DA Candidates Differentiate Selves In Comments At Forum

During the nearly hour-long candidate forum last week organized by The Oconee Enterprise, the three candidates in the special election for District Attorney for the Western Judicial Circuit responded to questions about topics ranging from defunding police to leniency in sentencing.

It was during the opening and closing comments, however, that candidates James Chafin, Deborah Gonzalez and Brian Patterson differentiated themselves most clearly and gave a sense of their approaches to the work of the District Attorney Office.

James Chafin, currently serving as deputy chief assistant district attorney, focused on working within the school system to “show our youths that there is a better course for their lives than falling prey to gangs that recruit them at a very early age.”

Deborah Gonzalez, an Athens attorney and former state representative, said she is “running on a criminal justice reform platform” and “What our community needs and wants is leadership and ways forward. And I have that leadership.”

Brian Patterson, acting District Attorney, focused on his experience, saying in his job “I’ve been responsible for supervising 17 prosecutors, like Mr. Chafin” and “unlike my main opponent, who’s never set foot in a criminal court of law, I don’t need on-the-job training.”

“What happens in our courthouses is not entertainment,” Patterson said. “It is a serious legal job.”

Gonzalez specialty is entertainment law.

Chafin is running without a party label in the nonprimaried special election to be held on Nov. 3. Gonzalez and Patterson are both running as Democrats.

For more on the story, with an annotated video of the District Attorney candidate forum, please go to Oconee County Observations.