An American Prosecutor
So much of what is ugly and unhinged about America can be seen in the eyes of a mother whose 8-year-old is dead.
But on a Tuesday in August at Atlanta’s downtown courthouse, that’s where Fani Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, Georgia, is looking. She’s meeting with Charmaine Turner and Secoriey Williamson, the parents of Secoriea Turner, a chubby-cheeked Black girl with generous eyebrows who liked to make TikTok dance videos and throw up peace signs in candid pictures. A bullet pierced her back and killed her last year after she attended a Fourth of July fireworks show.
Secoriea’s killing was random, but part of a larger story. On June 12, 2020, an Atlanta police officer fatally shot Rayshard Brooks in the parking lot of a Wendy’s, setting off protests. By Independence Day, armed men—whom Willis takes pains to distinguish from protesters—had erected barricades nearby, and city officials appear to have directed police not to intervene right away. Secoriea and her mother were in a Jeep that drove past the barricades, and several people opened fire. The family put up a billboard seeking information about who, but have no firm answers more than a year later.
“Mr. Williamson and Ms. Turner, I—your daughter’s life is everything, is everything, in this office,” Willis says. “And there’s no point for me to sit in this chair if we can’t do things that keep children safe.” She’s about to ask a grand jury to indict one man for murder. She’ll also ask a grand jury to indict another man for gang activities that under Georgia law could produce a 400-year sentence. More defendants and charges could follow.
This is the practical and, some might say, political work that occupies any chief prosecutor of a major city, but the conversation points to the enormity and gravity of the tasks in the Fulton County DA’s inbox. Murders in almost every major U.S. city have surged. In Atlanta, homicides rose more than 60% in 2020, with 157 people killed. The increase has not slowed this year. By mid-September, the tally had reached 113.
But if big-city prosecutors everywhere are under pressure to reduce and punish crime, even as limiting imprisonment has just gained overwhelming public support and some degree of legal traction, Willis’ burdens are larger than average. She’s the first Black woman to serve
