Gwinnett DA’s high-profile cases span decades

As Gwinnett County district attorney, Danny Porter — who lost his bid this election year for an eighth term — oversaw numerous high-profile cases:

• Charles Thomas White III, convicted of murder in 1994, was the first person in Georgia history to be tried without the body of the deceased. (The victim’s remains were found three years after the trial.)
• In a case that brought him death threats, Porter sought the death penalty against well-liked police officer Mike Chapel for killing a Sugar Hill woman. In 1995, Porter obtained the murder conviction but not a death sentence.
• Porter obtained a death sentence in 2002 against Michael Nance for killing a man as Nance tried to escape after robbing a Lilburn bank.
• In 2009, Porter convened a special grand jury after learning that Senior Superior Court Judge James Oxendine had negotiated a land deal for a developer. The probe forced Oxendine to step down from the bench.
• In 2014, County Commissioner Kevin Kenerly, accused of taking $1 million in bribes, struck a plea deal that let him avoid prison at a time his wife was battling breast cancer. Porter said he allowed his compassion to overcome his belief that public officials should be held to a higher standard.
• In April 2019, Porter obtained the first death sentence in Georgia in more than five years against Tiffany Moss for starving her 10-year-old stepdaughter to death. At trial, Moss acted as her own lawyer and did nothing to defend herself.
• Porter obtained indictments against ex-police officers Michael Bongiovanni and Robert McDonald for their role in a 2017 videotaped beating of Demetrius Hollis. In June 2019, Bongiovanni pleaded no contest to charges in a plea deal that was criticized by the Gwinnett African-American Caucus of the Democratic Party as being too lenient. McDonald was convicted at trial in February.