Protecting Local Democracy: Defending Attacks on Prosecutors
Thursday, November 30, 2023 • 12:30pm EST
District Attorney, Dekalb County, Georgia
Sherry Boston
Sherry Boston stands among the elite in the world of prosecution as one of the rare one-percent of African-American females currently serving as District Attorney nationwide.
Ms. Boston assumed the role of District Attorney for the Stone Mountain Judicial Circuit in January 2017. In her capacity, DA Boston oversees the prosecution of felony offenses filed in the Superior Court of DeKalb County and supervises a staff of more than 200 individuals, including attorneys, investigators, paralegals, victim-witness advocates, and administrative professionals assigned to various divisions.
Since taking the helm as District Attorney, Ms. Boston has assembled a diverse and highly experienced leadership team to assist with restructuring and redefining prosecution processes to include the development of new units and the consolidation of others. The office has also increased its capacity to serve victims with an expanded victim services unit.
Observers have taken notice of DA Boston’s efforts. She was recently lauded by Atlanta Magazine as one of metro Atlanta’s 500 Most Influential People, earning the coveted front cover of the publication. Through her work with the Institute for Innovation in Prosecution and the Fair and Just Prosecution initiative, DA Boston has also become an integral part of the national dialogue on criminal justice reform and innovative prosecution strategies specific to juvenile justice, reentry, and accountability initiatives. DA Boston is one of four top prosecutors recently named to the GRACE Commission, a statewide task force created by Georgia’s First Lady to combat human trafficking.
Prior to her role as District Attorney, Ms. Boston served as DeKalb County Solicitor-General, the elected prosecutor overseeing misdemeanor crimes. During her tenure as SolicitorGeneral, Ms. Boston was instrumental in the development of DeKalb’s revamped Traffic Division and also implemented a wide variety of innovative programming and strategies aimed at community outreach and crime prevention.
In addition to her elected positions, DA Boston has received numerous legal appointments and wide recognition for her innovative prevention/intervention initiatives and impassioned commitment to domestic violence awareness. In 2018, she received the Champion for Change Award from the Women’s Resource Center to End Domestic Violence for her leadership in the DV arena, including the development of two signature community awareness campaigns.
Among her varied involvement in the community and legal organizations, District Attorney Boston is an active member of the State Bar of Georgia where she serves on the Disciplinary Board, which has the power to investigate and discipline members of the State Bar for violations of Standards of Conduct.
District Attorney Boston also serves on the Board of Governors, the State Bar’s policymaking arm. District Attorney Boston is a graduate of Villanova University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Emory University School of Law. She resides in DeKalb County with her husband and two daughters.
Monique Worrell
State Attorney, Ninth Judicial Circuit, Florida
Monique H. Worrell is the Duly Elected State Attorney for the Ninth Judicial Circuit Court of Florida. She was elected in November of 2020 to bring reform to a criminal legal system that is fundamentally flawed, in order to achieve equity and to move our system towards justice. She served as the chief prosecutor until August 2023.
Originally from Brooklyn, New York, Monique made Central Florida her home in 1996. After receiving her law degree from the University of Florida, College of Law in 1999, she began her career as a Public Defender in Orange County, Florida. Later, she went on to private practice where she continued to focus on Criminal Justice.
Monique became a clinical law professor at the University of Florida, College of Law, where she trained law students who aspired to practice criminal law. Because of her passion for keeping youth out of the criminal justice system, she developed and implemented the Your Future, Your Choice program to teach youth their rights and responsibilities as citizens. She also became a founding director of the University’s Criminal Justice Center and developed a rigorous program that has produced many criminal law practitioners across the state of Florida.
Monique left the University of Florida to become the founding director of the Conviction Integrity Unit in the State Attorney’s Office, where she led the investigation of claims for wrongful conviction. It was that experience that made her realize that change in the criminal legal system was critical and must come from within. Prior to being elected State Attorney, she served as Chief Legal Officer for a non-profit organization focused on criminal justice reform.
Monique is an accomplished attorney, with experience as a leader, advocate, educator, and administrator. She currently works as a keynote speaker, trainer, and consultant.
Carissa Byrne Hessick
UNC Distinguished Professor of Law, Director of Prosecutors and Politics Project
Carissa Byrne Hessick joined the Carolina Law faculty in 2016. She serves as the Anne Shea Ransdell and William Garland “Buck” Ransdell, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Law and as the director of the Prosecutors and Politics Project. Her teaching and research interests include criminal law, the structure of the criminal justice system, criminal sentencing, and child pornography crimes. Hessick is the author of multiple law review articles, essays, and op eds on plea bargaining, the powers and selection of prosecutors, Sixth Amendment sentencing rights, and criminal statutes. Her work has appeared in the California Law Review, the Cornell Law Review, the L.A. Times, the UCLA Law Review, and the Virginia Law Review, among others. She founded the Prosecutors and Politics Project in 2018. And she currently serves as the Reporter for the ABA Criminal Justice Section’s Sentencing Standards Task Force.
Hessick attended Yale Law School, where she was an editor of the Yale Law Journal and winner of the Potter Stewart Prize for the Morris Tyler Moot Court of Appeals. After graduating from law school, she clerked for Judge Barbara S. Jones on the Southern District of New York and for Judge A. Raymond Randolph on the D.C. Circuit. She also worked as a litigation associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz in New York City. Before joining the faculty at Carolina Law, Hessick taught on the faculties at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law and the University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law. She also spent two years as a Climenko Fellow at Harvard Law School.
Rachel Marshall
Executive Director, Institute for Innovation in Prosecution (moderator)
Rachel Marshall is the Executive Director of the Institute for Innovation in Prosecution.
Rachel previously served as the Director of Communications and Policy Advisor at the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office, following nearly a decade working as a public defender in Alameda County, California. Rachel has extensive expertise in the criminal legal system and efforts to reform it, as well as experience in media, policy, and advocacy.
Rachel graduated from Stanford Law School and Brown University. After law school, she clerked for federal District Court Judge David O. Carter in the Central District of California. Prior to law school, she taught high school history for three years in the Bronx.