The Georgia Legislature had an opportunity during this year’s session to bring forth a positive impact on the judiciary with SB119 and HB185. However, neither bill made it out of the legislature.
Senate Bill 119 was authored by State Senator Bill Hambrick of Carrollton, Ga. This was a bill that would have rendered a positive affect on the sentencing phase of a death penalty trial. As the law in Georgia stands now, a victim’s family members can be denied entrance to the courtroom during the trial phase if they have submitted a Victims Impact Statement. The defense attorney simply has to subpoena them and they will be classified as witnesses and therefore prohibited from the courtroom. SB119 would have helped eliminate this misuse of the judicial system.
This bill would have required the defense to show how the courtroom appearance of the victim’s family members would be prejudicial to his/her case rather than having them restricted from the courtroom by simply issuing a subpoena. This bill was approved by the Senate’s Judiciary Committee and made it to the Senate Rules Committee. However, it never gain enough support to bring it to a vote in the Rules Committee. The current status of SB119 is that it is dead for this session.
Another bill, authored by Barry Fleming of Harlem, Georgia, that would have had a profound affect on death penalty cases in Georgia was HB185 and therefore, it was referred to as the Death Penalty Bill. A death penalty case is divided in two phases. The first phase is the actual trial where twelve jurors must agree in order to find the defendant guilty. The second phase is the sentencing phase where currently all twelve jurors must agree on the death sentence in order for the sentence of death to be issued. If a single juror disagrees, the judge can not hand down the sentence of death. The dissenting juror is not required to provide a reason for their disagreement.
HB185 would have eliminated the situation where a single juror can override the opinion of eleven jurors. This bill in its original form required nine or more jurors to agree in order for the sentence of death to be issued. This certainly would have eliminated the single dissenting juror from obstructing justice. By the time the bill made it out of the House Rules Committee, the requirement for the death sentence to be issued was that ten or more jurors must agree.
However, there was one drawback to HB185 and it was that the judge would not be required to issue the death sentence even if ten or more jurors agreed on the death penalty. The negative side of HB185 was that the jury’s decision would be more of a recommendation in lieu of a directive. With this rather large downside, the judge would decide whether to issue the death sentence or not. Therefore, the death penalty would rest entirely on the decision of the judge. Even though this bill made it through the entire Georgia House of Representatives and crossed over to the Senate, it died in the Senate Rules Committee most likely because of this downside.
It is hopeful that SB119 will be resurrected next year and become Georgia law. HB185 requires a bit more work. Allowing the judge to decide whether a murderer receives the death penalty gives one person the opportunity to obstruct justice which is the very scheme that HB185 was attempting to correct. Therefore there is some contradiction in this bill as it currently stands and that must be corrected prior to it becoming law.