News from the South - Georgia News Feed

Intellectually disabled could be shielded from Georgia’s death penalty, pending governor’s signature

Published

1 day ago

April 1, 2025

georgiarecorder.com – Jill Nolin – 2025-04-01 02:00:00

by Jill Nolin, Georgia Recorder
April 1, 2025

Georgia is the only state with the death penalty that requires defendants to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they are intellectually disabled to be spared execution – a high legal standard that no one charged with intentional murder has cleared.

But that would change under a bill that is now sitting on Gov. Brian Kemp’s desk that would lower the standard of proof.

Advocates have pushed for the change for two decades, but a south Georgia lawmaker, Glennville Republican state Rep. Bill Werkheiser, was able to convince his colleagues that the state’s law was incompatible with the constitution’s prohibition against executing people who are intellectually disabled.

Werkheiser often pointed to a 2021 Georgia Supreme Court case where a judge wrote in a dissenting opinion that using the highest possible burden of proof increases the risk that someone with an intellectual disability is executed.

House Bill 123 lowers the standard of proof for proving someone has an intellectual disability to a preponderance of the evidence, ending Georgia’s outlier status as the only state that requires beyond a reasonable doubt.

The measure also creates a pre-trial hearing where a judge would focus only on the question of whether the defendant is intellectually disabled. Today, a jury is determining whether a defendant is intellectually disabled at the same time they are hearing grisly details about the alleged crime and deciding the person’s guilt or innocence.

The bill was changed in the Senate to require 60 days of information sharing between the prosecution and defense before the newly created pretrial hearing. Prosecutors had fought the pretrial hearing, arguing it was adding another step in an already lengthy legal process.

And it also now requires defendants who prove they are intellectually disabled but are found guilty will be sentenced to life in prison or life without the possibility of parole. Defense attorneys and others opposed adding life without the possibility of parole as an option.

“A life sentence in Georgia must be served for a minimum 30 years before a person can even be considered for parole, and that’s considered, not necessarily released,” Mazie Lynn Guertin, executive director and policy advocate with the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, said to lawmakers last month.

The bill sailed through the Senate Monday and was finalized by the end of the day in the House. The proposal also drew support from Catholic groups and a tag-team advocacy effort from the Georgia Council on Developmental Disabilities and Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.

The Southern Center for Human Rights, which has long advocated for changes to Georgia’s law, celebrated the bill’s passage Monday and is already planning the party.

“This change will put Georgia in line with twenty-six other states that have protections for people with intellectual disability,” said Terrica Redfield Ganzy, the center’s executive director. “We are deeply grateful to Chairman Werkheiser for his compassion and leadership on this issue. It is our honor to partner with him on this effort.”

Werkheiser, who chairs the House Industry and Labor Committee, has developed a special interest in the state’s prison system and the people involved in it, recently visiting all the state’s prisons. He sponsored a version of the bill last year that went nowhere and spent the last year working to work through reservations about the changes.

He thanked House leadership and the lawmakers in the committees who spent time this session getting the bill done.

“There were so many advocacy groups that joined along the way that were not only encouraging, but provided assistance in so many ways. It was a team effort from so many,” Werkheiser said Monday.

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Georgia Recorder is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Georgia Recorder maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor John McCosh for questions: info@georgiarecorder.com.

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News from the South - Georgia News Feed

Massive CDC layoffs begin in Atlanta | FOX 5 News

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5 hours ago

April 2, 2025

Staff Editor

www.youtube.com – FOX 5 Atlanta – 2025-04-01 17:24:51

SUMMARY: Massive layoffs have begun at the CDC in Atlanta as part of broader cuts across U.S. health agencies. The Department of Health and Human Services plans to eliminate around 10,000 jobs, with the CDC losing approximately 2,400 employees. These cuts aim to streamline operations, focusing on epidemic preparedness and response. Protests erupted outside the CDC, with critics arguing the layoffs will undermine public health. Supporters of downsizing believe it will save taxpayers nearly $2 billion annually, but some experts warn it could reduce health safety. Georgia Senator John Osoff criticized the cuts, calling it an attack on public health.

Drastic cuts to reshape the federal government’s health agencies have now started. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says about 10,000 full-time federal workers are on the chopping block. Nearly a quarter of them are at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention based in Atlanta. Before dawn notices of dismissal started going out.

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News from the South - Georgia News Feed

Why Tesla may avoid the blow of Trump’s auto tariffs

Published

5 hours ago

April 2, 2025

Staff Editor

www.wsav.com – Miranda Nazzaro – 2025-04-02 07:03:00

SUMMARY: Tesla may avoid the worst of Trump’s new 25% auto tariffs due to its U.S.-based production, giving it an edge over foreign automakers. While most EV companies face rising costs and supply chain issues, Tesla benefits from vertical integration and domestic manufacturing. However, Tesla isn’t fully shielded, as 20–25% of its parts are still imported. The company is also vulnerable to international retaliation, with Canada already cutting rebates. Though analysts say Tesla is “best off” compared to rivals, the company still faces brand damage and market uncertainty tied to Elon Musk’s controversial political role and focus on AI over vehicles.

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The post Why Tesla may avoid the blow of Trump's auto tariffs appeared first on www.wsav.com

News from the South - Georgia News Feed

Georgia lawmakers on verge of ending trans care in state health plan, state prisons

Published

10 hours ago

April 2, 2025

Staff Editor

georgiarecorder.com – Ross Williams, Jill Nolin – 2025-04-02 02:00:00

by Ross Williams and Jill Nolin, Georgia Recorder
April 2, 2025

With only a few more days left to pass legislation, the state Legislature advanced two controversial Senate bills that would add new restrictions to gender affirming care.

State health plan ban gets inmate addition

Vidalia Republican Sen. Blake Tillery’s Senate Bill 39 passed through a House committee on a party line vote with a new amendment.

The original version of the bill, which had already passed the committee, barred transgender state employees or their dependents from receiving care on the state health insurance plan. The version that passed the House Health Committee Tuesday also specifically prohibits people in state correctional institutions from getting gender care.

There are currently about five people who are incarcerated in Georgia who receive this care, according to Cataula Republican Sen. Randy Robertson.

Rep. Marvin Lim, right. Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder

Norcross Democratic Rep. Marvin Lim argued that removing transgender health care from the plan would violate the law.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported in February that discrimination lawsuits and other complaints involving transgender people had cost taxpayers at least $4.1 million since 2015, including $2.1 million to settle claims and another $2 million in legal costs. Those numbers include $365,000 paid out in a 2023 settlement in which the state agreed to provide coverage for gender-affirming care and not to restrict it again.

“We feel very strongly that it would be an unconstitutional impairment of contracts to undo those settlements, let alone just an unconstitutional move to say that this wouldn’t violate Title VII, that this wouldn’t violate the equal protection clause,” he said.

Rep. Brent Cox. Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder

Lim was referring to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits employers from discriminating based on an employee’s sex, which includes whether they are transgender, and the equal protection clause in the 14th Amendment.

Dawsonville Republican Rep. Brent Cox, who is sponsoring the bill in the Senate, indicated that the law will be a message to the state judicial branch that the Legislature wants it to be legal to ban transgender health care.

“My belief is that it clears up for the judicial branch to be able to work within these guidelines on how they’re going to rule and move forward,” he said.

Lim said he was not convinced.

“It is not enough for us to say this is our policy,” he said. “This is a violation of the U.S. Constitution and federal statutory law on anti-discrimination. So we can pass whatever law we want at the state level and say ‘the attorney general can’t do this, the Department of Community Health can’t do this.’ But the argument has always been that this is violating higher law, the federal law, and specifically the U.S. Constitution.”

Democrats on the committee also argued the language in the bill could eliminate mental health treatments for transgender people, which Cox said was a misinterpretation.

The bill will need to pass through both chambers before Friday’s final deadline if it is to become law.

Standalone ban on jail treatment

Around the same time the House Health Committee passed SB 39, the House Public and Community Health took up Robertson’s Senate Bill 185, which also bans gender-affirming care for inmates but does not affect state employees.

Sen. Randy Robertson. Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder

Robertson’s bill passed out of the committee with a voice vote, teeing it for a potential final vote by the Legislature’s April 4 adjournment. Speaking to a reporter in the hallway after the committee approved his bill, Robertson said he hadn’t had time to see the latest revision on SB 39, but he supports Tillery’s state health plan ban and would likely be happy if either bill passed.

Republican supporters make the case that taxpayer money should not go toward gender-affirming care in state prisons.

“I understand individuals get upset when I say this, but I do mean it with all compassion: elective surgeries cannot be a part of our cost in the Georgia Department of Corrections,” Robertson said.

Opponents of the bill counter that gender-affirming care encompasses more than surgeries, is far from elective and can be necessary for a person’s wellbeing. Several speakers, including two attorneys with civil rights organizations, argued Tuesday that the measure is unconstitutional.

“If adopted, Senate Bill 185 would impose blanket bans on the provision of gender-affirming care to incarcerated people with gender dysphoria, regardless of needs,” said Emily C. R. Early with the Center for Constitutional Rights. “These blanket bans have repeatedly been found unconstitutional because they show deliberate indifference to the needs of incarcerated people.”

“This Senate bill puts lives at risk, and in so doing, would bring constitutional challenges,” she added.

Robertson was dismissive of those potential challenges to the state.

“We have the five individuals who are seeking the care, and then we have the lawsuits, and if you look at that, one of the failures within our system right now is the fact we do not have a policy against it,” Robertson said.

Rep. Michelle Au.. Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder

Tuesday’s debate also veered into discussion about the origin of the slate of bills targeting transgender Georgians this year. There are at least five bills gaining traction, and lawmakers have spent hours deliberating on them and hearing public input on them, and they are spending the final days of the session trying to finalize them.

Rep. Michelle Au, a Johns Creek Democrat, said House Republican colleagues have told her that she should support Robertson’s bill because the issue of inmates receiving gender-affirming care is why former Vice President Kamala Harris lost the presidential election last year.

A leading Senate Democrat representing an Atlanta district caused an uproar last month when she joined three other Democrats who voted for Robertson’s bill.

“That comment has been made to me several times, and I just have to put on the record that I really resent a subset of our patient population being used in this way for clearly political reasons, and I really wish that you would not put your voice behind this bill,” Au said to Robertson.

Robertson said politics wasn’t the motivation for him. But Rep. Scott Hilton, a Peachtree Corners Republican, acknowledged the influence of the 2024 election.

“Politics does inform policy as much as that politics reflect what our communities want,” Hilton said. “And I think if anything this last cycle, we learned that this was an 80/20 issue, not just in Georgia, but frankly America, and that folks were flabbergasted to learn that a small segment of our population opposed policies like this.”

But Bentley Hudgins, state director with the Human Rights Campaign, argued that exit polling showed that transgender issues ranked low on the list of voter priorities.

“We have seen time and time again in history where powerful people have used public opinion to excuse crimes against humanity,” Hudgins said.

“I do want to challenge that notion that just because, even if it were true that the majority of people think that this is a popular issue, it doesn’t give you the right to pass it.”

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The post Georgia lawmakers on verge of ending trans care in state health plan, state prisons appeared first on georgiarecorder.com