ATLANTA – Georgia Chief Justice Harold Melton Tuesday lifted a suspension of jury trials in Georgia he had imposed for a second time in December.
Melton’s statewide judicial emergency order, the 12th he has issued since the coronavirus pandemic struck Georgia last March, will allow jury trials to resume immediately if it can be done safely and according to a plan developed with input from local judicial officials.
The state’s courts have remained open since Melton issued his initial order a year ago, but jury trials were suspended due to the number of people required to be present at courthouses.
Melton first lifted the suspension of jury trials last October but prohibited them again in December following a spike in COVID-19 cases. Tuesday’s order noted that cases of the virus once again have subsided.
Jury trials are “fundamental to the American justice system,” Melton declared in a public service announcement due to air soon in which he appeals directly to Georgia citizens.
“You and every citizen are critical to this process because we cannot conduct a trial by jury without jurors, without you,” he said. “We have put into place the most rigorous safety protocols available.”
Safety precautions that will accompany jury trials include temperature checks, masks, plexiglas barriers, touch-free evidence technology, constant surface cleaning and the reconfiguration of courtrooms and jury spaces to ensure social distancing.
As with previous judicial emergency orders, Melton urged all courts to use technology to conduct remote judicial proceedings where practicable and lawful as a safer alternative to in-person proceedings.
The new order is set to expire April 8.
Melton is expected to address the judicial system’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic in detail when he delivers his final State of the Judiciary address to a joint session of the General Assembly March 16. The chief justice announced last month he is leaving the court on July 1.
Legislation to extend the statute of limitations for Georgians who were sexually abused as children to sue their abusers years later as adults has cleared the state House of Representatives.
House lawmakers passed the bill unanimously late on Monday’s annual Crossover Day deadline and sent it on to the Georgia Senate.
Sponsored by Rep. Heath Clark, R-Warner Robins, the bill would extend the deadline for victims to bring lawsuits against their childhood abusers from age 23 to 38, an increase from current law but pared back from an earlier version of the bill that set 52 as the cut-off age.
A previous stab by Clark at the bill stalled in the Senate last year as the General Assembly paused the legislative session due to COVID-19.
Speaking from the House floor on Monday, Clark said his bill aims to bring justice for Georgians sexually abused as children and to hold accountable both their abusers and the organizations that turned a blind eye.
“These organizations were breaking the law of Georgia by not reporting the events that were happening under their care,” Clark said. “So we are going after the criminals.”
The bill would let victims sue their alleged abusers up to a year after realizing that past abuse has led to present-day trauma, effective July 1. Research shows adults often tend to recognize the impacts of childhood sex abuse decades after it happened.
Controversially, the bill would also give victims a four-year window to sue public and private organizations like the Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts of America for harboring predators on staff who abused them as children.
Under the bill, victims would have to prove with “clear and convincing” evidence – a high legal hurdle – that those organizations both knew about the abuse and let it happen under their watch.
Lawsuits could only be brought if the abuse happened since July 1, 1983, marking another pull-back from earlier versions of the bill that made abuse that occurred since 1973 subject to litigation.
Trial attorneys have warned opening the lawsuit window for victims decades after their abuse could open a floodgate of litigation in Georgia, noting hundreds of suits were filed in New York shortly after that state passed a similar statute-of-limitations extension in 2019.
Representatives from the Boy Scouts and Catholic Church, which have both been rocked by child sex-abuse scandals in recent years, also previously opposed the bill on grounds that litigation could expose their organizations to huge legal fees.
A measure to create a citizen-led oversight commission for investigating and punishing bad-apple district attorneys in Georgia passed in the state House of Representatives on Monday.
Sponsored by Rep. Joseph Gullett, R-Dallas, the bill would set up a so-called “Prosecuting Attorneys Oversight Commission” to discipline and potentially remove local district attorneys and solicitors-general who abuse their office.
The bill follows controversy over the botched investigation into Ahmaud Arbery’s shooting death by Southeast Georgia prosecutors who had ties to the accused gunmen.
Made up of eight members, the oversight commission would be tasked with evaluating complaints alleging a district attorney’s or solicitor-general’s misconduct in office, incompetence, criminal behavior or mental incapacity.
The commission could then vote to punish the district attorney or solicitor-general by reprimanding them, removing them from office or forcing an early retirement. Commission members could convene in April 2022 and start receiving complaints in July 2023.
Five attorneys appointed by top state officials would serve on an investigative panel as part of the commission. The other three members would include a district attorney, a former judge and a citizen member who would hear evidence from the investigation.
Gullett’s bill passed by a 104-61 vote on Monday night and now heads to the state Senate.
Rep. Stan Gunter, R-Blairsville, a former district attorney in the Enotah Judicial Circuit, said the oversight commission would help weed out “bad apples” among Georgia’s prosecutors.
“A commission would be a good thing to assist the district attorneys in quelling these problems,” Gunter said from the House floor. “This is something we need for those people who can’t control themselves in office.”
Gullett’s bill comes after a local district attorney and attorney general were forced to recuse themselves due to close ties with the accused shooters in the death of Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man who was gunned down by two white men during a confrontation near Brunswick last year.
The lag between the February shooting and the May arrests sparked outrage over Brunswick Judicial Circuit District Attorney Jackie Johnson’s and Waycross Judicial Circuit District Attorney George Barnhill’s handling of the case.
Gullett’s bill also advanced as the House passed a measure Monday to repeal Georgia’s citizen’s arrest law, which was used as a defense for the two accused shooters in the Arbery killing.
The two bills figure as part of a criminal-justice legislative push following Arbery’s death and protests last summer against racial injustice and police brutality.
Gov. Brian Kemp and state lawmakers detailed proposed changes to Georgia’s citizen’s arrest law on Feb. 16, 2021. (Photo by Beau Evans)
ATLANTA – Legislation to overhaul Georgia’s Civil War-era citizen’s arrest law inspired by the murder of Ahmaud Arbery last year passed the state House of Representatives unanimously on Monday.
House Bill 479, which now heads to the Georgia Senate, is a follow-up to the hate-crimes law the General Assembly passed last June in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd, a Black man from Minneapolis, at the hands of a white police officer.
Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man, was gunned down while jogging near Brunswick in February 2020 by two white men. The two, now facing murder charges along with a third white man, have claimed they were attempting to make a citizen’s arrest.
“Ahmaud’s death was not in vain because we’re going to bring change,” Rep. Bert Reeves, R-Marietta, the bill’s chief sponsor, said on the House floor before Monday’s vote. “Every single one of us has an opportunity to take part in Ahmaud’s legacy.”
Rep. Calvin Smyre, D-Columbus, the House’s longest serving member, said the citizen’s arrest legislation is the natural next step to the hate crimes law.
“Last year, Georgia removed a dark cloud from over the state,” he said. “Now, is the time for us to remove that cloud again.”
Reeves’ bill would do away with a state law in effect since 1863 that lets private citizens arrest someone who commits a crime in their presence or during an escape attempt. It still would permit off-duty police officers and business owners to detain suspects they believe to have committed a crime on their property.
The legislation would not affect Georgia’s self-defense and stand-your-ground laws, which require different legal standards for allowing people to use reasonable force to protect themselves.
“It’s an old bill that’s outdated. We have no need for it,” said Rep. Don Hogan, R-St. Simons Island, who represents the House district where Arbery’s murder occurred.
“This is the right thing to do,” he added. “It’s supported by the community in Glynn County.”
The bill has the backing of Gov. Brian Kemp and the legislative leaders of both parties.
“Our overhaul of the citizen’s arrest statute strikes a critical balance between protecting the lives and livelihoods of our families, our friends, and our neighbors, and preventing rogue vigilantism from threatening the security and God-given potential of all Georgians,” the governor said after Monday’s vote.
The Georgia Senate revived and passed a bill Monday aimed at helping the state Department of Labor dole out long-delayed unemployment benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The bill, sponsored by Sen. Marty Harbin, R-Tyrone, would create the position of chief labor officer in the state agency responsible for distributing unemployment benefits.
Harbin had moved to shelve his bill last Friday after pushback from opponents worried an appointed labor chief might usurp power from the state’s labor commissioner, which is an elected position.
But he brought the measure back Monday and called for a vote on the bill, which passed 32-18 with several Republican senators voting against. The legislation now heads to the state House of Representatives.
Under the bill, the chief labor officer would be appointed by the governor, pending approval from a Senate committee. The law creating the new position would be repealed in January 2023.
The legislation also would require the labor chief to produce reports on the progress of fulfilling unemployment claims, as well provide Georgians with access to unemployment information.
Last week, Harbin said his bill would give state labor employees a boost after months of trying to work through piles of unemployment claims during the pandemic.
“When you’ve got people who are calling you for months, that’s not good government,” Harbin said after withdrawing his bill on Friday.
Opponents warned installing a governor-appointed labor chief could allow partisan leaders to strip powers away from the elected commissioner of labor as well as open the door for workarounds to create other administrators to handle various elected jobs in the executive and legislative branches.
“We have ways of changing how the Department of Labor is run, and we do that every four years in November with an election,” Sen. Randy Robertson, R-Cataula, said last Friday. “I feel that this is a dangerous precedent.”
The labor department has paid out more than $19 billion in state and federal unemployment benefits to nearly 4.5 million Georgians since last March, more than during the last nine years combined prior to the pandemic.
