A measure that aims to close down stores that run casino-like computer games is now law.

Governor Nathan Deal on Wednesday signed into law Senate Bill 431, which closes loopholes in Georgia’s gambling statutes used by phone card and Internet café businesses to offer games including slots and roulette. Deal ordered a crackdown on these stores last August when he called on the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to target them with existing anti-gambling statutes.

The new law’s constitutionality may soon be challenged in court. Attorney Ed Garland, who is representing the owner of a phone card
company who was indicted in DeKalb County in March, has said the measure violates equal protection rights because it carves out an exception for publicly traded companies, such as McDonald’s, that have total assets of more than $100 million.

Businesses that ran the games claimed they were legitimate under Georgia laws allowing for promotional sweepstakes, similar to McDonald’s Monopoly game. These businesses provided gaming credits to customers who bought calling cards or Internet time, and those credits could be used to win cash prizes through computerized versions of Las Vegas-style games.

According to the new law, promotions that use computers, mechanical devices or electronic devices are considered unlawful lotteries.

Georgia’s secretary of state ruled Tuesday that President Barack Obama’s name will appear on the state’s Democratic primary ballot.

Secretary of State Brian Kemp, a Republican, followed last week’s recommendation to him by Georgia Office of State Administrative Hearings Deputy Chief Judge Michael M. Malihi, who rejected arguments from so-called “birthers” that Obama is ineligible to run for president.

“I find that the respondent, President Barack Obama, meets the state of Georgia’s eligibility requirements,” Kemp said in a statement.

A group of Georgia voters had contested Obama’s qualifications, saying he didn’t qualify as a natural born citizen as required by the U.S. Constitution.

Some plaintiffs argued to Malihi during a Jan. 27 hearing that Obama’s birth documents were forgeries and his Social Security number was fraudulently obtained. Other plaintiffs said Obama didn’t qualify as “natural born” because only one of his parents was a U.S. citizen. Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, was born in Kansas, and his father, Barack Obama Sr., was born in Kenya, which plaintiffs say made him a British citizen.

Malihi ruled for Obama on Friday, saying people born within the borders of the United States qualify as natural born citizens, regardless of the citizenship of their parents.

Malihi’s decision was only a recommendation to the secretary of state, according to state law.

Kemp’s statement called his action the “final decision” in the eligibility case.

A Georgia administrative judge rejected “birther” claims and ruled Friday that President Barack Obama is eligible to appear on the state’s March 6 Democratic primary ballot.

Judge Michael M. Malihi, deputy chief judge for the Georgia Office of State Administrative Hearings, wrote in a 10-page order that he found “little, if any, probative value” of testimony by witnesses who argued that Obama had faked his identity through forged birth certificates or a fraudulently obtained Social Security number.

Malihi also criticized Obama’s attorney, Michael K. Jablonski, for skipping a Jan. 26 hearing on the matter.

“By deciding this matter on the merits, the Court in no way condones the conduct or legal scholarship of Defendant’s attorney, Mr. Jablonski,” Malihi wrote. “This Decision is entirely based on the law, as well as evidence and legal arguments presented at the hearing.”

Jablonski couldn’t be reached immediately to comment after Malihi’s decision was released late Friday afternoon.

Malihi’s findings will be sent to Secretary of State Brian Kemp, a Republican who has final authority to decide Obama’s ballot eligibility.

Malihi said that Obama met the constitutional requirement that presidential candidates be “natural born citizens” because he was born in the United States.

The judge relied on a 2009 Indiana Court of Appeals analysis in Ankeny v. Governor, 916 N.E.2d 678, of many of the same arguments, including that Obama didn’t qualify as “natural born” because only one of his parents was a U.S. citizen. Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, was born in Kansas, and his father, Barack Obama Sr., was born in Kenya, which plaintiffs say made him a British citizen.

“Parents born within the borders of the United States are ‘natural born citizens’ for Article II, Section I purposes, regardless of the citizenship of their parents,” according to Malihi’s citation of Ankeny.

Malihi said witnesses who questioned Obama’s credentials weren’t qualified or tendered as experts on birth records, forged documents or document manipulation.

“For the purposes of this analysis, this Court considered that President Barack Obama was born in the United States. Therefore … he became a citizen at birth and is a natural born citizen,” Malihi wrote.

Obama was born in Honolulu on Aug. 4, 1961, according to birth documents released by his campaign and newspaper birth notices published at the time.

For a tough-on-crime state like Georgia to sell the idea of locking up fewer criminals, it will have to convince the public that using rehabilitation programs instead will result in safer communities, said Cobb County Superior Court Judge C. LaTain Kell.

“You’ve got to change the mind-set of folks in looking at what it really means to be tough on crime,” Kell said following a Friday panel discussion on criminal justice reform held by the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, a conservative public interest group. “It costs money every time I send someone to prison. Is there something that I can do in sentencing that just makes more sense, that’s going to reduce recidivism rates?”

About 1 in 13 people in Georgia are under correctional supervision—either incarcerated, on probation or parole—compared to the national rate of 1 in 31, said panelist Jason Newman of the Pew Center on the States. Without an overhaul of Georgia’s criminal laws, the number of people imprisoned across the state would grow about 8 percent, to nearly 60,000 people, during the next five years, he said. At a per-prisoner cost of about $17,000 each year, the burden on Georgia taxpayers will continue to rise from the more than $1 billion the state already spends annually on corrections, he said.

Proposed solutions from Gov. Nathan Deal’s Special Council on Criminal Justice Reform, a group of legislators, judges and attorneys charged with making recommendations on how to reduce the cost of the criminal justice system, are due Nov. 1, and they’ll be considered by the Legislature early next year.

“What we’re seeing is that when you look at what has been shown to work in terms of rehabilitation, some of the statistics and the data are undeniable. This stuff works,” said the council’s chairman, Fulton County Superior Court Judge D. Todd Markle. “Certainly the budget concerns are an important issue, but the driver is the fact that we can make the state safer.” Incarceration rates jumped during the 1990s, when lawmakers passed stricter criminal laws and mandated longer minimum sentences, Kell said.

 While the state’s conservative leaders don’t want to look like they’re soft on crime, they’re recognizing that changes are needed, Kell said. “In the 1990s, the idea of what we were going to do with convicted criminals certainly changed. … With that came some significant costs and also some significant unforeseen consequences,” he said. “We’ve learned a lot over the past 20 years, and what we’re doing is evolving the methodology we’re using to be tough on crime.”

Imprisoning people for long periods of time does little to deter them from committing crimes again, Kell said. The most effective period of incarceration for most crimes is the first 30 to 45 days, but after that, criminals become hardened. “Ultimately, being tough on crime really means reducing crime rates in our communities,” Kell said. “People demand economical solutions to the problem we all recognize, which is how do we reduce crime?”

While counterintuitive, it’s possible for states like Georgia to achieve the dual goals of fiscal responsibility and lowered crime rates, Newman said. “States can spend less money and improve public safety. There are smart ways to do that,” Newman said in his presentation. “This is not about reducing the prison population. What this is about is trying to ensure we’re spending the state’s dollars in the most effective way.”

About 90 percent of Georgia’s correctional budget is spent on prisons and jails, with most of the rest going toward supervision and rehabilitation programs, Newman said. The government spends about $45 a day per person kept in prison, lower than the national average of $79, he said. Georgia uses $1 a day per inmate for probation services, compared to $3.45 daily across the country.

Programs should be created that aim to change offenders’ behavior and morals, possibly in partnership with faith-based organizations, said Andrea S. Shelton, president of HeartBound Ministries, which provides outreach to inmates. “What good does it do if we lock somebody up and they come out the same person that they went in as? We really have to get serious about rehabilitating them,” Shelton said. Once the council makes its recommendations, it will begin the difficult process of convincing lawmakers and the public to enact them, Markle said.

So far, the council hasn’t encountered much resistance, but Markle said the group is struggling with these issues as it attempts to build consensus. Once the criminal justice panel makes its recommendations, it will attempt to gain support for them through public education efforts, Markle said.