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Committee action: bills passed and next steps
Summary
Short summaries and actions for bills the Judiciary Committee handled: HB171 (obscene material / AI child images), HB222 (court-bond communication), HB46 (attorney-client recordings), HB176 (post-conviction procedure), HB242 (disruption of religious services) and a few other procedural bills.
The House Judiciary Committee considered several bills and took procedural action on multiple items during the hearing.
Key outcomes
- HB171 (LC 48 15 00 S): The committee accepted an amendment to add the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children after the Georgia Bureau of Investigation in the bill’s list of references and passed the bill out of committee. The bill addresses obscene material statutes and language referencing computer-generated child-obscene content in code sections around 16-12-80 (LC 48 15 00 S). The committee inserted the amendment and voted to pass.
- HB222: Representative Blackman presented a technical bill intended to improve communication procedures between courts and county clerks related to bonds. The committee passed the bill with no debate recorded.
- HB46 (House Bill 46): The committee passed a bill to protect attorney-client privilege for calls originating from penal institutions by requiring nonrecording telephonic or electronic devices for lawyer–client communications unless a warrant is obtained. Witnesses said many vendors can implement exceptions via registered numbers; committee passed the bill after discussion.
- HB176 (post-conviction procedure): The committee passed a bill that clarifies the process to seek post-conviction relief and to withdraw guilty pleas inconsistent with a prior case (Cook). The committee adopted an amendment extending the retroactivity filing window date from 2025 to 2026 and passed the bill.
- HB242 (disruption of religious worship): The committee approved a bill that criminalizes intentionally impeding, disrupting or otherwise interfering with a religious service or funeral. The chair and sponsor said the bill is not limited to a single faith and requires proof of intent.
Votes were taken by voice vote in committee for the bills noted above; most passed without recorded roll-call tallies in the transcript. Several bills were amended on the committee floor before passage.
Details on individual actions, amendments and transcript provenance are listed in the actions array below.
