Reform, staffing issues take center stage in Chatham DA election

Chatham County’s district attorney is facing a spirited challenge in the Democratic primary election following a difficult first term of change and upheaval. 

The election contest, between incumbent DA Shalena Cook Jones and a former top deputy and prosecutor Jenny Parker, highlights key questions about progressive prosecution, staffing, transparency, and protecting victims of crime. The winner of Tuesday’s primary will go on to face the presumptive Republican candidate for DA, Andre Pretorius, a local attorney and former prosecutor who was a last-minute selection by GOP officials looking for a strong candidate to take on Cook Jones.

 The difficulties of Cook Jones’ first term, after she was elected as a “progressive prosecutor” in 2020, depends on whom you ask. Cook Jones attributes much of it to the ripples from turning a big ship around; changes to a criminal justice system that is “100 years in the making,” she said. Meanwhile, her Democratic challenger in the May 21 primary, Jenny Parker, points to a different cause: Cook Jones’ mismanagement of the office. 

The progressive prosecutor movement has expanded across the U.S. in the last decade. Those opposing the expansion of mass incarceration and tough-on-crime policies saw an opportunity in electing like-minded DAs who have unilateral powers to choose which crimes to pursue or not pursue. The ideology of progressive prosecutors focuses on addressing the root causes of crime, like poverty, rather than unilaterally jailing them. 

Since 2020, the term has become politically charged as leaders in Republican-led states, including Georgia, have found purchase in attacking them. Many criticize progressive DAs for not following what state laws require them to do and making communities less safe by being permissive with bail. 

Despite often being labeled as a progressive prosecutor, Cook Jones refuses to refer to herself as one, according to interviews and forums. She clarifies her role as one that goes beyond political labels and focuses on what works statistically. Her description mirrors that of a progressive prosecutor, however.

Aside from murders, serious violent felonies and aggravated assaults, “81% of the cases in our office are either poverty-based, drug crimes, or nonviolent felonies,” Cook Jones said at a recent forum. “What we need to do is redirect our human resources to make sure that our staff is dedicated to focusing on those cases that pose the greatest threat to public safety and pose the greatest risk to victims in our community.”

Cook Jones has also benefited from groups that support progressive prosecutors. The Justice & Safety PAC, funded by billionaire philanthropist and criminal justice reform advocate George Soros, has poured in more than $100,000 into the race in the last two weeks, primarily sending mailers supporting Cook Jones and attacking Jenny Parker, campaign filings show. 

Ironically, Parker, who is on the receiving end of the progressive-funded attack ads, openly identifies as a progressive. 

Parker is a former sexual assault prosecutor and previously worked under Cook Jones. She said the office has failed the community in both progressive aims and going after serious crimes.

“As we’re moving toward more progressive ideas with prosecution, we still have to be able to respond in an experienced professional way to serious violent crime,” Parker said in a recent interview. “We have to do both.” 

Cook Jones said she is the only DA and only candidate to emphasize diversion programs, like Show Us Your Guns for first-time gun crimes involving youthful offenders, and partnerships to collect and publish criminal justice data. The DA has said those efforts have been hampered by staffing and funding.

“We need quality control. We need people whose job it is to collect data to tell the public what’s going on,” Cook Jones said.  “Our financing bodies, the commission of Chatham County, as well as the state, have not seen fit to fund those positions.” 

The DA pledges to continue pushing these efforts with another term.

Lack of staff, lack of pay?

Two major topics in the 2024 election for DA of the Eastern Judicial Circuit — the court district which encompasses Chatham County — have been staffing and cases involving sensitive crimes.

Since Cook Jones took office in January 2021, at least three dozen prosecutors have left the office to work elsewhere or retire. The majority resigned, according to staff lists obtained by The Current. Several who left were experienced prosecutors who tackled serious crime cases.

These staffing challenges led to the demise of the special victims unit, The Current reported earlier this year. An SVU, a hallmark of most U.S. prosecutorial agencies, is a team of lawyers specially trained to take on cases of sexual assault, child abuse, elder abuse and intimate partner violence. Advocates for sex crime victims and attorneys told The Current it takes special training to gather evidence and to work with victims to testify. 

The Current’s reporting also revealed that multi-agency meetings with stakeholders involved in SVU cases, like police departments and advocacy groups, ceased after December 2021. 

At the current DA’s office, prosecutors in the agency are trained to handle all types of crimes, Cook Jones said. 

“Now you don’t have players on the board who can only do one thing so that when you leave there is a deficit in the office,” Cook Jones told The Current in a recent interview. “We are doing across the board training, and that’s where the office of prosecution is going.”

Parker disagreed, in an interview, stating that the all-hands-on-deck mentality falls short and is failing victims of serious crimes in Chatham County. 

“Unless you’ve had that kind of training — which can’t have been done in house because there’s nobody left there who is competent to do that kind of training — then you are not properly trained to handle those cases,” Parker said.

So, why did the attorneys leave? Lack of commensurate pay, Cook Jones has said. Or, poor leadership, as Parker has claimed. Cook Jones’ more conservative critics blame her progressive policies.

Cook Jones has officially requested more funds from Chatham County commissioners, citing national trends of prosecutor shortages. She also pointed to a Savannah Morning News editorial from 2015, where her predecessor Meg Heap said the county needed to fork over more money to pay prosecutors. 

At the League of Women Voters forum last month, Parker promised attendees her election would bring back the experienced prosecutors who have left the office.

“I can bring the people back to the office who already know how to do the work,” she told attendees. 

Cook Jones said that promise is no guarantee. 

“To suggest that they left because they didn’t like the leadership,” Cook Jones said, “At the end of the day, some people just don’t want to be held accountable.”

“I told them at the first staff meeting, if you don’t like that, you should find someplace else to be,” Cook Jones continued. “But if you want to get with the philosophy of change, and if you want to reduce mass incarceration, if you want to help the poor, stay on board.”