if passed into law, would create a Prosecuting Attorneys Oversight Commission in the House.
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Sounds good.
Hell yeah, you just lost. This McLaurin guy is actually pretty bright for a Democrat.
>>“We’re going to use a commission like this, potentially, to harass or put the fire under prosecutors of a certain party in certain urban areas that don’t align with what state government wants,” said State Sen. Josh McLaurin (D-North Fulton) on Thursday.
He says that as if it’s a bad thing...
I’m sure Kemp will veto it.
“Hell yeah, you just lost. This McLaurin guy is actually pretty bright for a Democrat.”
Got a better idea other than letting rogue prosecutors run amuck throughout the fruited plain? It’s all in the wording, and hopefully there is a clause in the bill that prevents arbitrary misuse by state gov’ts, but they’ve got to do something, at least in conservative controlled states or we will be harassed by Dem prosecutors from here to eternity.
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