SB 319, the Georgia Senate's Constitutional Carry bill has passed the Senate Judicial Committee. It is expected to pass the full Senate. The difficult challenge will be the House Safety Committee.
Georgia Chief Justice Harold Melton announced Friday that he has plans to issue an order to extend the Statewide Judicial Emergency for the last time. That order was first issued in response to the COVID-19 pandemic on March 14, 2020, and it's been extended 15 times since then. But in a virtual meeting Friday afternoon that included members of the state's Judicial Council, Chief Justice Melton told the group of Georgia judges that he intends.
Jury Trials to Resume Again!
The world has been battling the COVID-19 pandemic for a year now. All sectors of life, from businesses to schools, to courts, to places of worship, have socially-distanced and shifted to technology to carry out their work.
A year ago, on March 14, 2020, Chief Justice Melton of the Supreme Court of Georgia declared a Statewide Judicial Emergency in the State of Georgia due to the “transmission of Coronavirus/COVID-19 throughout the State and the potential infection of those who work in or are required to appear in our courts.”[i] The first order suspended all jury trials. Today, on March 9, 2021, almost one year after the first order, Chief Justice Melton has entered the 12th order extending the judicial emergency. This order authorizes jury trials to begin again.[ii]