Chatham County district attorney candidates make their case to voters at forum

Caption

Chatham County District Attorney Shalena Cook Jones speaks during a candidates' forum next to Republican challenger Andre Pretorius at the Coastal Georgia Center in Savannah on Sept. 16, 2024.

Credit: Benjamin Payne / GPB News

The two candidates for Chatham County district attorney took to the stage in Savannah on Thursday for a voters' forum hosted by the League of Women Voters of Coastal Georgia, as first-term Democratic incumbent Shalena Cook Jones seeks to fend off a challenge by Republican attorney Andre Pretorius.

Cook Jones touted new programs she began since taking office in 2021, including a “conviction integrity unit” that reviews possible wrongful convictions and a cold case unit that she said has successfully prosecuted 20-year-old cases.

“I'm proud of that because what that shows is that we never give up on justice,” Cook Jones said. “We never give up on our victims, no matter how old the case. And we'll continue this work in the next term.”

She criticized Pretorius as being inexperienced in prosecuting felonies, as his experience lies mainly in state court — which oversees most misdemeanors — rather than superior court.

Pretorius, who serves as an attorney for Chatham County government and a solicitor for Tybee Island and Effingham County, criticized Cook Jones for dismissing many backlogged cases amid high turnover of prosecutors within her office.

“I didn't want to run for DA,” Pretorius said. “But now, when I heard what was going on in that office and I worried about the safety of my kids and the amount of mass shootings that happened, I want to be able to take my kids downtown.”

Both candidates said that they would not prosecute cases under Georgia's abortion law, which bans abortion in most instances at six weeks of pregnancy, before many women know that they are pregnant.

Cook Jones has previously voiced opposition to the law, and said at the forum, “If you can show me a case where a woman getting access to medical care threatens everybody in this room and threatens public safety, then as a DA, it's my job to consider prosecuting it. But until that time, I will use every dollar and every resource to make sure we are prosecuting those cases that pose a threat to our children, our victims, our elderly, and our public.”

Pretorius discussed his own family, saying that when his wife was pregnant with their twin boys — who he said are now healthy — she experienced a high-risk pregnancy.

“I do not think it is the DA or the government's job to sit there and listen and make that decision for you,” he said. “It was the most personal thing to me. And I can't imagine having to stand there and explain it to a district attorney as to why I made any decision, because I love my wife with everything that I have.”

Each candidate has been embroiled in controversies over alleged ethical violations.

Cook Jones was sanctioned by a federal judge in 2023 for allegedly evading a deposition in a civil lawsuit brought against her by a former employee who accused her of sex discrimination and overseeing a hostile work environment.

She said at the forum that she was busy at the time prosecuting a rape case, and that professional rules dictated that that case should take precedence.

“What I want the voters to know is that, even to my own detriment and to what some judge across the street who's never tried a rape case might say, my job is to represent the voters and the victims of this county,” Cook Jones said. “I will do it again. And that's what I'm going to keep doing.”

Pretorius was called out by Cook Jones in a letter to the Chatham County Commission in September for allegedly compromising an ongoing drug-trafficking case.

He said at the forum that her allegations of improperly intervening in the case while he was on a leave of absence as a Chatham County government attorney are “baseless and shameful,” and “just a political ploy to attack someone that has never had an ethical violation.”

The 2020 race for Chatham County district attorney was relatively close, with Cook Jones winning by 7,447 votes out of 130,683 ballots cast, unseating Republican incumbent Meg Heap and becoming the first Black woman to serve as the county's top prosecutor.

The candidates' forum can be viewed in its entirety here from Savannah ABC affiliate WJCL.