Who is Pete Skandalakis?
Today let’s talk about Pete Skandalakis Biography: In the often-polarizing world of American criminal justice, where prosecutors can become either heroes or villains depending on which side of a case one stands, Pete Skandalakis has carved out a reputation as something increasingly rare: a prosecutor committed to doing what he believes is right, regardless of public opinion or political pressure. As the executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, Skandalakis has found himself at the center of some of the most consequential and controversial cases in recent Georgia history. From the Rayshard Brooks police shooting to the investigation of Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones, and most recently, the monumental decision to take over the Georgia election interference case against President Donald Trump, Skandalakis has demonstrated a philosophy that has guided his nearly four-decade career in law: “If we do the right thing, we can always defend it.”
Pete Skandalakis Biography
Pete Skandalakis Roots in Greek Resistance and Immigration
To understand Pete Skandalakis is to understand the story of his family, a tale of war, resistance, survival, and the immigrant dream. Born in 1957 or 1958 in Atlanta, Georgia, Skandalakis is the product of a Greek immigrant family whose experiences during some of the twentieth century’s darkest moments would shape the values he carries to this day. He is now sixty-seven years old and has spent most of his life in Georgia, but his family’s story begins an ocean away in war-torn Greece.
Skandalakis’ grandfather was killed by communist soldiers during the brutal Greek Civil War that followed World War II, a conflict that tore the country apart from 1946 to 1949. His father, John Skandalakis, was captured by these same communist forces, facing a fate similar to his father’s. In an act of desperation and maternal courage, Skandalakis’ grandmother begged her son’s captors for mercy, pleading for them to release John. Miraculously, they relented, sparing the young man who would eventually become Pete’s father.
John Skandalakis immigrated to the United States following these traumatic experiences, seeking safety and opportunity in a land far from the violence that had claimed his father and nearly claimed him. He would be joined in America by his brothers and sisters, the extended Skandalakis family finding refuge together in their adopted homeland. In keeping with Greek tradition, John entered into an arranged marriage with Eva Pamfilis, whose family was also from Greece. Eva became a devoted stay-at-home mother, raising Pete and his three siblings in a household where Greek Orthodox faith, cultural traditions, and the memory of their family’s struggles remained central to their identity.
Pete’s mother came to America under slightly different circumstances. She was born in New York but grew up in Greece, arriving in the United States in 1938. Her future husband, Pete’s father, would follow approximately thirteen years later, around 1951. The couple initially lived in Marietta, Georgia, before eventually settling in the Virginia-Highland neighborhood of Atlanta, just outside what is now the city’s Little Five Points area. Pete’s father ran a convenience store on Edgewood Avenue, the kind of small business that served as an entry point into American economic life for countless immigrant families.
“I remember being around Little Five Points, living on Highland Avenue and walking down to the stores,” Skandalakis recalled in interviews years later, his memories painting a picture of a close-knit urban neighborhood where a Greek Orthodox boy could grow up feeling both American and connected to his heritage. The tight-knit Greek Orthodox community in Atlanta helped shape young Pete’s values, instilling in him principles of hard work, family loyalty, and public service.
It’s worth noting that Pete Skandalakis is the cousin of Mitch Skandalakis, whose father Dr. John Skandalakis was a prominent surgeon who taught at Emory University and served as chairman of the Georgia Board of Regents during the 1980s. This branch of the Skandalakis family had achieved considerable professional and social success, but they shared with Pete’s family the common experience of Greek immigration and the values that came with it. As Pete’s cousin Mitch once noted, both their fathers were “hard-working Greek immigrants who always spoke their minds,” a trait that would characterize Pete’s own approach to his work.
Pete Skandalakis Education and Early Career Stumbles
Skandalakis attended Northside High School, now known as North Atlanta High School, where he completed his secondary education in Atlanta’s public school system. He then headed to the University of Georgia in Athens, beginning a long relationship with the institution that would span three degrees. He’s proud to call himself a “triple Dawg,” having earned his bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree in public administration, and finally his law degree from UGA in 1984.
The journey through these degrees wasn’t always smooth. As Skandalakis later joked, he kept going to school primarily because he had student loans to use up. “But for the fact that I run out of loan money, I had to go get a job,” he said. “My dad was very thankful for that.” This self-deprecating humor would become characteristic of Skandalakis, a man who despite achieving considerable professional success never seemed to take himself too seriously.
After earning his law degree in 1984, Skandalakis needed to find work. On the recommendation of a friend, he applied for a position in the district attorney’s office in the Coweta Judicial Circuit, located southwest of Atlanta. He got the job and moved to LaGrange, Georgia, where he would remain for the next three decades. This move proved to be life-defining, as LaGrange would become his home and the Coweta County District Attorney’s office would become his professional identity.
However, his start as a prosecutor was anything but auspicious. Within months of joining the office, Skandalakis was trying his first criminal cases and losing one after another after another. For a young attorney fresh out of law school, this series of defeats could have been devastating. Many might have questioned their career choice or their abilities as a lawyer. But Skandalakis persisted, learning from each loss, developing his skills, and gradually becoming more effective in the courtroom.
These early failures taught him important lessons about humility, preparation, and the difference between what looks good on paper and what actually works in front of a jury. They also instilled in him an empathy for young prosecutors just starting out, a quality that would later characterize his leadership style when he had assistant district attorneys working under him.
Pete Skandalakis Building a Quarter-Century Legacy as District Attorney
In 1991, Democratic Governor Zell Miller appointed Skandalakis as the interim district attorney for the Coweta Judicial Circuit. This appointment came relatively early in Skandalakis’ career, reflecting both the regard in which he was held despite his rocky start and perhaps the reality that small-circuit DA positions in Georgia don’t always attract numerous candidates. At the time, Skandalakis was a Democrat, as was common for prosecutors in Georgia during that era.
What began as an interim appointment became a defining career. Skandalakis was subsequently elected to the position and was re-elected multiple times over the following decades, serving as district attorney for twenty-five years until 2017. During this quarter-century tenure, he prosecuted numerous capital murder cases, handling some of the most serious crimes that occurred in his jurisdiction. His work earned him significant recognition, including being named Georgia District Attorney of the Year in 2007 and receiving a Governor’s Public Safety Award in 2015.
Perhaps more importantly than the awards, Skandalakis developed a reputation for fairness, integrity, and a willingness to dismiss cases when the evidence didn’t support prosecution. Jeff Hunt, one of a core group of prosecutors who worked for Skandalakis for more than two decades, later described his boss’s approach: “He always backed you up even if he would have done something differently on a case. It was always about doing the right thing. Because if you knew there was a problem with a case, acknowledge it upfront. That was Pete’s policy. He’d say, ‘If you think the guy didn’t do it, dismiss it.'”
Sarah Japour, another longtime prosecutor in the office, recalled that Skandalakis had a mantra he tried to instill into his prosecutors from day one: “He’d say, ‘We’re not on a side. We’re about justice.'” This philosophy, simple yet profound, meant that prosecutors weren’t supposed to rack up convictions at any cost. Their job was to seek truth and justice, which sometimes meant acknowledging when they were wrong or when the evidence pointed toward innocence rather than guilt.
This approach was not just rhetoric. Skandalakis demonstrated it through his actions, earning him respect even from defense attorneys who regularly opposed him in court. His willingness to be transparent, to admit mistakes, and to prioritize justice over winning became the hallmark of his prosecutorial career. As he himself put it in interviews, “If we do the right thing, we can always defend it. If it means dismissing a case, if it means aggressively prosecuting a certain case, do what you believe is right in your heart. Make sure you know all the facts of the case, and we can explain that to the public. The public may not agree with us, but they will appreciate knowing everything.”
It’s worth noting that at some point during his tenure as DA, Skandalakis switched his political affiliation from Democrat to Republican, reflecting the broader realignment of Southern politics that saw many conservative Democrats migrate to the GOP. Despite this partisan change, his fundamental approach to prosecution remained consistent, suggesting that his commitment to justice transcended political ideology.
Pete Skandalakis Transition to Statewide Leadership
In 2017 or 2018, after a quarter-century as Coweta County’s district attorney, Skandalakis made a significant career transition. He became the executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, a nonpartisan state-funded agency that trains prosecutors and law enforcement officers across the state. This position represented a shift from being a line prosecutor handling individual cases to being a leader and educator for prosecutors statewide.
The Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council, often referred to as PAC, serves several crucial functions in Georgia’s criminal justice system. It provides training to district attorneys and their staffs, offers guidance on legal issues and best practices, advocates for prosecutors during the legislative session when bills affecting the criminal justice system are being considered, and in certain circumstances, assigns attorneys on staff to handle prosecutions across the state when conflicts of interest arise.
This last function, handling conflict cases, would prove to be the most consequential aspect of Skandalakis’ new role. As executive director, he had the authority and responsibility to appoint special prosecutors when regular district attorneys were recused or disqualified from cases. This authority would thrust him into the center of some of Georgia’s most high-profile and politically sensitive prosecutions.
Skandalakis brought to this statewide role the same philosophy that had guided him in Coweta County. His office in Morrow, Georgia, displays his pride in being a “triple Dawg,” with University of Georgia memorabilia evident throughout. But more importantly, he brought his commitment to fairness, transparency, and doing what he believed was right regardless of public pressure or political considerations.
The Rayshard Brooks Case: Pete Skandalakis Transparency Under Fire
The first major test of Skandalakis’ approach in a high-profile conflict case came in June 2021, when he was appointed as special prosecutor in the case involving the death of Rayshard Brooks. This case had become one of the most controversial police shootings in recent American history, occurring in the midst of nationwide protests following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
On June 12, 2020, Atlanta police officers Garrett Rolfe and Devin Brosnan responded to a Wendy’s restaurant where someone had reported that a man was asleep in his car in the drive-through lane. That man was Rayshard Brooks, a twenty-seven-year-old Black man. Body camera footage showed that the officers initially had a calm, almost friendly conversation with Brooks that lasted approximately forty minutes. They administered a field sobriety test, and when Brooks failed, they attempted to take him into custody for DUI.
What happened next was captured on multiple cameras. Brooks resisted arrest, a struggle ensued, and during the physical altercation, Brooks managed to take Officer Brosnan’s Taser. As Brooks ran away from the officers, he turned and appeared to fire the Taser at the pursuing Officer Rolfe. Rolfe then drew his service weapon and fired, hitting Brooks twice in the back. Brooks died from his injuries.
The shooting occurred less than three weeks after George Floyd’s death, at a time when tensions between police and Black communities were at a boiling point. Atlanta erupted in protests. Then-Police Chief Erika Shields resigned less than twenty-four hours after the incident. The Wendy’s restaurant where the shooting occurred was burned to the ground during demonstrations. The city was on edge, and the pressure on prosecutors was immense.
Former Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard, who was in the midst of a tough re-election campaign, moved with remarkable speed. Less than a week after the shooting, on June 17, 2020, Howard filed charges against both officers. Rolfe was charged with felony murder and ten other counts, while Brosnan faced two charges including aggravated assault. Howard stated definitively at a press conference, “Mr. Brooks never presented himself as a threat.”
However, Howard lost his re-election bid in November 2020 to Fani Willis. When Willis took office in January 2021, she quickly moved to recuse herself from the Brooks case, citing a conflict of interest. Initially, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr refused her request, but eventually, a Fulton County Superior Court judge granted it. In July 2021, Carr appointed Skandalakis to handle the case as special prosecutor.
Skandalakis approached the case with his characteristic deliberateness. He and his co-counsel, former Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter, spent more than a year reviewing evidence. They had to sift through mountains of reports from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. They waited months for expert consultants they had hired to review all available video evidence, which was then painstakingly synced up with audio recordings. They conducted frame-by-frame analyses of the footage.
“Our concern during the entire process was getting it right, because we were worried about Atlanta,” Skandalakis later explained. The city had experienced significant unrest after Brooks’ death, and Skandalakis understood that his decision, whatever it was, could trigger further protests. The weight of that responsibility was considerable, but he refused to be rushed.
On August 22, 2022, more than two years after Brooks’ death and more than a year after taking over the case, Skandalakis and Porter held a lengthy press conference to announce their decision. They would be administratively dismissing all eleven criminal counts against both officers. Skandalakis spent more than an hour walking through their analysis, showing still images from the various videos and explaining their reasoning step by step.
“In this case we have a routine arrest which, in a split second, became a violent fight initiated by Mr. Rayshard Brooks for reasons known only to him,” Skandalakis said. He detailed how the encounter between Brooks and the officers lasted forty minutes and twenty-three seconds before the fatal shooting. He explained that Brooks had overpowered both officers, twice managing to throw Officer Rolfe away from him, took Officer Brosnan’s Taser, and fired it at both officers.
Addressing the fact that Brooks was shot in the back while running away, Porter explained the physics and timing: “In this case, Officer Rolfe’s first shot was fired while Brooks was still aiming the Taser at him. All three shots were fired in approximately 0.56 seconds.” The argument was that while the bullets struck Brooks in the back, Rolfe had made the decision to fire while Brooks was still turning toward him with the Taser, and the extremely rapid succession of shots meant that Brooks’ body position had changed between the decision to fire and the bullets’ impact.
“It’s my conclusion that the use of deadly force was objectively reasonable,” Porter stated. They found that the officers lacked any criminal intent and that Rolfe reasonably deployed lethal force given the rapidly evolving circumstances. According to their analysis, by the time the struggle began, the officers had probable cause to arrest Brooks on DUI and subsequently on charges of resisting arrest and assault on a peace officer.
Skandalakis, wanting to be as transparent as possible, addressed the racial dimension of the case directly. “Black lives do matter,” he said. “I’ve spent my entire career representing Black victims of crime. I understand that the encounters between police and the African American community at times are very volatile. But I would ask them to look at the facts of this case, and this isn’t one of those cases.”
The reaction was predictably polarized. Rolfe’s attorney called the decision the “proper and only” outcome, stating that everything they had been saying for two years had been validated. The Atlanta Police Department said it respected the special prosecutor’s decision and announced that both officers would undergo re-certification and training before returning to duty.
However, attorneys for Brooks’ family were devastated and angry. L. Chris Stewart, one of the family’s lawyers, argued that the case should have been presented to a jury rather than decided by a prosecutor. “When it’s that close to call, you let a jury decide! That’s why we have a jury system in America,” he said. Justin Miller, another family attorney, questioned why deadly force was necessary when Brooks was running away and intoxicated: “You have a guy who you’re saying is drunk, he’s on drugs, and he’s running away from you. So you can’t catch a drunk guy on drugs running down Metropolitan avenue? You have to shoot him in the back?”
Skandalakis acknowledged that Brooks’ widow would be upset but maintained, “The result is the right one based upon law and facts. As prosecutors, we are guided by the law and the facts, and that’s what we did.” Crucially, there were no violent protests in Atlanta following the announcement. Whether this was because of the detailed, transparent presentation Skandalakis and Porter provided, or because the public had moved on, or some combination of factors, remains debatable. But Skandalakis and Porter believed their approach had helped.
“We thought if we made a very detailed presentation, explaining it step by step why we reached our decision, that would help defuse the situation,” Porter later reflected. “That was the ending Pete and I had hoped for.”
The Brooks case established Skandalakis’ reputation as someone willing to make unpopular decisions when he believed the facts and law supported them, someone committed to transparency even when it would have been easier to be less detailed, and someone who understood the broader social context of his decisions without letting that context override his analysis of the evidence.
The Burt Jones Investigation: Pete Skandalakis Declining to Prosecute
In July 2022, even before announcing his decision in the Brooks case, Skandalakis found himself appointed to another politically sensitive investigation. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis had been building a case against numerous individuals involved in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia. Among those she was investigating was Georgia Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones, who had served as one of the so-called “fake electors.”
However, Judge Robert McBurney recused Willis from investigating Jones because she had hosted a fundraiser for Charlie Bailey, who was running against Jones in the 2022 race for lieutenant governor. This created an obvious conflict of interest, and Skandalakis was appointed as special prosecutor to determine whether Jones should be indicted.
Skandalakis conducted his investigation, reviewed the evidence, and ultimately declined to indict Jones. The decision was announced in 2024, though specific details about his reasoning were not made public. Jones went on to win the race for lieutenant governor, and the decision not to indict him became another data point in understanding Skandalakis’ approach: he was willing to decline prosecution when he didn’t believe the evidence supported charges, even in politically charged cases where there might be public pressure to proceed.
Pete Skandalakis Taking on Trump: The Decision That Changed Everything
The most consequential moment in Pete Skandalakis’ career came on Friday, November 14, 2025, when he made an announcement that sent shockwaves through Georgia and national politics. After being tasked by Judge Scott McAfee with finding a new prosecutor for the Georgia election interference case against President Donald Trump and fourteen other defendants, Skandalakis announced that he had decided to appoint himself to take over the case from disqualified Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
The backstory to this appointment is complex and itself highly controversial. In August 2023, Willis had announced a sweeping indictment against Trump and eighteen others, using Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act to charge a wide-ranging conspiracy to illegally overturn Trump’s narrow loss to Joe Biden in Georgia. The indictment was the result of a lengthy investigation into Trump’s phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger asking him to “find” enough votes to reverse the election outcome, the fake elector scheme, and various other alleged efforts to subvert Georgia’s election results.
The case seemed to be proceeding, with several defendants reaching plea deals, until January 2024 when defense attorney Ashleigh Merchant revealed that Willis had been in a romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, a special prosecutor she had hired to lead the case. Defense attorneys alleged a conflict of interest, arguing that Willis had financially profited from the case because Wade used his earnings to pay for vacations the pair took together.
Legal battles ensued. A Fulton County Superior Court judge initially ruled that while the relationship created an “appearance of impropriety,” Willis could remain on the case if Wade resigned, which he did. However, the Georgia Court of Appeals overruled that decision, disqualifying Willis from the case entirely due to the “significant appearance of impropriety.” Willis appealed to the Georgia Supreme Court, but in September 2025, that court declined to hear her appeal, making her disqualification final.
Under Georgia law, when a district attorney is disqualified, it falls to the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council to find a replacement prosecutor. Judge McAfee set a deadline of November 14, 2025, for a new prosecutor to be appointed, or else he would dismiss the case for want of prosecution. As executive director of PAC, this responsibility fell to Pete Skandalakis.
In his statement announcing his decision, Skandalakis explained that he had contacted “several prosecutors” across Georgia, but “while all were respectful and professional, each declined the appointment.” This was not surprising to legal observers. The Trump case is extraordinarily complex, involving vast amounts of evidence and requiring massive resources. Most Georgia district attorney offices are already understaffed and underfunded. Additionally, the case is intensely political, making any prosecutor who took it on a target for criticism from Trump supporters while also facing scrutiny from those who want aggressive prosecution.
Faced with this reality, Skandalakis wrote, “I have determined that the best course of action is to appoint myself to the case.” He acknowledged that he could have simply allowed the deadline to pass or told the court that no prosecutor was available, either of which would have resulted in the case being dismissed. “While it would have been simple to allow Judge McAfee’s deadline to lapse or to inform the Court that no conflict prosecutor could be secured—thereby allowing the case to be dismissed for want of prosecution—I did not believe that to be the right course of action,” he explained.
“The public has a legitimate interest in the outcome of this case,” Skandalakis continued. “Accordingly, it is important that someone make an informed and transparent determination about how best to proceed.” This decision to insert himself into arguably the most consequential legal case in American politics was characteristic of Skandalakis’ philosophy: when something needs to be done, and when doing it is right, you do it, regardless of the personal or professional risks.
Skandalakis noted that Willis’ office had delivered 101 boxes of documents to him on October 29, 2025, and an eight-terabyte hard drive containing the full investigative file on November 5. “I have not had sufficient time to complete a thorough review of this case,” he admitted. “My only objective is to ensure that this case is handled properly, fairly, and with full transparency, discharging my duties without fear, favor, or affection.”
The reaction was immediate and predictably divided along political lines. Steve Sadow, Trump’s lead attorney in Georgia, stated, “This politically charged prosecution has to come to an end. We remain confident that a fair and impartial review will lead to a dismissal of the case against President Trump.” Allyn Stockton, an attorney for co-defendant Rudy Giuliani, called Skandalakis “a fair minded and honorable man who is void of any political agenda.”
On the other side, Norm Eisen, a Trump critic and executive chairman of the Democracy Defenders Fund, said Skandalakis’ decision to appoint himself was “a welcome development for our democracy. If we don’t have accountability for what happened in the aftermath of the 2020 election, we’re at risk of it happening again.”
Legal experts noted that Skandalakis has wide discretion in how to proceed. Anthony Michael Kreis, a law professor at Georgia State University, explained that Skandalakis “would have the same prosecutorial discretion afforded to any sitting prosecutor. He has an obligation under Georgia law to review every individual case for which probable cause for prosecution exists, and to make a determination based on an analysis of the facts whether to proceed.”
The practical realities of the case are daunting. Trump himself cannot be prosecuted while serving as president, a principle established by Department of Justice policy and constitutional considerations. Skandalakis would need to decide whether to sever Trump from the case and proceed against the other defendants, or whether to put everything on hold until Trump leaves office in 2029. Given that Skandalakis’ appointment is temporary and that he is now sixty-seven years old, many observers doubt he would wait years to try Trump. As Kreis noted, “I really sincerely doubt that Pete Skandalakis is just going to hang around for years waiting to try Donald Trump. So my view is it’s incredibly unlikely that the charges against Donald Trump will ever see the light of day in a courtroom.”
The question of what happens to the other alleged co-conspirators remains open. Skandalakis could choose to proceed against them, negotiate plea deals, drop some charges, or dismiss the case entirely. He emphasized that he would be reviewing the extensive case file carefully before making any decisions.
Skandalakis will receive no extra pay for taking on this case, with Fulton County reimbursing his expenses. This detail underscores that he is not taking on this responsibility for financial gain but out of a sense of duty and his belief that the case deserves proper consideration rather than dismissal by default.
Pete Skandalakis Pattern of Principle
Looking across Skandalakis’ handling of high-profile cases, a consistent pattern emerges. In the Rayshard Brooks case, he spent over a year reviewing evidence before declining to prosecute officers, despite intense pressure from police reform advocates. In the Burt Jones investigation, he declined to indict a prominent Republican politician who was part of the fake elector scheme, despite potential political benefits to doing so. Now, in the Trump case, he has taken on an enormously complex and politically toxic prosecution rather than letting it die through inaction.
These decisions don’t fit neatly into partisan categories. He has made decisions that pleased conservatives in some cases and progressives in others, decisions that protected police officers in one case and could potentially hold a president accountable in another. What unites them is his stated commitment to following the evidence, being transparent about his reasoning, and doing what he believes is right regardless of political considerations or public pressure.
Critics might argue that his pattern of declining to prosecute in high-profile cases involving police or Republican officials reveals bias, while his decision to take on the Trump case is merely for show. Supporters would counter that each decision was made on its individual merits and that his willingness to take on the Trump case demonstrates genuine commitment to justice rather than political calculation.
What seems clear is that Skandalakis genuinely believes in the philosophy he has articulated throughout his career. Whether one agrees with his specific decisions or not, there is a coherence to his approach that suggests authentic principle rather than political expedience.
The Man Behind the Cases
Beyond the high-profile cases and weighty decisions, Pete Skandalakis remains in many ways the same person who grew up in Virginia-Highland, walked down to the stores in Little Five Points, and absorbed the values of his tight-knit Greek Orthodox community. His identity as a “triple Dawg” from the University of Georgia reflects genuine pride in his education and his state. His long residence in LaGrange, far from Atlanta’s political pressures, suggests someone comfortable away from the spotlight despite now finding himself regularly in it.
Those who have worked with him describe a man who is approachable, fair, and fiercely loyal to those under his supervision. He has a sense of humor about himself, as evidenced by his jokes about running out of student loan money. He is willing to admit when he’s wrong or when a case doesn’t have merit, a rarity among prosecutors who are often evaluated by their conviction rates.
His Greek heritage remains important to him. The story of his grandfather’s death and his father’s near-execution during the Greek Civil War, his grandmother’s successful plea for mercy, and his parents’ immigrant journey have clearly shaped his understanding of justice, mercy, and the importance of standing up for principle even at personal risk. These aren’t abstract concepts for Skandalakis; they are woven into his family history.
As he approaches his late sixties, Skandalakis finds himself in the position of making decisions that could affect American history. The Trump case, whatever its ultimate outcome, will be studied for decades. How Skandalakis handles it will likely define his legacy beyond his twenty-five years as a district attorney and his tenure leading the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council.
The Road Ahead: Pete Skandalakis Questions Without Answers
As of this writing in November 2025, the future of the Georgia election interference case remains deeply uncertain. Skandalakis has promised a thorough review of the extensive evidence before making any decisions about how to proceed. That review will take time, perhaps months, as he works through the 101 boxes of documents and the terabytes of data from Willis’ investigation.
Several key questions loom large. Will Skandalakis seek to move forward with prosecuting the remaining defendants, or will he conclude that the case is too compromised by Willis’ disqualification and the passage of time? If he does proceed, how will he handle the complexity of trying RICO charges against multiple defendants with different levels of culpability and different legal strategies? Will he attempt to negotiate plea deals, particularly with lower-level defendants who might testify against higher-level co-conspirators? What will he do about Trump himself, given the practical impossibility of prosecuting a sitting president?
Beyond the immediate decisions about the case, there are broader questions about Skandalakis’ role. By appointing himself to this case, has he placed himself in an untenable position where any decision he makes will be seen as politically motivated? Or has he demonstrated the kind of courage and commitment to duty that the moment requires? Will his reputation for fairness and transparency, built over four decades, survive the intense scrutiny that comes with handling a case against a sitting president?
There are also questions about what this means for Georgia’s criminal justice system and for the prosecution of politically sensitive cases more broadly. If multiple prosecutors declined to take on the Trump case, what does that say about the challenges facing district attorneys in an increasingly polarized political environment? Is the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council model for handling conflict cases adequate when the conflicts are this significant and the cases this consequential?
Pete Skandalakis Philosophy Tested
Throughout his career, Pete Skandalakis has operated according to a simple but demanding philosophy: do what you believe is right based on the facts and the law, be transparent about your reasoning, and trust that even people who disagree with your decision will respect the integrity of your process. It’s a philosophy that worked well in Coweta County, where he prosecuted capital murder cases and earned the respect of the legal community over twenty-five years.
That philosophy was tested in the Rayshard Brooks case, where he faced a city on edge and a nation watching. It was tested again in the Burt Jones investigation, where political pressures cut in different directions. Now it faces its ultimate test in the Trump case, where the stakes are as high as they can be, where every decision will be dissected by partisans on all sides, and where there may be no outcome that doesn’t leave large segments of the population convinced that justice was not served.
The question is whether a philosophy developed in the relatively quiet world of a small judicial circuit can scale up to these monumental challenges. Can doing what you believe is right, regardless of public opinion, work when half the country will view any decision you make as proof of partisan bias? Can transparency actually defuse tension, or does it simply provide more ammunition for critics? Can a prosecutor truly be “about justice” rather than “on a side” when the case itself is fundamentally about deeply contested political questions?
These are not merely questions about Pete Skandalakis personally. They are questions about whether the American criminal justice system can function in an era of extreme polarization, whether prosecutorial discretion can be exercised fairly when politics pervades everything, and whether institutions can maintain legitimacy when different segments of society operate from completely different factual and normative frameworks.
Pete Skandalakis Legacy in the Balance
Before the Trump case, Pete Skandalakis’ legacy seemed reasonably secure. He would be remembered as a long-serving, respected district attorney who built a reputation for fairness and integrity. His quarter-century in Coweta County, his awards and recognition, and his successful transition to leading the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council all painted a picture of a career well lived in public service.
The Rayshard Brooks case added complexity to that legacy. To some, his decision demonstrated courage and commitment to following the evidence even when it was unpopular. To others, it was evidence of a justice system that protects police officers regardless of their actions. But the case was significant primarily within Georgia and among those focused on police reform issues.
The Trump case changes everything. How Skandalakis handles it will be his defining act, overshadowing everything that came before. If he dismisses the case, he will be forever seen by Trump’s opponents as having let a president escape accountability for alleged crimes. If he vigorously prosecutes it, he will be seen by Trump’s supporters as a political actor weaponizing the justice system. If he takes some middle path, negotiating plea deals with some defendants while dismissing charges against others, both sides will likely be dissatisfied.
Perhaps the only certainty is that whatever he does will be controversial. In that sense, his decision to take on the case rather than allowing it to be dismissed by default was an act of either remarkable courage or remarkable foolishness, depending on one’s perspective. He chose to put himself in a position where he cannot possibly satisfy everyone and where his reputation and legacy will be permanently shaped by decisions he has yet to make.
The Measure of the Man
In evaluating Pete Skandalakis, it’s perhaps most useful to listen to those who worked with him most closely. Jeff Hunt and Sarah Japour, prosecutors who spent decades in his office, described a boss who backed up his people, who insisted on doing the right thing even when it was hard, and who genuinely believed that prosecutors should seek justice rather than merely convictions.
His mantra, “We’re not on a side. We’re about justice,” is easy to say but hard to live, especially in high-profile cases where being on a side can be professionally or politically advantageous. That Skandalakis has consistently articulated this philosophy and that those who know him best attest to his genuine commitment to it suggests something meaningful about his character.
His background—the grandson of a man killed by communist soldiers, the son of a survivor who narrowly escaped the same fate, raised in an immigrant family that built a life in America through hard work and small business—provides context for understanding his values. These are not abstract principles learned in a law school classroom; they are convictions forged in family history and cultural tradition.
The fact that he kept losing cases when he first started as a prosecutor, and persevered through those failures rather than giving up, speaks to his resilience and determination. The fact that he later dismissed cases when he believed the evidence didn’t support prosecution, despite having won election as
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