A district attorney’s conflict of interest that precluded him from participating in a prosecution infected his entire office, the Georgia Supreme Court has ruled.
Friday’s unanimous high court ruling said then-Douglas County District Attorney J. David McDade’s personal interest in a child molestation prosecution tried in 2006 took away his assistant DAs’ authority to try the case. Presiding Justice P. Harris Hines wrote for the court that a judge who heard the defendant’s habeas corpus petition did not err in vacating the defendant’s conviction on the ground that the defendant’s lawyer on direct appeal should have raised the conflict of interest issue.
