Willis’s bold and ambitious moves have thrust her into the national spotlight. But each of these massive, hugely consequential lawsuits has been derailed this summer: The Trump case is in a legal limbo, while a cloud of uncertainty hangs over the now-delayed YSL trial.
Former Gwinnett prosecutor Danny Porter places the blame on the Fulton prosecutor’s office. “These two cases are being dismissed either because of direct action by the prosecutor himself or because of direct action by someone on his staff,” he said. “… Fani must feel miserable.”
Willis and his allies say the developments are a poor reflection of the prosecutor’s leadership. Some have pointed to mistakes by the judge who oversaw the 19-month-long YSL trial. He was removed from his post earlier this week. Others blame the fractious nature of the criminal proceedings, which are hotly contested.
“I think what some people see as a setback is, for those of us who have been prosecutors or criminal defense attorneys, just the process. You’re going to have a hard time,” said attorney Charlie Bailey, a friend and former colleague of Willis’s whose wife works in the district attorney’s office.
In a statement provided to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Willis said his landslide victory in the May Democratic primary shows that Fulton residents trust the district attorney’s office to protect their communities.
“I have always taken an oath to protect my constituents in every charging decision I make,” she said. “I repeat, no one is above accountability and no one is beyond the protection of the law. As long as I am District Attorney, charging decisions in every case handled by this office will be based on the facts and the law, regardless of race, religion, gender, socioeconomic status, political affiliation or any external sensationalism.”
Problems in Trump trial
The Trump case was stalled because of Willis’ romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, the outside lawyer she hired and paid more than $700,000 to serve as special prosecutor. Renowned defense attorneys They used that relationship to launch a months-long campaign to disqualify the prosecutor and his office, arguing that Willis had a conflict of interest.
They failed, but now slow appeals judges have stepped in.
Credits: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
Credits: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
The state Court of Appeals did not have to consider the preliminary appeal and could have allowed the case to go to trial. But in May, it agreed to hear it and recently scheduled oral arguments for December 5, one month after the November election. The appeals court also suspended most proceedings in this case.
If it overturns Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee’s March decision allowing Willis to stay, The appeals court could take the Trump case out of Willis’ hands entirely.
It now seems almost certain that the appeals court will issue its opinion early next year, perhaps even after the January inauguration. If Trump, who is the Republican nominee, is re-elected president, legal experts are divided on whether Willis will be able to continue to sue him while he is in office.
Chamber hearing was ‘a bad idea’
The other sprawling case, the YSL trial, had already become the longest in Georgian history. When Fulton prosecutors asked Judge Ural Glanville to convene a chambers hearing with reluctant prosecution witness Kenneth Copeland, defense attorneys objected when they learned they had been excluded from the session and demanded that Glanville recuse himself.
Glanville flatly denied the recusal motion. On Tuesday, Fulton Judge Rachel Krause found that, combined with his subsequent explanations for his actions, constituted grounds for recusal from the case. He was replaced by fellow Superior Court Judge Paige Reese Whitaker.
At a status hearing Friday, Whitaker indicated she intends to preside over the trial and move it forward, but she said she will first consider motions and hear arguments from the state and defense over the next two weeks. However, the possibility that defense attorneys will seek a new trial based largely on the chambers hearing and Glanville’s subsequent actions looms over the case. If such motions are filed and granted, the case will have to start over from the beginning.
Credits: Seeger Gray / AJC
Credits: Seeger Gray / AJC
In her order, Krause said the chambers meeting “could have – and perhaps should have – been held in open court” with defense counsel present. She also said “nothing about the fact of the meeting or the content of the discussions was fundamentally improper.”
Willis’ supporters saw this last point as evidence that prosecutors had not made a mistake. But some outside observers disagree.
“I filed this case with the district attorney’s office,” Decatur defense attorney Bob Rubin said. “There is absolutely no reason why the prosecutors would not have insisted that the defense team, or a representative of the defense team, be present when they questioned Mr. Copeland. Any reasonable prosecutor would have done that. … I don’t understand how they could have let this happen.”
“It was a bad idea,” said Porter, the former Gwinnett prosecutor. “And if it was the prosecutor’s idea, in my opinion, it’s almost worse.”
“Losing an entire generation”
Willis remains wildly popular in Fulton. She won the Democratic primary in May with 87 percent of the vote. She faces Courtney Kramer in November, a little-known Republican lawyer who worked for Trump and helped the Georgia Republican Party challenge the election results.
During the primaries, Willis cited Atlanta’s declining violent crime rate as evidence that his prosecution approach was working, particularly when it came to gangs. He also highlights other successes that have received less attention.
According to the office’s statistics, the Fulton DA’s anti-gang unit has secured 169 convictions in 2023 and 76 so far in 2024. That’s in addition to the convictions of Rayshawn Bennett, the rapper known as YFN Lucci, and his associates. The DA’s office said YFN is a rival gang to YSL and that both have wreaked havoc in the city.
“If we don’t stop this, we’re losing an entire generation,” Willis said of gangs in general in 2022. “We’re just getting to the point where people are admitting that here in Fulton County, we have a gang problem.”
The prosecutor’s office cited cases like Jayden Myrick’s as examples of the gang problem’s damaging consequences. Myrick, a YSL co-defendant whose case was severed from the Young Thug trial, said he was groomed by older gang members starting when he was 9 or 10 years old. He is currently serving a life sentence without parole for the July 2018 robbery and fatal shooting of a wedding guest outside a country club.
Tanya Miller, a former Fulton prosecutor, defends Willis’ performance so far. She said The focus should be on what Willis is trying to accomplish in the YSL and Trump cases.
Credits: TNS
Credits: TNS
“On the one hand, we’re talking about murder, violence, robbery, everything under the sun: shootings, aggravated assaults, you name it,” said Miller, now a defense attorney and Democratic state legislator. “And on the other hand, we’re talking about people at the highest levels of government who are engaging in corrupt acts to steal democracy. To me, personally, she’s doing what the citizens of Fulton County elected her to do.”
Others see the status of the YSL case in particular as the flip side of Willis’s embrace of Georgia’s RICO law and pursuit of large, multi-defendant cases.
“One of the big questions in the judgment is how a trial could have dragged on for so long when other jurisdictions would have been more efficient in handling a trial of this magnitude and complexity,” said Roswell attorney Joshua Schiffer. “Large trials and prosecutions are common. The defense’s ability to slow down, to thwart, to stop the state’s prosecution speaks to how skilled these criminal defense attorneys are — and reflects on the prosecutorial image that got us to this point.”
Melissa Redmon, a law professor at the University of Georgia, said it was too early to say whether RICO was the right approach in the election cases or the YSL cases. But given the alleged criminal conduct, prosecutors’ use of the law makes sense, she said.
“As crime evolves and the way people commit crimes evolves, I think prosecutors have to adapt accordingly,” said Redmon, who worked in the Fulton district attorney’s office. “And I think it can be done in ways that people don’t like, especially if it works.”
Former DeKalb prosecutor Robert James said the delays in the two nationally watched cases are unfortunate.
“The appearances are not very good,” but at the same time, the two cases “have not completely exploded,” he said.
Asked how he would feel in Willis’ shoes, James said: “I would be frustrated. I would be irritated. I would be exasperated. But at the end of the day, this is the battle you started. … You have no choice but to fight it. Backing down is not an option. Surrendering is not an option.”