DECATUR — DeKalb County’s top prosecutor is no longer fighting a Superior Court judge alone.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that District Attorney Sherry Boston is bringing Georgia’s former chief justice and a bipartisan group of district attorneys and solicitors into her effort to pull Judge Yolanda Parker-Smith off every criminal case involving the DA’s office while a Judicial Qualifications Commission misconduct case against the judge remains pending. Boston argues the judge is biased against her office. The judge’s counsel frames the fight as a personal vendetta.
What Boston wants
Boston has asked that Parker-Smith be removed from all criminal cases and associated matters involving the district attorney’s office until the misconduct proceedings are resolved. A fellow DeKalb Superior Court judge previously declined a narrower recusal request, according to earlier AJC coverage the paper linked in its Friday report. The new filing raises the stakes by inviting appellate courts to weigh in on when a prosecutor may force a judge off an entire criminal docket during pending disciplinary review.
The misconduct backdrop
Parker-Smith has been on the DeKalb Superior Court bench since the start of 2021. The Georgia Judicial Qualifications Commission has accused her of improperly threatening to jail Boston and two assistant district attorneys in 2023, among other allegations. The judge faces possible punishment from the Georgia Supreme Court that can include removal from office. Those JQC charges are the factual core of Boston’s bias claim; the office is not asking readers to treat unproven allegations as settled findings.
Counsel for Parker-Smith, per the AJC, called Boston’s escalation a prolonged personal conflict dressed up as institutional concern and said the public deserves efficient administration of justice rather than a taxpayer-funded vendetta.
Melton and the prosecutor bench
Former Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Harold Melton is assisting Boston. In a written filing described by the AJC, Melton said the situation is serious enough that appellate courts should consider allowing review so the legal community has clearer guidance. Melton framed the issue as more than one county feud: prosecutors and judges statewide need a workable standard for high-stakes recusal fights.
A supporting statement signed by district attorneys and solicitors from multiple Georgia counties — the AJC named prosecutors spanning Fulton, Cobb, Chatham, and other jurisdictions among the group — argued that the judicial system as a whole is worth protecting even when that means short-term disruption. Boston, through Melton’s involvement and the multi-county letter, is trying to convert a DeKalb personnel conflict into a statewide standards case.
Why the calendar matters
Parker-Smith is one of nine judges on DeKalb Superior Court. Boston’s team has argued that a single-judge removal from criminal work need not freeze the entire courthouse if the bench rotates calendars. Opposing counsel has warned that a wholesale recusal driven by a DA-judge dispute could become a template for political pressure on other judges handling criminal dockets.
The AJC also noted Parker-Smith was reelected to a four-year term and that the JQC case continues on a separate track from Boston’s recusal motion. Those are parallel tracks: one is disciplinary; the other is who sits on DeKalb criminal cases tomorrow morning.
What metro readers should watch
For readers outside the courthouse bubble, the durable facts are simple. A sitting DeKalb DA wants a sitting Superior Court judge off all of her office’s criminal work. A state judicial-ethics body has already filed misconduct charges that include an alleged jail threat against the DA. A former chief justice and prosecutors from across Georgia have now put their names on Boston’s side. The judge’s lawyer says the motion is personal, not principled.
Whatever Georgia’s appellate courts eventually say, DeKalb’s criminal docket is operating under a cloud until either the JQC case resolves or a court draws a bright line on mass recusal during judicial discipline.
