ATLANTA – Georgia should be allowed to execute the longest-serving inmate on the state’s death row despite an agreement that capital cases would not move forward during the pandemic, a lawyer for the state argued Tuesday.
Senior Assistant Attorney General Brooke Chaplain told members of the Georgia Supreme Court an agreement between Attorney General Chris Carr and the Federal Defender Program contained in a series of emails was essentially a position statement, not a legally binding contract.
“This was a group of attorneys working together to figure out how we move forward during a pandemic,” she said. “It was to work with the defense bar saying, ‘We will not move forward while you can’t visit with your clients.’ ”
Virgil Delano Presnell Jr. was sentenced to death for the 1976 murder of eight-year-old Lori Smith and the rape of her 10-year-old friend in Cobb County.
The attorney general obtained an execution order that Presnell be put to death last May. But a Fulton County judge stayed the execution after the Federal Defender Program, an Atlanta-based nonprofit, sued the state on behalf of Presnell and nine other prisoners for breach of contract.
Lawyers for the group argued the attorney general had agreed to the timing and procedures the state would follow in resuming executions after certain COVID-19 restrictions were lifted. Scheduling an execution date for Presnell violated that agreement, the plaintiffs argued.
“The various stakeholders considered this problem solved,” Ronan Doherty, a lawyer representing the Federal Defender Program, told the justices Tuesday. “Everybody understood this to be a binding agreement.”
Doherty said the state’s decision to move ahead with executing Presnell forced his lawyers to prepare for a clemency hearing without being able to present expert testimony and other live witnesses because of the COVID restrictions.
Chaplain’s argument that the emails between the attorney general’s office and the Federal Defender Program did not constitute a legally binding contract got pushback Tuesday from several of the justices.
“The state is expressly representing to people, ‘We want this to be what the state agrees to,’ ” said Justice Charles Bethel, referring to the emails. “[But] what’s laid out as what was agreed to did not factually happen.”
“The terms … are in writing,” added Justice Carla Wong McMillian. “That’s as close as you can get to a written contract.”
The Southern Center for Human Rights filed a “friend-of-the-court” brief in support of the Federal Defender Program, arguing it is critically important that lawyers and their clients be able to rely on agreements with the state regarding the timing of executions.
Chaplain asked the court to grant a preliminary injunction that would prevent the lawsuit from moving forward.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – The federal commission that recommended last spring renaming forts Gordon and Benning in Georgia and seven other military bases named for Confederate leaders has completed its work.
The Naming Commission submitted the third and final portion of its report to Congress Monday, recommending hundreds of Confederate-inspired street and building names for renaming or removal.
In May, the commission recommended renaming Fort Gordon near Augusta for former President and World War II military leader Dwight Eisenhower and renaming Fort Benning near Columbus for Lt. Gen. Hal Moore and his wife Julia. Moore’s 32 years of service in the Army included commanding combat troops in Vietnam.
Other military bases slated to receive new names include Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Fort Rucker in Alabama; Fort Polk in Louisiana, and forts A.P. Hill, Lee and Pickett in Virginia.
The commission visited the installations last year for listening sessions with military commanders and community leaders to gain feedback including preferences for new names. The panel received more than 34,000 submissions for renaming, including 3,670 unique names.
The commission estimates it will cost $21 million to rename the nine bases and $62.5 million to implement the recommendations in the full report.
The annual defense bill in 2021 created the commission, composed of eight volunteers chosen by the defense secretary and Congress, and gave it until Oct. 1 to submit its recommendations. The commission was given $2 million to complete the task.
“We finished on time, spending only a quarter of the money authorized by Congress and returning $1.7 million to the taxpayers,” said retired Army Brig. Gen. Ty Seidule, the panel’s vice chairman.
Besides the new base names, the commission also recommended renaming two Navy ships – the USS Chancellorsville, named for a battle the Confederates won in 1863, and the USNS Maury, named after a commander in the Confederate Navy.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – Stone Mountain Park, originally created as a Confederate memorial, now features a historic covered bridge named in honor of the 19th century African American who built it.
The Stone Mountain Memorial Association rededicated the Washington W. King/College Avenue Bridge during a ceremony late last week at the site of the bridge on the back side of the 3,400-acre park.
King, the son of a freed slave, engineered, designed and built the bridge in 1891 to cross the Oconee River in Athens, connecting College Avenue and the University of Georgia with the more rural regions of eastern Clarke County.
Floods damaged the wooden bridge on its moorings in 1910 and again in 1961. The bridge was then replaced with a concrete and steel crossing, and the old bridge was set aside on the banks of the Oconee.
The Clarke County Commission later donated the bridge to the Stone Mountain Memorial Association for $1, and it was disassembled and relocated to the park.
“We promised additions here at Stone Mountain Park, and though this bridge has been with us almost from the beginnings of this state park, its story needed retelling and refocus, which is happening here today,” the Rev. Abraham Mosley, the Stone Mountain Association’s board chairman, said during Friday’s rededication ceremony.
The association has successfully submitted the bridge for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places. The board also has formally renamed the .8-mile trail encircling Indian Island on Stone Mountain Lake as the King Trail.
The bridge and trail are part of a broader plan to deemphasize Confederate imagery at a park dominated by images of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson carved into the side of the mountain.
The board adopted a new logo for Stone Mountain Park last year that depicts the southern face of the mountain away from the carving.
Work also is underway on a museum exhibit aimed at giving visitors the full context of the park’s history, including its hosting of the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan in 1915.
Historical markers soon will be in place at both ends of the bridge.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – Georgia’s school funding formula should be overhauled to steer more resources toward students from low-income families, educators, parents, and students from Chatham County told a state Senate study committee Friday.
The Senate formed the study committee this year to look for ways to modernize the state’s Quality Basic Education (QBE) formula, which dates back to the 1980s.
“When this was originated, Ronald Reagan was president,” Senate Majority Leader Mike Dugan, R-Carrollton, the panel’s chairman, said at the start of the meeting, held on the campus of Savannah State University. “We need to look at the formula to make sure we’re putting the appropriate funding in the appropriate locations.”
In Georgia, funding of public education is about evenly divided between the state and local governments, Christian Barnard, senior policy analyst for the Reason Foundation, a Los Angeles-based libertarian think tank, told committee members.
The local component of school funding comes primarily from property tax revenues, which vary greatly depending on the wealth of the community, Barnard said.
“We believe dollars need to be allocated fairly to all students,” he said.
Several speakers suggested Georgia adopt an “opportunity weight” system of funding public education, which dedicates additional funds to students living in poverty.
Fred Jones, senior director of public policy and advocacy for the Atlanta-based Southern Education Foundation, said 44 states have adopted opportunity weight funding of schools. He said such a system would help raise Georgia’s high school graduation rate.
“The circumstances a child is born into should not dictate his or her chances of success,” added Denise Grabowski, a member of the Savannah/Chatham Board of Education.
Grabowski complained that Savannah schools aren’t being given the funding needed to keep pace with changing technology. She said the system only has one tech support specialist for every 1,100 students.
She and other speakers also called for Georgia to make the state’s lottery-funded voluntary pre-kindergarten program mandatory.
“We absolutely know the importance of early childhood education to academic achievement and long-term success,” Grabowski said.
Other speakers said the schools need more bus drivers and counselors.
A series of Spanish-speaking parents and immigrant advocates spoke through an interpreter, asking for more Spanish-speaking teachers in the schools.
The study committee has until Dec. 1 to make recommendations.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – Georgians who are members of two large Medicare Advantage plans may face a tougher time getting cataract surgery – a routine eye procedure for older people.
That’s because Aetna and Humana now require doctors in Georgia to get prior approval for cataract removal for Medicare Advantage enrollees.
Georgia eye doctors say the requirements are burdensome and don’t apply in most other states.
The problem began last year when Aetna started requiring prior authorizations for cataract surgeries in its Medicare Advantage plans across the country.
This summer Aetna rolled back the policy – except in Georgia and Florida.
Six weeks ago, Humana, another large Medicare Advantage insurer, enacted a similar policy requiring prior authorizations for cataract surgeries in Georgia.
Georgia eye doctors say Aetna and Humana’s new requirements force them to engage in lengthy back-and-forths over billing for what should be routine.
“It’s a burden and a delay,” said Dr. J. Chandler Berg, an Albany-area doctor and president of the Georgia Society of Ophthalmology.
Berg said his practice tries to schedule cataract surgeries for certain Medicare Advantage patients a month – instead of one week – in advance to allow extra time for the prior approval process.
“It’s a lot more work,” Berg said. “It’s a delay on the patient.”
Sometimes insurers require patients to get glasses with anti-reflective coating before they can get cataract surgery. Berg finds that policy a waste of time and money because glasses cannot fix cataract glare.
Dr. Ninita Brown of Atlanta’s Thomas Eye Group said the new policy has added work for her already stretched-thin staff and distressed her patients.
Brown said she understands why some new or rare treatments need prior approval but doesn’t think the requirements should apply for something as common as cataract removal.
“It kind of surprised me that someone would look at this as something that is some type of extra benefit of health care, which really should be the standard of care,” she said. “It’s … an unnecessary burden on these old folks that are struggling already with their vision.”
Cataracts cloud vision and make people more susceptible to falls and auto accidents. They can even contribute to increased dementia risk, according to a recent study.
Most adults will need the procedure at some point, ophthalmologists say, and it’s highly effective and safe. The procedure is one of the most common surgeries in the United States and can be performed at an outpatient surgery center or at a hospital, according to the National Eye Institute.
More than half of Georgians enrolled in Medicare, the federal insurance program for adults 65 and older, are members of private Medicare Advantage plans rather than the traditional Medicare program for their health insurance, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Older Americans can enroll in Medicare Advantage plans through private health insurance companies instead of obtaining health care through traditional Medicare.
Medicare Advantage plans have seen rapid growth nationwide over the past five years.
Humana has about 257,000 members in Georgia, the company said. Federal data indicate Aetna has about 133,000 Medicare Advantage members in Georgia, although the company would not confirm the number.
Humana and Aetna said their different Medicare Advantage policy in Georgia is due to a pre-existing relationship with Florida-based iCare Health Solutions, a contractor that handles eye-care claims.
“The reason for this change is to better align with Medicare’s approach to determining coverage for these procedures in Georgia,” Humana spokesman Jim Turner said. “iCare … is using prevailing Medicare coverage criteria ….and follows Medicare timeline guidelines to ensure prompt replies to all requests.”
Aetna analyzed “real-time data” about cataract surgeries for a year and, based on its findings, decided to discontinue the prior authorization policy earlier this year, said Kimberly Eafano, a spokesperson for the company, which is owned by CVS.
But the situation in Georgia and Florida is different, she said.
“Aetna has been engaged in a 10-year relationship with iCare Health Solutions to manage ophthalmology and optometry services in Florida,” Eafano said. “Almost two years ago, Aetna expanded this arrangement to include the state of Georgia, where iCare also has a community presence.”
Officials from iCare did not respond to multiple emails and phone calls requesting comment.
A spokesperson for the federal regulator of Advantage plans – the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) – said Medicare Advantage contractors are allowed to make their own decisions about covering services but, in general, Advantage plans have to follow traditional Medicare’s coverage guidelines.
“Medicare Advantage plans may apply internal coverage policies, including additional coverage requirements to better define the need for the service, that are no more restrictive than traditional Medicare’s national and local coverage policies,” he said.
“For services that are not subject to existing local and national coverage requirements, Medicare Advantage plans may apply third-party guidelines, such as guidelines used by contractors engaged by the Medicare Advantage plan to make coverage determinations.”
Spokespersons for the Georgia Attorney General and the state Department of Insurance both said their agencies forward complaints about Medicare Advantage plans in Georgia to CMS.
Prior authorization requirements are a national concern. A report the Office of Inspector General in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released last April found around 13% of Medicare Advantage prior authorization denials were for services that would have been covered under traditional Medicare.
“These denials can create significant negative effects for Medicare Advantage beneficiaries,” the report said.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill Sept. 14 that would reform the prior authorization process for Medicare Advantage plans. The Improving Seniors’ Timely Access to Care bill had bipartisan support and even buy-in from the large insurance companies.
The legislation would require Medicare Advantage companies to set up an electronic prior authorization system and provide real-time approvals for common procedures. It would also beef up transparency requirements and require Medicare Advantage plans to publicly post information about how they deal with prior authorizations.
The bill is now before the U.S. Senate.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
