Ga. House Nixes Plan For Courts To Make Some Procedures Virtual

From the Georgia Recorder:

By Jill Nolin

Georgia House lawmakers Wednesday rejected a Senate plan to conduct certain court proceedings through video conference.

The measure was pitched as a tool that frees Georgia courts to use technology to cut transportation costs, improve efficiencies in the courtroom and speed up the judicial process for defendants, but it ran up against concerns in the House that it would undermine a defendant’s constitutional rights.

Rep. Chuck Efstration, a Dacula Republican and an attorney who chairs the House Judiciary Non-Civil Committee, said Senate Bill 344 came at the request of the state Department of Corrections. Sen. Jeff Mullis, a Chickamauga Republican, is the bill’s sponsor in the Senate.

Defendants would have still been physically present for trial, but the proceedings that come before and after trial – including when someone enters a plea in a criminal case – could have been conducted through a video conference.

Efstration tried to assure his colleagues that “all protections due to defendants under our Constitution are preserved with this bill.” He also said the proceedings would still be open to observers as they are today. And he noted that virtual proceedings are already being done in some Gwinnett County courtrooms on a voluntary basis.

“This is not about folks who are now going to have to plead for their liberty over a video connection,” Efstration said.

But the proposal was a no-go for Democrats and the conservatives who joined them in defeating the bill with a split 82-to-82 vote. A procedural move allowed for a second vote, but the bill fared no better.

“The Sixth Amendment right to counsel is literally on trial on the floor of the Georgia House,” said House Minority Leader Bob Trammell, a Luthersville Democrat and an attorney.

“This is a bill about convenience, administrative ease. But you know something, the founders when they wrote the Constitution recognized there are some things that aren’t supposed to be easy,” Trammell said. “And your constitutional rights – they aren’t supposed to be given up or taken away easily.”

Trammell said the change would amount to “speeding up the processing of people.”

“Let’s keep mandatory Zoom for work meetings and happy hours,” Rep. Josh McLaurin, a Sandy Springs Democrat and attorney who voted against the proposal, said on Twitter after the failed vote.

This story was originally published by the Georgia Recorder. For more stories from the Georgia Recorder, visit GeorgiaRecorder.com.