Getting to Know the Candidate

About Anthony

Thanks for visiting my website!  I am Burt Anthony Burton and in anticipation of becoming your new District Attorney for the Eastern Judicial Circuit, I welcome you to learn more about me.  On this page, you’ll learn more about my professional legal experience, my enlightened vision for the future success of the Office of the District Attorney and some fun facts about the legal process of successful prosecution.  With a proven track record of over ten (10) years dedicated to helping victims and pursuing justice, I look forward to the hard work necessary to restore our beautiful City of Savannah and surrounding municipalities to the formerly safe, secure and welcoming environment worth of our reputation as being “The Hostess City of the South”.  Today is a great start towards continuing the pursuit of justice for all.

 

BACKGROUND:

As a native born Georgian, I have the unique privilege of an innate appreciation for our great State of Georgia and the core values and ethical appreciations of our fellow Georgia residents and the community at large.   I was born in Atlanta and raised in the small northern town of Woodstock.  My childhood was joyful and happy and safe.  Even though my parents were divorced when I was eight years old, their successful co-parenting and emphasis on education inspired in me a sense of discipline, rigorous study habits and a commitment to core family values. It was through the process of my parents’ divorce and custody proceeding that I was first exposed to a courtroom.  I recall being fascinated by the proverbial ‘pomp, circumstance and order’ of the courtroom environment and I knew then that I wanted to be a lawyer.

 

Over the course of my formative childhood years, our family moved to several small towns throughout Georgia.  I graduated from Etowah High School in Woodstock and went on to Kennesaw State University in Cobb County.  At KSU, I completed a bachelor’s degree in political science with a minor in Sociology and met some of my best friends while being a member of the Delta Tau Delta Fraternity.  After graduating from KSU, I was accepted into John Marshall Law School in Atlanta. While still in law school I interned for the City of Atlanta Solicitor General’s office followed by a summer internship for the Georgia Court of Appeals.  After graduating law school and passing the bar exam, I began my legal journey as a prosecutor in the Douglas County District Attorney’s Office working primarily on felony matters. In 2015, I moved to Savannah where I had the great honor of working at the Chatham County District Attorney’s office under the leadership of DA Meg Heap.

 

RESUME:

For 7 years under the great leadership of District Attorney Meg Heap, I absorbed every facet of prosecutorial prowess.  It was a time in which the City of Savannah was safe and both the victims and families of unfortunate criminal occurrences, as well as the defendants, were treated with fair, objective and the utmost professionalism.  In the duration of ten (10) years as a practicing attorney, I have handled cases in Recorder’s Court, State Court, Superior Court and Juvenile Court.  I personally managed over 10,000 cases ranging from minor traffic violations to serious violent felonies.  Our focus was a combination of the expert knowledge of the law, a reverence for our United States Constitution and an efficient, effective team of attorneys who were fully supported by leadership.  Inspired by a great team, I effectively developed systems and solutions to issues ranging from the arraignment process reducing continuances such that healthy partnerships with our policing agencies were tantamount to the successful outcome of cases.  These systems were eventually adopted by the County to inure to the benefit of a fully digitized process which saved taxpayers thousands of dollars and made for smoother process for our judges, attorneys, staff and the community as a whole.  The community-at-large recognized our Administration as a group of consummate professionals – diligent, detailed, responsive, prompt, helpful and immensely competent.

 

MY CAMPAIGN PLATFORM:

My campaign is a job interview with you, The Voter. My legislative authority to serve is created by you, The Voter.  My accountability for success or failure will be judged by you, The Voter.  And ultimately, my integrity, fairness, expertise and responsiveness will be the standard of excellence to which you, The Voter, are fully entitled!  The Office of the District Attorney is endowed with a powerful privilege to uphold the law of our great land.  In my Administration, if elected, I intend to do so with rigorous respect for the Constitution of the United States of America which affords equal justice under the law to all, not just some.  I intend to return the notion of fair leadership to our cities, our state, and our country.

 

Of all the things I learned over the course of my career, my greatest takeaway was that in life our success (or failure) is rarely defined by one epic moment.  It is instead determined by the simple, meaningful decisions we make each day.  To live well, work well and to really build a legacy, does not mean that we spend our lives waiting for some big future moment that may never come.  Our lives and our legacies, our dreams and successes are made of one billion tiny, but courageous little decisions made every day, day after day, consistently, with each one building upon the other.  Likewise, the story of our next District Attorney Administration will be told by the million courageous decisions we make in that office every day.  So, let’s put a STOP to the degradation and dehumanization of our justice system.  Let’s HALT decisions based on incompetence, rogue disregard for the law, and divisive measures designed specifically to destroy our justice system.  Let’s BE COURAGEOUS and SPEAK LOUDLY against those who abuse their legislative authority to target individuals and thereby cause the entire community to suffer.  Let’s RESIST tyrannical leadership that will sink our entire nation.  Let’s choose to be EXCELLENT in our pursuit of justice for all. 

 

WHY AM I RUNNING:

 

In my 10 years of practice, I have never seen things get so bad so fast, nor have I seen one person cause so much chaos. DA Shalena Cook Jones has been an absolute disaster since taking office. Crime, particularly violent crime, has skyrocketed. Victims are not getting any help, direction, or guidance. Murderers are getting probated offers and being released back on the streets (yes, you read that right. Murderers are being set free!). ADAs, some with decades of experience, are fleeing faster than new attorneys, with no experience prosecuting, can be hired to replace them. The backlog of cases has exploded. The Chatham Das office is in chaos. 


(these article only relfect stories in the news from 1/1/23 to July 2023)


Chatham County cannot survive another 4 years of DA Shalena Cook Jones. Someone has to put a stop to the chaos, the disorder, the injustice. “if not me, then who? If not now, when?” 


I have a plan to restore the Chatham DA office to being one of the top prosecuting offices in the State. Please continue looking through my website to learn more about this plan. And if you don’t see an answer to the question(s) about me on your mind here, feel free to give me a call. My number is 912-692-5777.

 

My campaign is a job interview with you, the voter. And I’m here to answer any question my future employers may have for me.


 Let’s VOTE Burt Anthony Burton for District Attorney in 2024!