GOP-Backed Laws Could Oust Local Prosecutors
In Georgia, Texas, Mississippi and other US states, there is a widening power struggle between Republican state lawmakers and elected Democratic district attorneys.
The Georgia State Capitol building in Atlanta. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp signed a Republican-backed law last week that gives a new state commission the power to discipline or remove local prosecutors.
Photographer: Seth Herald/AFP via Getty Images
Sherry Boston ousted a Democratic incumbent in the 2016 primary to clinch her first election as district attorney for DeKalb County, Georgia, in the Atlanta metro area.
Boston didn’t run as a progressive — the label wasn’t common for prosecutors then — but believed in changing the system. Even before the US Supreme Court overturned Roe. v. Wade last summer, she had pledged not to prosecute abortion law violations.