GSL Represents Leaders of the Atlanta Solidarity Fund in a Hearing over State Prosecutors’ Release of Privileged Materials

Photo credit: Natrice Miller - AJC

Almost one year after an indictment targeting the “Stop Cop City” movement was filed, GSL attorneys Don Samuel, Kristen Novay, and Joel McDurmon requested that Fulton County Judge Kimberly Esmond Adams dismiss the indictment and disqualify the Attorney General’s office from the case in a hearing on July 31st, 2024. The hearing came after state prosecutors released mass amounts of privileged information (emails containing conversations between defense counsel and the defendants) to the police department and to the attorneys of the 61 indicted individuals. In his oral argument to Judge Adams, Samuel introduced multiple requests he had made to the prosecutor’s office before this disclosure, asking that a “filter team” be used to avoid the inclusion of any potentially privileged materials.

The prosecution ignored these requests, failed to establish a filter team, and consequently included numerous attorney-client privileged emails in the distributed discovery materials. These emails, which were obtained through the execution of search warrants directed at Google, contained “‘serious, substantive’ messages about legal strategy, money laundering laws and how Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) law works.” (R.J. Rico, Associated Press). Some of the emails were even included as exhibits in one of the Atlanta Police Department’s analysis reports. The prosecution, Samuel said, “just didn’t care.”

While questioning one of the Assistant Attorneys General about the discovery release, Judge Adams called the mishandling “egregious.” Adams pressed the state attorneys further, saying the suggestion that the AAG "did not contemplate the possibility that there might be communication between ... any of these defendants and their lawyer is incredible to me . . . I simply don't believe that.” Adams ultimately declined to rule on the motion immediately, requesting instead that the defense send her copies of the privileged communications before she made a decision. Ending his argument, Samuel spoke to the court about the prosecution once more; “A remedy is required, because there must be deterrence.”