Rep. Mike Jacobs said that he would not call a vote on the rewrite of Georgia’s open meetings and records laws in his Judiciary subcommittee until Friday because he had not yet read the latest version of the bill.

Bills that have not crossed from House to the Senate, or vice versa, by the end of the 30^th day are considered dead for the session. Tuesday was the 21^st day of the session.

Jacobs did not call the bill for a vote Wednesday as originally planned, though there was a short hearing on changes to the legislation.

Jacobs said he was not trying to test the blood pressure of Attorney General Sam Olens, who has pushed the open meetings/records package. Rather, Jacobs said he simply didn’t want to call a vote on a bill he had not read.

GreenLaw has chosen state Rep. Stephanie Stuckey Benfield, D-Atlanta, to be its new executive director. Benfield, who is also an attorney, will start on April 9.

Benfield confirmed she will serve out her legislative term but won’t run for re-election this year.

“Stephanie was picked from an impressive pool of candidatesn due to her outstanding legal and public service credentials,” said Greg Presmanes, chairman of GreenLaw’s Board of Directors, in a written statement. GreenLaw provides legal representation for several conservation and environmental protection groups including the Ogeechee Riverkeeper.

Benfield earned her law degree in 1992 from the University of Georgia. She was a public defender and then became a private family law practitioner with Stuckey and Manheimer in Decatur, where she stayed until 2002 when she decided to become a stay-at-home mom. Benfield retains inactive status with the State Bar of Georgia.

In 1999, Benfield was elected to the state House of Representatives. Her current district includes portions of DeKalb County, including the neighborhoods of Avondale Estates, Candler Road, Columbia Drive, Fernbank, Forest Hills, Knollwood, Midway, Oakhurst, South Decatur, Wadsworth and Winona Park. She is also a longtime member of the House’s Natural Resource Committee.

Benfield will replace former GreenLaw executive director Justine Thompson, who will continue to be a staff attorney.

“I look forward to working with Justine and the other skilled attorneys at GreenLaw to continue to give our environment its day in court,” Benfield said in a written statement.

Benfield would have been one of five lawyer-legislators in the House pitted against an incumbent this election cycle due to redistricting. (On Dec. 23, 2011, the U.S. Attorney General granted administrative preclearance to the state’s 2011 redistricting plans.)

Benfield would have faced Rep. Howard Mosby, D-Atlanta, who is a certified public accountant and assistant vice president of Grady Health System. His current district includes parts of DeKalb and Henry counties.

The state Senate has released its version of the amended fiscal year 2012 appropriations bill, which differs slightly from the version approved by the House on Feb. 3.

The Senate Appropriations Committee’s draft reflects an estimated $47,000,000 reduction in state revenue for the current fiscal year, which ends June 30.

While the judiciary’s share of the $18.5 billion budget is relatively small, the appropriations bill , known as House Bill 741, would make some changes.

The House recommended adding $63,000 back to the Court of Appeals’ budget to restore personnel reductions, and the Senate has agreed in its version. The Senate also agreed to the House’s suggestion to restore $168,558 to the Superior Court Judges’ budget, which was taken out last year as personnel cuts.

But the Senate disagreed with the House’s  proposal to give an additional  $172,640 to the Resource Center, which is under the Judicial Council’s umbrella and provides legal representation to death row inmates. The Resource Center requested the extra money to replace the elimination of all Georgia Bar Foundation money, according to state budget documents.

A commercial and business litigation lawyer will become the newest judge in the Stone Mountain Judicial Circuit.

Gov. Nathan Deal on Friday appointed Asha F. Jackson, 36, to fill the seat on the DeKalb County Superior Court that was vacated last month by Judge Michael E. Hancock.

Jackson, who is a partner at Barnes & Thornburg as well as a pro hac judge for the DeKalb County Recorder’s Court, was nominated for the seat by Fulton County Superior Court Judge D. Todd Markle. He was Deal’s executive counsel before the governor tapped him for the Fulton court. Jackson also received a letter of recommendation from Hancock, for whom she clerked after graduating from Tulane Law School in 2000.

Jackson’s appointment will become effective upon her swearing-in, but a date for the ceremony has not yet been announced.

State Rep. BJ Pak, R-Lilburn, filed a bill on Tuesday known as “Caylee Anthony’s Law,” which would require parents and guardians to report the disappearance of a child within 18 hours.

Caylee Anthony was a two-year-old Florida girl who disappeared from her family’s home in 2008 and was later found dead. Her mother, Casey Anthony, was charged with her murder and told authorities she had not known her daughter’s whereabouts for weeks before she was reported missing. A jury acquitted Casey Anthony of murder and other abuse charges in July 2011, though it did convict her of misdemeanors including lying to police.

Rep. BJ Pak, R-Lilburn

“Many, including myself, were outraged by the outcome of Casey Anthony’s trial,” Pak said Wednesday in a news release. Pak is a partner at Ballard Spahr and a former federal prosecutor.

Pak’s bill, House Bill 974, would require a parent, guardian or custodian of a child younger than 13 to alert law enforcement within 18 hours of being unable to establish communication with the child or verify the child’s whereabouts. Those who willfully and knowingly failed to report a child missing within 18 hours would be penalized with a sentence between a year and 10 years in prison.

HB 974 also would require a parent, guardian or custodian to notify authorities, such as law enforcement or a coroner, of a child’s death within 12 hours. This provision would apply to children younger than 16. Those who intentionally fail to report a death within the time frame would be charged with a felony and would face a prison sentence of up to 10 years and/or a fine of up to $5,000.

Similar legislation also has been filed in 14 other states, including neighboring Alabama, Florida and Tennessee, Pak said.

Georgia death penalty opponents, including two Democratic lawmakers and the director of a human rights law firm, will meet at the Capitol Thursday to push legislation that would exclude eyewitness testimony as a sole factor in seeking the death penalty.

The rally is closely tied to the September 2011 execution of Troy Davis, who was convicted of killing a Savannah police officer.

Davis’ attorneys and supporters argued that key eyewitnesses in the Davis case changed their statements, but appellate courts were not persuaded.

“In recent years, Georgians have become increasingly aware of just how unreliable eyewitness identification evidence is,” the coalition, known as Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said in a news release. “One hundred forty people have been exonerated from death rows across the country since 1973.”

Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty  also includes human rights activists and religious leaders. The rally is scheduled for noon on Feb. 16 inside the Capitol rotunda.

The state’s Judicial Council approved grants for mental health courts totaling $353,676, according to a statement released Wednesday by the council’s Administrative Office of the Courts.

Mental health courts are included under the umbrella of accountability courts, in which defendants can receive alternative sentences such as rehabilitation and treatment instead of jail time.

This type of court, which also includes drug courts, has been touted recently by the governor and top judiciary officials for reducing recidivism and saving money. Georgia’s Special Council on Criminal Justice Reform recommended in November that the Legislature create a statewide system of accountability courts.

A January survey by the Daily Report of district attorneys found that prosecutors have mixed feelings about the effectiveness and need for accountability courts.

The mental health court programs that received grants of $37,500 each were:

• The Appalachian Circuit Mental Health Court
• Bibb County Mental Health Court
• Chatham County Juvenile Mental Health Court
• DeKalb Magistrate Court, Diversion Treatment Court
• Enotah Mental Health Court
• Hall County Mental Health Court
• Henry County Mental Health Court
• Piedmont Adult Mental Health Court

The programs that received grants of $4,473 each were:

• Appalachian Juvenile Drug Court
• Augusta Adult Drug Court
• Chatham County Family Dependency Treatment Court
• Cherokee County Adult Drug Court
• Cobb County Family Dependency Treatment Court
• Cobb County Juvenile Drug Court
• Douglas County Family Dependency Treatment Court
• Griffin Adult Drug Court
• Muscogee Adult Drug Court
• Pataula Judicial Circuit Adult Drug Court
• Waycross Adult Drug Court
• Western Circuit Adult Drug Court

The AOC said that many adult and juvenile drug courts also provide mental health services.

The approval came after a House Appropriations Public Safety Subcommittee meeting on Monday during which judges, administrators and legislators discussed how to spend an extra $10 million included in the governor’s fiscal year 2013 budget for accountability courts.

AG Sam Olens (L) and Bill Bolling of the Atlanta Community Food Bank announce Georgia Legal Food Frenzy 2012. Click photo for Facebook slide show of the press conference.

Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens is hoping to stir up competition between law firms.

Olens announced Wednesday at the Capitol the start of a new statewide food drive to benefit the seven regional food banks of the Georgia Food Bank Association. The Georgia Legal Food Frenzy will begin April 23 and will pit firms, large and small, private and public, against each other to see which can collect the most donations.

Three other states participate in similar food drives.

“Half a million children in this state live in poverty,” Olens said. “One in six Georgians lack adequate access to food. The face of hunger in this state is getting worse and worse as this recession lingers.”

The two-week drive will end May 4 to coincide with Law Day. The winning firm will be awarded the Attorney General’s Cup, and smaller awards will recognize firms with large per capita donations.

Olens said the goal should be to collect more than 600,000 pounds of food, which Virginia collected its first year participating in the Food Frenzy. Five years later, Virginia collects more than one million pounds.

Law firms that want to enter the Food Frenzy can sign up beginning today at www.galegalfoodfrenzy.org.

Talk about unintended consequences…

On Tuesday, a committee of Georgia lawmakers took a quick vote on a bill that would correct an omission in legislation passed last year by the General Assembly that changed the way juries are compiled. The jury composition overhaul bill, known as House Bill 415, inadvertently did not carry over language from part of the prior statute that prohibits specific people from serving as jurors.

House Bill 763, sponsored by Rep. Alex Atwood, R-Brunswick, seeks to reinsert the provision that “any person who has been convicted of a
felony in a state or federal court who has not had his or her civil rights restored and any person who has been declared mentally incompetent shall not be eligible to serve as a trial juror.”

Atwood, a lawyer, said his bill was introduced this session out of “an abundance of caution.” The bill also has been endorsed by the Judicial Council of Georgia.

The House Judiciary Committee unanimously approved the H763, so it will go to the full House for a vote.

Legislation allowing businesses to answer some garnishment actions without having to use attorneys is moving at a fast clip through the General Assembly.

House Bill 683 was filed in December. It passed the House on Jan. 24 in a 150-20 vote and sailed through the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday.

The bill could come up for a full Senate vote if and when it is approved by the Senate Rules Committee, which meets this afternoon. Today is the 11^th day of the 2012 regular session.

HB 683’s two basic premises are:

1. When an entity, such as a bank or corporation, is a garnishee in a garnishment proceeding, the execution and filing of an answer shall not constitute the
   practice of law and does not require an attorney.
2. The entity’s payment of garnishment also shall not constitute the practice of law.

The legislation, sponsored by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Wendell Willard, R-Sandy Springs, is an attempt to undue a controversial September 2011 state Supreme Court ruling that approved a Georgia Bar opinion that held that a non-attorney who answers for a garnishee other than him/herself in a pending legal proceeding was engaged in the unlicensed practice of law.

The bill also would raise that amount of attorney fees that a garnishee could subtract from $25 to $50 or 10 percent of the amount paid into court, whichever is greater. However that amount could not exceed $100.

Sen. Charlie Bethel, R-Dalton, has agreed to shepherd the bill through his chamber.

Willard told representatives during a House Judiciary Committee meeting earlier this month that he hopes his bill will be among the first signed into law by the governor this year.

The Daily Report’s Jan. 17 story on HB 683 and how the Bar took no position is here.