by Ty Tagami | Jul 8, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Dwan Maurice Hewlett must have thought he was about to make a lucrative deal when he drove to an Athens gas station.
His car was filled with fentanyl and other drugs, in baggies ready to go.
Instead, he wound up sprinting down the road, in a hapless attempt to evade police officers.
A confidential informant had lured Hewlett, 41, to the location on Danielsville Road on behalf of the Athens-Clarke County Police Department, said William R. “Will” Keyes, U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Georgia.
“Cases like this highlight the strong collaboration between our office and our local, state and federal law enforcement partners,” Keyes said.
Hewlett, also known as “LA,” was sentenced Monday to serve 420 months in prison to be followed by 10 years of supervised release. He was found guilty at trial in February of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine, fentanyl and cocaine, not to mention actual possession with intent to distribute plus a couple of counts involving firearms.
The man from Hull on the northeast edge of Athens had a .380 pistol under his driver’s seat. Officers also recovered baggies with drugs ready to go: 133.51 grams of fentanyl, 58.31 grams of methamphetamine, 9.783 grams of cocaine and 16 grams of cocaine base.
A search of cell phones that Hewlett had in the car revealed drug-related messages and photos, indicating that he was conspiring to distribute two kilograms of fentanyl just days prior to his arrest, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. Hewlett had three prior convictions in the Clarke County Superior Court in cases involving drugs and firearms.
When Hewlett pulled into that gas station, Athens-Clarke officers boxed his vehicle in and exited their undercover vehicles wearing “POLICE” marked body armor.
After they told Hewlett to get out of his car, he reached under his seat and then sort of complied. He left his car, but ignored the cops, taking off on foot. He couldn’t outrun them, though.
“This armed career criminal will no longer be selling the dangerous drug fentanyl in our community,” Athens-Clarke County Police Chief Jerry Saulters said.
by Dave Williams | Jul 8, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Lt. Gov. Burt Jones announced Tuesday he’s running for governor, a long anticipated move that sets up a primary race next year among Republican heavyweights.
Jones, a former state senator from Butts County, posted his first campaign video on YouTube, touting Georgia’s accomplishments in recent years under Republican rule and laying out his stands on key issues moving forward.
“Today, I see a Georgia where families are prospering, a Georgia where businesses are moving here and growing here, a Georgia where our families are safer thanks to tougher crime laws, and our schools strengthened thanks to empowering parents’ rights,” Jones said as he drove along in a pickup truck.
“Working for the families of Georgia, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones has brought real conservative leadership that protects our freedom, our values, and our families,” a narrator intones.
If elected governor, Jones vowed to eliminate the state income tax and end fentanyl overdoses in Georgia through tougher penalties and stepped-up efforts to educate Georgia’s young people on the dangers of illegal drugs.
Jones represented Middle Georgia’s 25th Senate District for a decade before being elected lieutenant governor in 2022. An executive in a family-owned oil company, the 2002 graduate of the University of Georgia co-captained the Bulldogs football team that year to its first Southeastern Conference championship in 20 years.
Jones’ campaign video touts his ties to President Donald Trump. Jones was investigated for alleged involvement in attempts to overturn the results of Georgia’s 2020 presidential election but was cleared of any criminal wrongdoing.
The lieutenant governor is the second Republican to enter the 2026 race to succeed term-limited GOP Gov. Brian Kemp. Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr announced his candidacy last November.
Democrats vying for their party’s gubernational nomination include former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, state Sen. Jason Esteves, state Rep. Derrick Jackson, and former pastor Olujimi Brown.
In a prepared statement, Georgia Democratic Chairman Charlie Bailey accused Jones of “failed leadership” that doesn’t deserve a promotion to governor.
“Georgia has a top-ten ranking for rural hospital closures, a top-five ranking for uninsured rates, a bottom-half ranking for every metric that measures our kids’ educational opportunities, and a tax code that rewards billionaires, big corporations, and the latest lobbyist to buy him a steak and a bourbon,” Bailey wrote.
by Dave Williams | Jul 7, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Certification of election results in Georgia is a mandatory duty of local elections officials – not a discretionary decision – the state Court of Appeals has ruled.
The decision dismissed a lawsuit filed by Julie Adams, a Republican member of the Fulton County Board of Elections and Registration who refused to certify the results of last year’s presidential primary and maintained she had the legal authority to do so. The appellate court ruling upheld a lower-court decision Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney issued last October.
“A [local election] superintendent is empowered to request and review election documents … and to share concerns about fraud or errors with the appropriate authorities,” appellate Judges Elizabeth Gobeil and Brian Rickman wrote in an 11-page ruling dated July 2. “However, these concerns are not a basis for a superintendent to partially or entirely refuse to certify election results.”
Monday’s appellate court decision came nearly a month after the Georgia Supreme Court invalidated four of seven controversial rules changes the Republican-controlled State Election Board (SEB) passed shortly before last November’s elections. The justices ruled unanimously that board members exceeded their rulemaking authority under the Georgia Constitution.
In that case, lawyers for the plaintiffs – including a Georgia-based advocacy group headed by Republican former state Rep. Scot Turner – argued such rules changes came under the jurisdiction of the General Assembly rather than the SEB.
Lawyers for the state, the Republican National Committee and the Georgia Republican Party countered that the board was within its legal rights to approve the new election rules.
Civil rights and voting rights groups and their Democratic allies had fought the rules changes, charging Republicans with trying to sow chaos and confusion in the electoral process to aid the candidacy of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who ended up carrying Georgia’s 16 electoral votes on his way to recapturing the White House.
Members of the SEB who supported the rules changes said they were trying to restore public confidence in Georgia elections, which was shaken by uncertainties over the 2020 election results in Georgia.
by Ty Tagami | Jul 7, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — A committee created by the Georgia Supreme Court is recommending that the state try letting people with special legal training do limited kinds of attorney work that would give more people access to the justice system.
A three-year pilot program in three parts of the state — rural, urban, and a mid-sized community — would allow the legal community to experiment with expanding legal practice “into new areas with the urgent unmet legal needs of low-income and rural Georgians,” said the report, which was released Monday by the high court’s Study Committee on Legal Regulatory Reform.
In the program, Limited Licensed Legal Practitioners (LLLPs) would be authorized to give legal assistance to landlords and tenants and people with consumer-debt issues. The LLLPs’ would focus on general legal guidance and preparing and drafting forms and documents but would be prohibited from appearing in court or contacting other parties.
“This limited assistance has the potential to make a significant impact in specific classes of cases that are generally high volume, relatively less complex, and involve significant numbers of self-represented parties,” wrote the committee, which was established last year and led by state Supreme Court Justice Carla Wong McMillian.
The committee also recommended letting attorneys collect legal training credit hours for pro bono (free) work. The report noted that some states — including neighboring states Alabama, Florida and Tennessee — give continuing legal education credit for pro bono work. Such ongoing training is required to maintain a license to practice law.
As part of its work, the committee surveyed lawyers. Out of more than 2,200 who responded, more than half agreed that non-attorneys could help address “the civil justice gap,” the report said, although slightly fewer than half were “generally supportive” of the idea.
Even so, the committee pitched the idea to the high court, saying early access to legal services could lead to fewer legal disputes winding up in court.
LLLPs would get training in procedural and substantive law, with an emphasis on ethics and professionalism. There would be a written exam, written portfolio assessment, and observation and shadowing.
The committee noted that the Minnesota Supreme Court recently adopted recommendations from a similar three-year program there called the Legal Paraprofessionals Pilot Project.
The Minnesota pilot was limited to landlord-tenant and family cases, but the recommendation that followed the trial program was to let paraprofessionals provide legal assistance in more legal areas.
Georgia’s committee said these legal helpers could give more people access to the courts.
“The committee finds that the proposed pilot program would increase access to justice for low-income and rural Georgians while protecting the public,” the report said.
by Dave Williams | Jul 7, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp named Dr. Dean Burke Monday commissioner of the Georgia Department of Community Health (DCH).
Burke, 67, a former state senator now serving as the state agency’s chief medical officer, will take up his new role on Aug. 1.
Before serving in the Georgia Senate for a decade representing a district in Southwest Georgia, Burke worked as chief medical officer at Memorial Hospital and Manor in Bainbridge. He also served as a member of the Hospital Authority of the City of Bainbridge and Decatur County and practiced obstetrics and gynecology for 27 years.
“Given his extensive background in medicine and health-care policy, he is uniquely qualified to fill this role at a pivotal time for this important agency,” Kemp said. “I’m confident he will demonstrate that same level of commitment as commissioner that he has shown throughout his many years of public service.”
Before entering state politics, Burke was a member of the Bainbridge City Council for five years. He was elected to the state Senate in 2012.
Burke will succeed current DCH Commissioner Russel Carlson, who is leaving state government for a position in the private sector.
