One Party Consent to Record Phone Calls in Georgia
Pate, Johnson and Church has been representing civil, criminal, and whistleblower clients in Georgia for over twenty-five years. Occasionally, the media will contact our attorneys for legal opinions on cases and issues appearing in the news.
In this case, Atlanta Magazine interviewed Attorney Jess Johnson about the legalities of recording phone calls in Georgia after Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, recorded a lengthy phone call with President Donald Trump regarding the outcome of the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. Many supporters of President Trump were outraged by the recording of this call and its release to the public.
Since Georgia has a “single party consent” law governing the recording of phone calls, Raffensperger was permitted to record the call with President Trump. Jess explains that “The law allows a person to record someone else asking them to do something illegal, or threatening them in some way, which could be useful as evidence.” However, Jess does note that “There can be a “gray area” if you call from a state with single-party consent to a state, like California, that requires both parties to consent to a call.”
Page Pate is an accomplished trial lawyer with over 25 years of experience in criminal defense, civil litigation, and whistleblower representation. Page is listed in The Best Lawyers in America, Top 100 Lawyers by The National Trial Lawyers, and named to the list of Super Lawyers for the past 15 consecutive years. Page is a frequent expert legal analyst for local and national media and has served as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Georgia Law School. Read Page’s reviews on AVVO. Follow Page on Twitter @pagepate and on Linkedin.