New bill would change Georgia citizen’s arrest law a year after Ahmaud Arbery’s death
Gov. Brian Kemp announced Tuesday bipartisan support for legislation to replace the state’s Civil War-era law that allows Georgians to arrest someone they suspect of committing a crime.
The bill, carried by the Kemp administration’s Floor Leader Representative Bert Reeves (R -Marietta), would repeal the state’s current law that is “ripe for abuse,” close loopholes and outline new limits, Kemp said.
The proposal comes several months after prosecutors attempted to use Georgia’s citizen’s arrest law to justify not charging three men in the February 2020 killing of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man shot to death while jogging near Brunswick in Glynn County.
What’s in the new proposal?
The new proposal would not restrict Georgia’s current “stand your ground” statute. A private person is allowed to use force that is deadly or could cause great bodily harm only in situations where they are attempting to detain someone who could cause harm to people, their own property or to prevent a “forcible felony,” according to Kemp’s office.
Business owners, restaurants and their employees would be allowed to detain a person they believe is stealing. Business and restaurant owners who properly detain someone would receive civil immunity from fake arrest and false imprisonment claims.
Weight inspectors, private security guards and private investigators are also allowed to detain people during the course of their duties. Law enforcement must be contacted, and if law enforcement doesn’t arrive within an hour, the detained person must be released.
Georgia law enforcement officers would still be allowed to perform arrests outside of their jurisdictions when a crime is committed in front of them, when they are in “hot pursuit of an offender” or when helping officers in another jurisdiction.
The overhaul of the citizen’s arrest law is not the first change to Georgia’s criminal justice statutes in the wake of Arbery’s death. Civil rights advocates and Democratic legislators called for policy changes. A bipartisan hate crimes bill was passed in June 2020, and lawmakers have proposed several other criminal justice reforms during this session in addition to Kemp’s citizen’s arrest overhaul.
The new bills, which include banning no-knock arrest warrants and lowering employment barriers for residents on probation, come on the heels of protests and demonstrations throughout the past summer over racial inequity and police violence.
“As with the 2020 Anti-Hate Crimes Act, now is the time to remove this cloud over our State; we should not allow citizens to take the law into their own hands and senseless violence to take place. We must act now,” Rep. Calvin Smyre (D-Columbus) said in a statement.
This story was originally published February 16, 2021 at 4:41 PM.