District Attorney Deborah Gonzalez campaigns for re-election while fighting lawsuits from the people she is sworn to protect.

ATHENS, Ga. — Politics versus public safety -- for nearly three years, criticism has swirled around the District Attorney for the Western Judicial Circuit. Critics said Deborah Gonzalez lacks the experience to lead a team of prosecutors to successfully do a critical job, but Gonzalez said the attacks are simply a long-running political attack to prevent her from implementing reforms.

Either way, Gonzalez said she’s proud of her office’s achievements.

“I’m doing exactly what they elected me to do: keep the community safe,” said Gonzalez, standing on the Athens courthouse steps. “We were able to start a restorative justice program. We were able to start a safe initiative addressing fentanyl partnership with the Athens-Clarke County Police Department. We've been able to start a second chance desk with the Georgia Justice Project.”

Gonzalez also fought and won to get prosecutors in her office better pay. Last March, when 11Alive Investigates first sat down to talk with Gonzalez, who represents both Athens-Clarke and Oconee counties as part of the Western Judicial Circuit, she insisted money was the reason she couldn’t hire and retain attorneys.

“Employees have a real choice of where they want to go,” she explained.

But the pay boost hasn’t led to a significant boost in staff.

Gonzalez has hired a few attorneys since 11Alive started looking into concerns within the office, but just as many have left, leaving an office budgeted for 17 assistant district attorneys, ADAs, with only five.

RELATED: 'It's in crisis.' Embattled Athens DA faces staffing woes, lawsuit

“Such a negative narrative has been put out for so long that that's now affecting it,” Gonzalez said when asked about the continued staffing challenges. “We need to get away from that narrative so people can see the truth of how hard these people work in my office and how much they care and what they're doing.”

Gonzalez is entering her fourth year serving as district attorney. As she campaigns for re-election, she faces a writ of mandamus, essentially a civil lawsuit claiming she’s failed to manage her office properly to maintain the staff and caseload needed to fulfill the duties of the DA’s Office.

Gonzalez has requested the Georgia Court of Appeals rule on whether the writ is the proper way for the business owner who filed it to address his concerns. They argue he should have tried to gather names for a recall instead.

Regardless of how the court rules, Georgia’s taxpayers have spent more than $170,000 defending Gonzalez from the accusations.

In the meantime, victims in three different cases have filed a Marsy’s Law violation - and won. 

As part of the Victim’s Rights Act, victims have a right to be notified and heard at hearings related to their case. Susan Wilson filed her motion after she received a call from the DA’s Office the day the suspected drunk driver who killed her partner of 37 years was offered a plea deal. She was teaching and couldn’t answer her phone. She didn’t get the message until later that afternoon when the hearing was over.

Her partner, Jim Jones, also had a sister in Virginia. She was notified that same morning and, therefore, was also unable to attend the hearing on such short notice.

“It was like, I was sitting in the emergency room all over again waiting to talk to the coroner,” Susan Wilson said. “Because, it was so horrifically unjust. Not only was I not given a chance to be in a courtroom, I learned that the plea deal had reduced the charges to misdemeanors and that he had been given probation.”

The other two Marsy’s Law violations related to charges that were dismissed without the victim knowing before it happened.

RELATED: What is the Georgia constitutional amendment, Marsy's Law?

Gonzalez is the only DA in the state 11Alive has found to face such public reprimand.

“It’s not a good feeling, right?” admitted Gonzalez, who says her office provided 173,000 services to 17,900 victims last year.

“We served 965 victims last month. That's a lot of satisfied victims that are not bringing that Marsy's Law violations," she said.

11Alive Investigates tracked all of the charges listed on the trial calendar in Athens-Clarke County's Superior Court in 2023. Of those closed, the DA’s Office chose not to prosecute 46% of them. Of the felonies charged, 130, like those in Wilson’s case, were pleaded down to misdemeanors, giving most defendants probation.

Cases were dismissed or reduced at times because prosecutors felt the evidence was insufficient or witnesses no longer wanted to testify.

How you interpret that data depends on the role you believe our criminal justice system plays in punishing and deterring crime. 

Gonzalez campaigned on a promise not to bury defendants in redundant charges and to divert those who needed therapy or addiction recovery instead of incarceration. But to her critics, the data shows she either doesn't have the interest or the experience to hold offenders accountable.

When 11Alive investigator Rebecca Lindstrom asked Wilson what she would have said had she been able to attend the court hearing that day, she expressed a lack of closure.

“Something to the effect of this is not justice,” Wilson said.

Gonzalez said with each ruling her office learns how to perform better, but said it’s tough when staff keep leaving. She confronted one judge, accusing him of being part of the problem.

“To me, it was important to stand up for my people,” Gonzalez explained. “I just felt that that judge had been just bullying to this particular ADA.”

According to the court transcript of that day, Judge Lawton Stephens fired back, telling her time after time that prosecutors showed up unprepared, causing cases to be continued or dismissed. He told her to “look to herself before you blame other people for all the issues that you’re facing in the DA’s Office.”

“If I don't have the money and the resources that I need to get the right aides in there, I'm not going to be able to make sure that our community (is) safe,” Gonzalez responded when asked about the exchange.

Lindstrom pointed out her response was again about money and resources and asked if she felt her management style or approach to interacting with people might also play a role.

“Every day, I reflect on what I do. Could I have done it better?” Gonzalez responded.

“Since then, I've had conversations with our judges. We sort of said, you know, when things come up, here's a way that you can get to me and let me know what's happening. And every time they've called me, I've been there,” she added.

Gonzalez said politics has put her office under a microscope designed to find its flaws rather than celebrate the good work its accomplished. 

“I am so proud of the team that we have and every day we grow stronger," she said.

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