ATLANTA — Friday is the final day on the job for Linda J. Dunikoski, the last prosecutor still in the Fulton County District Attorney's office who helped win a conviction of 11 former educators in the Atlanta Public Schools cheating scandal.
Dunikoski, an executive assistant district attorney, submitted her resignation on Aug. 12, according to a copy of the resignation letter obtained by 11Alive.
She did not give a reason for her resignation in the letter. She spent 17 years in the district attorney's office.
"Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to serve the citizens of Fulton County for these past seventeen years," she said in the letter, addressed to Fulton County District Attorney Paul L. Howard Jr. "Fulton County Assistant District Attorneys do important work and it has been an honor to work with you and my many wonderful colleagues."
Dunikoski argued in court earlier this month against the withdrawal of a public defender representing six of the convicted educators seeking a new trial for their 2014 racketeering convictions.
She’d argued, days before submitting her resignation, that the defense attorney was submitting the motion to withdraw to delay the case on purpose.
A judge denied the motion by that attorney, Stephen Scarborough.
He had argued defending the six clients together was hindering him from providing the best defense possible to each of them individually.
"My loyalty to each of my six clients requires me to omit issues I would otherwise raise, or at least to argue those issues less robustly than I otherwise would - still at my ethical peril- as compared to the way I would argue an individual client’s appeal were I free to advocate for a lone Defendant," Scarborough argued in his motion.
The arrangement, he said, constituted a conflict of interest inconsistent with Sixth Amendment protections.
With the resignation of Dunikoski, the district attorney's office said they were considering how to proceed in the case.
"DA [Paul] Howard is currently weighing his options and will make a decision early next week," a statement from the district attorney's office said.