Panel advances bill letting attorney general assist local DAs in serious cases

Chair introduced substitute language for Senate Bill 604, which would permit local district attorneys to request prosecutorial assistance from the Georgia attorney general’s office in enumerated serious offenses. The chair described the list as including violent felonies (murder, armed robbery, kidnapping, aggravated child molestation and related aggravated offenses), certain drug‑trafficking offenses including fentanyl, offenses related to criminal illegal aliens and RICO‑type prosecutions.

Under the substitute, if a district attorney is disqualified from a prosecution the attorney general would have the first option to assume the case; if the attorney general declines, the matter would return to the current PAC assignment process. The chair described this as restoring a prior option that previously existed in law.

District Attorney Sherry Boston (DeKalb Judicial Circuit) told the committee she supports AG assistance when requested, but asked that the Prosecuting Attorneys' Council (PAC) be given the first opportunity to reassign cases in most routine recusals. "Instead of it going to AG having the first right of refusal, let it go back to PAC first because there may be an easy solution or an easy swap," Boston said.

Senator Jackson proposed an amendment to require PAC be offered the first chance to reassign recused cases and to permit the attorney general only if PAC could not find a replacement; that amendment was seconded, debated and failed on a hand/voice vote. The substitute to SB604 was approved by the committee with a 3–2 tally and will move to Rules.

The substitute focuses on preserving local prosecutorial resources while empowering the attorney general to assist in complex, resource‑intensive cases; the committee did not take up additional substantive changes at this meeting and forwarded the substitute for further consideration.