Claire Cornwell Williams

Lashawa Doyle walked into a women's restroom at Savannah's Daffin Park, unclothed, forced his way onto a woman inside, tried to rape her, and slammed her head into a toilet while blocking her escape — an attack that ended only when park staff spotted the commotion and an off-duty officer physically intervened. He was indicted on charges including criminal attempt to commit rape, aggravated sexual battery, false imprisonment, aggravated assault, and public indecency. Doyle, 30, had been arrested 22 times since 2020, including eight times in the seven months before this attack.

Judge Claire Cornwell Williams presided over most of those prior cases, and the pattern escalated under her repeated sentencing: a February 2026 attack on a woman at a bus stop that left her with facial injuries, followed by five separate criminal trespass arrests between April and July, along with counts of simple battery and public indecency along the way. Each time, Williams imposed the same kind of sentence — twelve months of suspended, non-reporting probation, or credit for time already served — meaning Doyle never served additional jail time despite repeatedly returning to court on new charges.

Williams's own probation orders included location bans, no-contact conditions, and clauses barring new arrests — conditions Doyle violated over and over simply by continuing to be arrested. Georgia law allows a judge to revoke a suspended sentence once a violation is proven at a hearing or admitted by the defendant; the record reviewed does not show Williams pursuing that step despite the repeated violations already on file before the Daffin Park attack.