This legislation extends the date for adoption of drug free commercial zones by local ordinance to July of 2015.

This legislation relocates and rewrites the civil procedure by which law enforcement seize and dispose of property or assets involved with illegal activity by state and local law enforcement. For a general summary click here.  This legislation was amended to include the language from H.B. 418 which changes the qualifications for persons serving on the grand jury.

This legislation will require the sheriff to report on a standardized form, the assets and cash seized and forfeited, and submit to the county commission, as well as the Carl Vinson Institute.  Counties should continue to include this form with the budget submission to the Carl Vinson Institute. If the Sheriff fails to comply with reporting requirements their ability to seize assets and forfeitures will be suspended.

This legislation transfers certain responsibilities for juvenile issues from the Department of Human Services (DHS) to the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council (CJCC). It also creates an advisory board to the CJCC for juvenile justice issues to consist of 33 members appointed by the Governor, that is responsible for creating a three year plan and provide annual reports of progress annually.  This legislation was amended to include the transfer of the licensing of domestic violence shelters from DHS to CJCC. This bill will have no fiscal impact on counties, but could create mandates in the future.

This legislation changes the juvenile code to include recommendations made by the Georgia Council on Criminal Justice. The juvenile code rewrite inadvertently assigned all juvenile traffic cases to juvenile court, which caused a major increase in caseload and the juvenile courts do not have the administrative capability to handle traffic cases.  This legislation corrects the statute to transfer jurisdiction for those traffic cases back to other local courts that handle traffic offenses.  Additionally this bill authorizes the district attorney to file petitions and prosecute CHINS cases in juvenile courts.

County Impact:  District Attorney's can now prosecute juvenile cases. 

 This legislation changes the child abuse protocol committees in multi-county judicial circuits. 

This legislation authorizes the sheriff, tax commissioner, superior court clerk and probate judge ("constitutional officers") to develop their own credit card or purchasing card (p-card) policy and user agreement, rather than being issued one by the county.  The constitutional officers will be required to develop their own specific guidelines for the use of credit cards or p-cards by their department beginning on July 1, 2016.  The policy must designate the officials or employees in the constitutional officer's department who are authorized to use a credit card or p-card, specify a user agreement and transaction limits for the use of the card, include a description of authorized and unauthorized purchases, designate a credit card/p-card administrator, establish a process for auditing and reviewing the purchases made with the cards and outline procedures for addressing a violation of the credit card/p-card policies.  A copy of the specific policies promulgated by each constitutional officer must be filed with the board of commissioners. 

The ordinances, policies, procedures and user agreements with the constitutional officers adopted in 2015 to comply with the original law need to be examined and amended as necessary to remove the constitutional officers.    

A provision requiring counties to name all of its employees granted p-cards and credit cards in their local ordinance was removed from the bill before final passage.     

This legislation establishes a records retention schedule for video recordings from law enforcement body worn cameras or devices located on or in a law enforcement vehicle.  These recordings are required to be kept for 180 days unless the recording is part of a criminal investigation, shows a car accident, shows the arrest or detainment of an individual, shows a law enforcement officer's use of force, or can reasonably be anticipated to be necessary for pending litigation, in which case it must be kept for 30 months. If litigation is commenced within that 30 months the video must be kept until the lawsuit is completed. Counties may charge an additional $10 to make copies of videos.

This legislation allows law enforcement officers or their agents to observe, photograph and record activities of another that occur in the presence of the law enforcement officer or his or her agent during the execution of a search warrant.  This bill authorizes the use of body cameras but does not mandate law enforcement to use a body cameras.

This legislation prohibits law enforcement from using no knock search warrants unless the department has a written policy  that meets certain standards and the officer provides an affidavit or testimoney that the the act of knocking and announcing the officer would be dangerous to human life, inhibit the effective investigation of a crime by allowing destruction of evidence or would be futile.