Field Test vs. Lab Results in Georgia Drug Cases
When an officer in Georgia suspects a substance found during a stop or search is an illegal drug, the first chemical analysis usually happens at the scene, not…
A lexicon of Georgia criminal statutes
Georgia Criminal Law
The lexicon
150 entriesF
Fifth Amendment and Document Production in Georgia
Most people associate the Fifth Amendment with the right to remain silent during questioning. A separate and narrower application of the same constitutional protection concerns the compelled production…
Firearm Possession During a Felony in Georgia
Georgia law treats having a weapon within reach during certain felonies as its own separate crime, independent of whatever underlying felony is being committed. O.C.G.A. 16-11-106 creates this…
Forgery Charges in Georgia
Georgia organizes forgery into four distinct degrees under O.C.G.A. § 16-9-1, with penalties set out in § 16-9-2. The structure is not a simple sliding scale of severity;…
Fraudulent Concealment Tolling in Georgia
Georgia's criminal statutes of limitations do not always run continuously from the moment an offense is committed. In certain circumstances involving an unknown perpetrator or concealment of a…
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Georgia Citizen’s Arrest Law After 2021 Reform
For nearly 150 years, Georgia law allowed a private person to arrest another individual under certain circumstances without any involvement from law enforcement. That power was repealed in…
Georgia Constitutional Carry and Weapons Law
Georgia Senate Bill 319, commonly referred to as the Georgia Constitutional Carry Act, was signed into law by Governor Brian Kemp in April 2022. The law amended O.C.G.A.…
Georgia Controlled Substance Schedules
Georgia's Controlled Substances Act sorts regulated drugs into five schedules, each defined by its abuse potential and its accepted medical use. The schedule a substance falls into is…
Georgia Felony Sentencing Framework
Unlike many states, Georgia does not organize its felony offenses into a tiered system of classes or degrees with uniform sentencing ranges attached to each class. Instead, Georgia's…
Georgia First Offender Act
The Georgia First Offender Act, codified at O.C.G.A. § 42-8-60 et seq., allows certain defendants to be sentenced without a formal conviction being entered against them. Instead of…
Georgia Homicide Hierarchy: Murder to Manslaughter
Georgia law does not treat all unlawful killings the same way. Instead, homicide offenses are arranged in a structured ladder, with each rung defined by statute and tied…
Georgia Implied Consent Law and Test Refusal
Georgia's implied consent law establishes that any driver using the state's roads has, by that act, consented in advance to chemical testing of breath, blood, or urine if…
Georgia Rejects the Good Faith Exception
Federal constitutional law allows evidence seized under a defective search warrant to still be admitted at trial if the officer who executed the warrant acted in good faith…
Georgia RICO Predicate Acts vs. Federal RICO
Georgia's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act and its federal counterpart share a name and a general structure, but the list of crimes that can serve as a…
Georgia RICO Statute and Racketeering Charges
Georgia's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act is a complex, multi-section statute, and most general descriptions of it focus on a single charge in isolation without explaining how…
Georgia’s Renewal Statute in Criminal Cases
A reader who encounters the phrase "renewal statute" in connection with a Georgia criminal matter is usually looking at a title that borrows language from civil practice. O.C.G.A.…
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Homicide Mental States in Georgia
Georgia law does not treat "homicide" as a single offense with varying degrees of bad luck attached. Instead, the homicide statutes are organized almost entirely around the defendant's…
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Identity Fraud Charges in Georgia
Georgia's financial identity fraud statute, O.C.G.A. § 16-9-121, is structured around five distinct factual scenarios rather than a single generic "identity theft" offense. Each scenario targets a different…
Indictment Requirements in Georgia Criminal Cases
An indictment is the formal charging instrument that initiates a felony prosecution in Georgia, and the law sets out specific structural and content requirements an indictment must satisfy.…
Ineffective Assistance of Counsel in Georgia
When a defendant believes a trial attorney's performance fell short of what the Constitution requires, the claim is not evaluated by asking whether the lawyer made a mistake.…
Insanity Defense and GBMI in Georgia
Georgia recognizes two distinct statutory grounds for an insanity defense, along with a separate verdict option, guilty but mentally ill, that applies when a defendant's mental illness falls…
Intellectual Disability and the Death Penalty in Georgia
Few areas of capital sentencing law have changed as dramatically and as recently in Georgia as the standard for excluding intellectually disabled defendants from execution. A 2025 statutory…
Intoxication and Diminished Capacity in Georgia
Georgia law treats intoxication very differently depending on whether the intoxication was voluntary or involuntary, and it does not recognize impaired mental functioning short of legal insanity as…
Invoking the Right to Silence and Counsel in Georgia
When a person is in custody and being questioned by police, the federal constitution gives that person the right to stop the questioning by asking for a lawyer…
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Juror Misconduct and Mistrial in Georgia
When a Georgia criminal trial is underway and a question arises about a juror's conduct, the court faces a set of choices entirely different from those available once…