Western Circuit District Attorney Deborah Gonzalez discussed several issues involving her office during a conversation at the WUGA studio. After running on a platform of change, Gonzalez discussed some of those measures which have already been implemented.
“One of them was looking at our diversion program. This diversion program is a pretrial diversion program and so now we have an opening for an ADA who is going to be working with us on getting that up to date making it more accessible to people, lowering or eliminating fees,” according to Gonzalez. “Another initiative is our data dashboard. This is the first time that individuals in our judicial circuit will be able to look right online and get real time information.”
The DA also touched on some of the topics garnering attention involving her office, including Attorney General Chris Carr singling her out regarding cases her office chooses to prosecute.
“What he was talking about were these very low level, misdemeanor type of crimes and I have you know, been very vocal about the limited resources that we have and
So what I’ve done with my office is really focus on the most violent crimes, the true hardcore felonies.
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Gonzalez also addressed talk of Oconee County leaving the Western Circuit jury trials resuming and recent developments at the DA’s office.
To hear more from our conversation with District Attorney Deborah Gonzalez, tune in to Athens News Matters.
