DA Fani Willis’ revenge tour? Judicial races suggest an enemies list.
On first glance, the fact that three Fulton County prosecutors are running against sitting judges makes it seem like District Attorney Fani Willis’ might be on a retribution tour.
Maybe even on second glance.
Will Wooten, who was on the team prosecuting President Donald Trump, is running against Trent Brown, one of the two Georgia appeals court judges whose decision set in motion steps that killed the election fraud case.
Prosecutor Nikia Smith Sellers is running against Fulton Superior Court Judge Paige Reese Whitaker, who took over the racketeering case against rapper Young Thug.
Whitaker angered prosecutors after punishment in the form of making them watch a remedial training class on professional tactics. They also argue she let a defendant who shot a cop off easy.
Whitaker’s supporters say she brought much-needed order to that trial.
A third candidate, Janice Moore, is running against Judge Craig Schwall, one of the first judges appointed to the Fulton bench by a Republican governor and whose former intern ran against Willis in 2024.
Word in legal circles is that Willis, never one to shy away from a fight, recruited them to run against judges who have irked her.
All three candidates say they made up their own minds, and that Willis is merely a big fan of their efforts. She has pledged her support with endorsement ads and, at least in one case, money.
It is not unusual for prosecutors, or former prosecutors, to run for seats on the bench.
“But it is unusual to have current (assistant district attorneys) running for office against sitting judges in their district,” said Fred Hicks, a veteran Democratic strategist who is working for judges Whitaker and Schwall.
In fact, Hicks helped get rapper Lil Baby to cut an ad for Schwall, who was once Fulton’s GOP chair. Politics does make strange bedfellows.
Appeals court judge Brown, whose decision in 2024 removed Willis from being the prosecutor in the massive Trump election fraud case, said he has been told by people connected to the DA that opposition to him stems from revenge.
“I believe Fani Willis absolutely convinced my opponent to run against me,” Brown told me. “She would prefer a judiciary that operates in fear of her, as opposed to fair and impartial judges concerned with the proper application of the law.”
Willis, in a statement, said: “Judge Trent Brown was appointed to his position and not elected by the people. He evidently feels entitled to it, but his service falls short. His baseless accusations show that he lacks the temperament and judgment to serve on our Court of Appeals.”
In 2024, Brown wrote the opinion that removed Willis from the Trump case, overturning a Fulton judge’s decision that allowed her to remain as prosecutor.
Fulton Judge Scott McAfee had earlier ruled that Willis made a “lapse in judgment” by hiring her boyfriend to the prosecution team. In fact, McAfee said it stunk but that he could find no provable conflict of interest.
Brown later determined that while “an appearance of impropriety generally is not enough to support disqualification, this is the rare case in which disqualification is mandated and no other remedy will suffice.”
The decision was criticized by many, including in a dissent by fellow appeals court judge Benjamin Land, who is now a state Supreme Court justice. He wrote that Brown’s ruling was unprecedented.
Wooten, one of several Fulton prosecutors on the Trump case, said the decision helped convince him to run against Brown.
Afterward, “I was in a dark place,” he said. “I thought, ‘Is the legal profession fair? Is the law applied fairly?’”
He said Brown, by disregarding longtime legal precedent in the ruling, showed there is a “two-tiered justice system.”
Asked to respond, Brown said judicial ethics prevent judges from discussing cases.
“We’re in a fight with our strong arm tied behind our back,” Brown said. He noted an outside PAC has raised more than $650,000 for Wooten, whose ads are competing for TV time with all the others carpet-bombing the airwaves.
ADAs Wooten and Sellers are listed in the ActBlue website, which raises money for progressive and liberal candidates. So are Jen Jordan and Miracle Rankin, who are waging campaigns against two incumbent Supreme Court justices.
All these races are nonpartisan, but nothing is ever really nonpartisan.
Wooten says the mood in the country, which is now moving left, is encouraging: “There are candidates who align with my values winning in other states.”
“Sometimes you have to go big,” he added.
ADA Janice Moore said she is running against Schwall because it is important for judges to show up, be on time and attentive. “That’s how cases get moved.”
The Fulton legal system has long been a logistical nightmare — and I’m being generous here.
A review of two recent summaries of cases in Fulton shows Schwall and Whitaker to be average, to above average in moving cases.
Moore was known as Marshal Hodge until this year but says she returned to her maiden name and went with her middle name, Janice, because Marshal makes it sound like she’s a man.
And women, especially Black women, often have an edge in political races in metro Atlanta.
ADA Sellers told me: “It just happens to be the right time and space” to run.
One wonders how it might be if the challengers don’t win, and must return to their day jobs. All say they are on leave, using sick time and vacation days to campaign.
But there are concerns that walking into the courtroom of a judge who they ran against might get weird.
Former Gwinnett County DA Danny Porter, who ran that office for nearly 30 years, said he had a rule: “If you ran against a sitting judge, you had to resign.”
“I didn’t need the headache,” he told me. “If you’re a judge and someone runs against you, you might make them pay for it. Or make the office pay for it.”
Porter added that he never saw the allure in being a judge.
“It seems like the most boring job in the world,” he said. “You just sit up there all day and listen to people gripe.”
Almost like journalism.
About the Author
Bill Torpy continues to contribute columns to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution since retiring in 2025. The Chicago native started covering metro Atlanta for the AJC in 1990.
