Page believes this development may change the course of this investigation and result in the prosecution of administrators and high-level officials in the school system, not just the teachers and principals who were initially targeted in the early phases of the investigation.

Page is the Legal Analyst for WABE and is often asked to discuss legal news and trends affecting people in metro Atlanta.

As Page explained, criminal defense lawyers in particular were hoping for better provisions than those in the bill now pending. But as it stands, the bill is a move in the right direction. It implements policies that lawmakers, judges, and prosecutors all largely agree are desirable, will reduce costs, and will provide more appropriate punishments than some of those currently mandated.

The new bill places a great deal of weight on reform of drug crime sentencing and will hopefully lead to fewer people being sent to prison for simple drug possession, which is currently the case for over 3,000 Georgians each year. Georgia law already categorizes drug trafficking offenders based on the exact quantity of drugs involved and imposes mandatory minimum sentences based on those categories. But we don’t yet do that for lower-level drug possession.

Prosecutors have raised concerns over the possibility of increased burdens on the GBI’s already overworked crime labs. To perform analyses of drugs with the level of detail those kinds of changes would require will increase their workload and lead to longer delays without increases in funding as well.

Page pointed out that the changes the Criminal Justice Reform bill would make will likely cause increased costs at the front end. Accountability courts have to be set up, crime labs have to be expanded and new staff hired, and the other institutional changes will have to be made. The hope is that eventually the state will realize cost savings because of lower incarceration rates. Georgia spends over $1 billion each year incarcerating prisoners and under current policy that amount will likely grow by over 25%.

In addition to new sentencing options for drug offenders, other non-violent offenders would see sentencing changes too. Notably, shoplifting and check fraud sentences would change to reflect higher thresholds for felony conviction. The crime of burglary would also be retooled so that the specifics facts of an individual case would be better reflected in the sentence imposed. As Page noted, however, judges already have a great deal of discretion in punishing burglary, imposing higher sentences for home invasions than for breaking into tool sheds, for instance. The changes on paper will likely not have much of an effect on the reality of sentencing in those types of cases.

Page expressed concern over some missed opportunities in the proposed legislation. Georgia already has probation and parole, which can be used to adjust incarceration rates and let out those who deserve to be released, but the proposed bill does not address mandatory minimum sentencing. Mandatory sentences keep judges from imposing sentences that they feel are most appropriate for the individual offender and offense. Without changes to the state’s mandatory sentencing policies, incarceration rates will always be too high and sentences too harsh. Despite the fact that changes to mandatory sentencing were recommended by Chief Justice Hunstein, Governor Deal, and the Special Council on Criminal Justice Reform for Georgians, they were left out.

The question remains whether the Georgia Legislature will even get to the bill before the legislative session ends in time to make the changes that are necessary. Page said that he believed that we will see something pass because so many have spoken about the need for changes. But we may not see all the changes this year, and further sentencing reforms will have to be addressed in the coming years.

Super Lawyers is a rating service of outstanding lawyers from more than 70 practice areas who have attained a high-degree of peer recognition and professional achievement. The selection process is multi-phased and includes independent research, peer nominations and peer evaluations. Generally, only a very small percentage (around 2%) of all lawyers in a state are named to this list.

Dr. Raber was represented by attorneys Page Pate of Atlanta and Kim Stephens of Athens, who had began working with him when charges were first filed back in 2007. The case had already been taken to the Supreme Court of Georgia on a pre-trial appeal before it came back to Hart County for trial. At the Supreme Court, Page argued that the statute Dr. Raber had been charged under, OCGA § 16-13-41(h) was unconstitutionally vague because it did not clearly make pre-signing prescriptions a crime, much less a felony.

The Supreme Court, by a slim margin of 4-3, ruled that the statute wasn’t constitutionally defective and that the word “issue” might not require actually giving a prescription to a patient or end user. At trial, Page argued just the opposite, that Dr. Raber had not “issued” any prescriptions at all, and the jury seems to have agreed.

Vaguely worded statutes such as the section of the Georgia Controlled Substances Act at issue in this case pose a grave danger to the public. Because many statutes like this one are worded so poorly, they can be twisted to mean virtually anything a motivated prosecutor wants them to mean. In the case of the GCSA, doctors, pharmacists, nurses, and other health professionals may be at risk of prosecution for actions that are not even clearly criminal at the time they are done. Thankfully, the jury in this case was able to see that the prosecution was not applying the law as it had been intended: to prevent doctors from being “drug dealers with medical licenses,” as Georgia Supreme Court Justice Hunstein described it in her dissenting opinion in Dr. Raber’s appeal.

Our congratulations to Dr. Raber and his family, who are surely relieved that this long ordeal is behind them.

Page was quoted as saying that:

It’s unusual for attorneys to ask for a change of venue for grand juries, but it happens occasionally, said Page Pate, a criminal defense lawyer in Atlanta who has handled cases across the South.  “Does it happen? Yes. Is it going to be successful? No,” Pate said.

Pate said he listened to a judge in Cherokee County, Ga., deny such a request Wednesday in a case involving the death of 7-year-old Jorelys Rivera, whose body was found in a trash compactor at an apartment complex on Dec. 5 after she disappeared from a playground. Pate said the judges usually deny such requests because a grand jury’s task is different from that of a trial jury. “They are making a determination of probable cause based on what is presented to them and what they know, what their common sense tells them,” he said.

Our firm has successfully represented people charged with serious crimes like murder for many years.  Pretrial publicity can be difficult to overcome, but it is a much more important issue during trial than at the grand jury stage of the proceedings.

Initially, the doctor had been charged with 27 counts of felony sexual assault by a practitioner of psychotherapy against a patient, each of which carries a potential sentence of up to five years. As a result of the deal, the doctor was able to avoid going to trial and received a sentence of eight years of probation in exchange for guilty pleas to eight misdemeanor sexual battery charges. Because he received first-offender status, upon completion of the term of probation and 100 hours of community service, he will no longer have a criminal conviction listed on his record.

In a statement to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Page said that “negotiations led to that result, which we think is appropriate given the facts.”

Georgia Trend says this list is limited to lawyers chosen by other Georgia lawyers as the best of the best in eight different legal categories. Page was named to the list of “Legal Elite” in criminal law for the 5th straight year.

The State presented evidence that cocaine found in a U-Haul rental truck belonged to our client. The most persuasive piece of evidence offered by the State was a fingerprint found on some of the packaging allegedly used to bundle the cocaine. Our defense focused on the many errors made by the Georgia State Patrol officers who investigated the case. We believe, and several jurors apparently agreed, that the investigation was poorly conducted and the integrity of the evidence was compromised.

Although no one likes to try a case twice, we now know more about the State’s case and how they will try to convict our client. We are optimistic that we will win a “not guilty” verdict the next time around.

We were able to get our client a bond when he was first arrested, so he remains free on bond while the case is pending.

Page offered his opinion about the GBI investigation, and the possibility that the MARTA cop will be disciplined or even prosecuted.

Obviously, in a case like this, there is always the possibility of a civil suit regardless of the outcome of the GBI investigation.

Washington’s objections to these new laws go beyond a desire to maintain power. As Page told WABE, “When you’re dealing with an area like immigration that has traditionally been left to Congress…then it’s problematic to have a variety of state laws that create different standards and varying degrees of enforcement.”

Page explained that the central legal issue the courts must determine is whether preemption these new state immigration laws will be “preempted” by federal law. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, when federal law conflicts with state law, federal law wins. The question for the courts now is whether these new state laws actually do conflict with federal law.

In July, federal judge Thomas Thrash struck down Georgia’s controversial immigration provisions that would make it a crime to house or transport illegal aliens and would allow state law enforcement to investigate suspects’ immigration status. Just this week, however, a federal judge in Alabama upheld most of Alabama’s notoriously harsh new immigration laws, including one that would require immigration checks of public school students.

The next step for opponents and proponents of the Alabama and Georgia laws will be the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. There, as Page explained, the cases may be considered either separately or together. Ultimately, though, it is expected that the U.S. Supreme Court will determine whether the new laws are constitutional or not.