Gov. Nathan Deal’s Judicial Nominating Commission has recommended five people for two Enotah Judicial Circuit judge vacancies.

The JNC interviewed 15 applicants and released its short list on Thursday, which includes three lawyers, a judge and a city manager.

The candidates are:

• Raymond E. George – Sole Practitioner, Raymond E. George, Attorney at Law
• N. Stanley Gunter – Executive Director, Prosecuting Attorneys Council of Georgia
• Stanley R. Lawson – Sole Practitioner, Stanley R. Lawson, Attorney at Law, P.C.
• Joy R. Parks – Chief Magistrate Judge, White County; Sole Practitioner, Joy R. Parks, Attorney, P.C.
• Richard H. Stancil – Hiawassee City Manager

The two vacancies arose in March after two judges, David Barrett and Lynn Akeley-Alderman, resigned in the wake of investigations by theJudicial Qualifications Commission for alleged misconduct.

Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens said government defense lawyers, including those in his office, will be able to avoid “trial by ambush” now that the state’s new sunshine laws are in effect.

Changes to the state’s Open Records Act in House Bill 397, which was signed by the governor last month, still allow litigants to seek government records that may be used in a lawsuit. But they also require the litigant to notify government lawyers at the same time as making the request.

An earlier version of the bill prohibited litigants from using the Open Records Act as a way to circumvent discovery, but the Georgia Trial Lawyers Association successfully lobbied against the ban, arguing that it would infringe on a citizen’s right to access public documents.

GTLA, local government attorneys and Olens forged a compromise that they said prevented a litigant from using evidence obtained through an open records request without the prior knowledge of a government agency or its lawyers.

Read more »

Georgia could see its incarceration rate and costs lowered over the next five years as recently signed legislation kicks in, channeling low-level, nonviolent offenders away from prison and toward treatment and rehabilitation programs.

Gov. Nathan Deal signed the criminal justice reform bill (House Bill 1176) this afternoon in the north wing of the Capitol. Among the bill’s provisions are the creation of statewide drug and mental health court programs, increased felony thresholds for property crimes such as theft and shoplifting and a weight-based system of drug possession prosecution that allows for lower sentences for smaller amounts.

Estimates released in late March pegged the state’s cost savings at $264 million over the next five years.Later, in front of a smaller audience, Deal signed Senate Bill 383, which creates specific provisions for conducting international commercial arbitration in Georgia. Prior to the bill’s passage by the 2012 Georgia General Assembly, Deal voiced support for a multi-law firm coalition seeking to make Atlanta a premier venue for alternative dispute resolution among international companies.

The various provisions of the criminal justice overhaul legislation will go into effect at different times. The statewide accountability court systems and the new felony thresholds will start this July. The weight-based drug possession scheme will start on July 1, 2013, for Schedule I and II drugs and on July 1, 2014, for Schedule III through V drugs.

The international commercial arbitration bill goes into effect on July 1.

State Bar of Georgia President Ken Shigley attended both bill signings. Both measures found support from the bar.

Read more »

State Bar of Georgia President Ken Shigley has appointed five members to the Georgia Code Revision Commission–a prosecutor, a judge, a university attorney, a civil litigator and a government relations lawyer.

The commission’s primary function is to revise state laws to codify legislative actions. The commission consists of 15 members: the speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives, four state representatives, the lieutenant governor, four state senators and five appointees of the state bar. The bar’s appointees serve one-year terms.

Shigley announced today that he reappointed Cobb County District Attorney Pat Head. The new members are Robert Highsmith Jr., leader of Holland & Knight’s State Capitals Team and Georgia Government Relations Practice; Joseph Dent, a civil litigator with Watson Spence and members of the bar’s Board of Governors; Mountain Judicial Circuit Superior Court Judge B. Chan Caudell; and Laverne Lewis Gaskins, in-house counsel for Valdosta State University.

After 37 years on the bench, Coweta Judicial Circuit Superior Court Chief Judge William Lee Jr. will resign.

Lee’s resignation letter to Gov. Nathan Deal is composed of one sentence highlighting the length of his judicial career and listing May 1 as his last day. It does not include a reason for stepping down.

The letter was sent to and accepted by the Governor’s Office today.

Lee’s resignation makes the third current judicial vacancy. Already Deal’s Judicial Nominating Commission is seeking candidates to fill two seats on the Enotah Judicial Circuit bench.

Deal remarked during an Atlanta Press Club appearance earlier this month that he has been surprised by the record number of judicial appointments had has made in his term compared to other recent governors.

“I don’t know the reason for it,” Deal said. “I think part of it is the increasing scrutiny about what is happening on the bench in our state, and it’s unfortunate when that is the reason behind the vacancies. And I think some of it is there have been individuals who have served for a long time and are tired and ready to retire.”

Disputes between taxpayers and the Georgia Department of Revenue could be settled by a tax tribunal starting Jan. 1, 2013.

Gov. Nathan Deal today signed legislation establishing an independent tax tribunal within the State Office of Administrative Hearings and headquartered in Fulton County.

The legislation, known as House Bill 100, was originally introduced to the General Assembly last year and called for a special tax court. But after pushback from superior court judges, the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Allen Peake, R-Macon, worked with tax lawyers and legislators to revise the bill.

The new law will give taxpayers an alternative to having their disputes heard in superior courts. The tribunal will consist of at least one full-time administrative law judge, who will serve a four-year term,  appointed by the governor. Subsequent or additional tribunal judges also will be appointed by the governor but with consent from the state Senate.

The law also mandates that tribunal judges must be practicing tax attorneys with at least eight years of experience.

The bill also would create a small claims division in which a taxpayer may be represented by an accountant instead of an attorney.

Final judgments by the tax tribunal, but not by the small claims division, may be appealed to the Fulton County Superior Court.

Peake, who owns several restaurant franchises, said the intent of the new tax tribunal is to make Georgia more friendly to businesses.

Georgia’s new open meetings and records laws are now in effect, having been signed Tuesday by the governor.

House Bill 397 gained a lot of attention for decreasing the cost to the public of obtaining copies of records and increased penalties for violations. There was also hearty debate in the legal community about whether litigants or their attorneys should be able to use the state’s Open Records Act to obtain evidence for their civil cases outside of discovery.

But some provisions that did not get as much attention during the legislative process yet may be important to lawyers: changes made to record exemptions involving trade secrets and bids for government contracts.

Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens, who pushed for the first sunshine law overhaul in at least a decade, said his office sought to clarify poorly written exemptions.

While state and local government records containing company trade secrets will still be restricted from public access, the revised exemption allows government agencies to release documents when companies cannot prove they indeed do contain trade secrets.

“Often the state [or local government] is not in a position to know if something is a trade secret or not,” Olens said during a press conference today with media outlets.

Read more »

The bill overhauling the state’s open government laws ran into a final snag on Tuesday—but it had nothing to do with the competing interests of the news media and local governments who fought over the measure.

Gov. Nathan Deal was set to sign the bill today at an Atlanta Press Club luncheon, flanked by the two men who spearheaded the legislation, state Attorney General Sam Olens and Rep. Jay Powell, R-Camilla. But no one remembered to bring a copy of the bill.

Deal, Olens and Powell pretended to sign the bill for the cameras (and he performed the deed later in the day, according to a release from his office.)

The hiccup didn’t stop the governor from praising bipartisan effort and stakeholder cooperation, including input from a number of First Amendment lawyers, that led to the General Assembly’s passage of House Bill 397 last month.

Deal himself had a hand in the legislation. He pushed for a new exemption that would restrict public access to records pertaining to large scale state economic development projects that involved the expenditure of $25 million or more until the state had a commitment in place. Deal said the exemption would prevent Georgia from being “victimized by competitors or other states” who might use Georgia’s Open Records Act to gain information about budding projects in advance and trump Georgia’s bids.

During his speech, Deal focused on the three main pillars of his legislative agenda last session: education, tax reform and criminal justice reform.

He said his office has worked hard to make Georgia “the number one place in the nation to do business.” But to fully realize that ideal, the state will have to address many of its ills, which Deal said stem from lack of employment.

Deal also answered a question from the Daily Report about the record number of judicial appointments he has made in his term compared to other recent governors. (Currently, there are two vacancies in the Enotah Judicial Circuit that arose after judges resigned in the wake of investigations by the Judicial Qualifications Commission for alleged misconduct.)

“I’ve been surprised by it,” Deal said. “I don’t know the reason for it. I think part of it is the increasing scrutiny about what is happening on the bench in our state, and it’s unfortunate when that is the reason behind the vacancies. And I think some of it there have been individuals who have served for a long time and are tired and ready to retire.”

Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens had his share of March madness.

During the last week of the month, he shepherded a slew of bills through the waning days of the 2012 legislative session with success and attended two of the three days of hearings on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare)  before the U.S. Supreme Court.

While he didn’t actually present any of the health care arguments, he joined at least a dozen other state attorneys general to sit in solidarity—forming a figurative 10th man for their side.

“Georgia was an active plaintiff in the litigation, having worked on numerous versions of the various briefs and discussions on appellate strategy. It was important for as many plaintiff states as possible to be present during the hearings to demonstrate our resolve and the importance we placed on this appeal,” said Law Department spokeswoman Lauren Kane.

Not only was Olens present for the health care debates, he also personally appeared at Georgia’s Capitol on the last day of the session, known as Sine Die, and was seen conferring with sponsors of the legislation he was backing. Olens’ office estimates the AG incurred about $1,070 in travel expenses shuttling to and from Washington during the last week of March.

But the benefit was that “Sam’s attendance allowed him to assess first-hand how the arguments went and evaluate the court’s approach to the case,” Kane said.

The 26 plaintiff states have questioned the constitutionality of the 2010 federal law, specifically the individual mandate to purchase health insurance.

“As Sam has said before, this landmark case has far reaching constitutional implications that will impact the individual liberty of every Georgian, hopefully confirming that Congress has limited enumerated powers,” Kane said. “Additionally, the outcome of the case will have enormous budgetary consequences for Georgia. If the law is upheld, Georgia will be burdened with a massive unfunded Medicaid mandate that we cannot afford.”