Developments on the horizon

By Charlotte Lee Williamson

My name is Charlotte “Lee” Williamson. I am your candidate to serve in the Georgia House of Representatives, for District 11, challenging incumbent Rick Jasperse on the Republican ballot. District 11 incorporates all of Pickens County, Eastern Gordon, and Eastern Murray counties.

       “We need to get him home,” said Samantha Gilbert of her 23-year-old son, Dakota Whitehill who remains at Isabela Doctor’s General Hospital on the island of Luzon, Philippines. Whitehill has encephalitis, a brain infection and a brain bleed, according to his mother.

“He has been in the Philippines since May of 2019 and last Monday he went to a beach and he started getting sick. Then he had a fall and started having seizures and they called an ambulance,” Gilbert said. 

Gilbert is in touch with her son’s doctors at the hospital and they had a CT angiogram planned for Tuesday. Gilbert said she has sent some money for his medical expenses but they are more than she can afford at this point.

SUMMARIES OF OPINIONS

Published Monday, January 13, 2020

Please note: Opinion summaries are prepared by the Public Information Office for the general public and news media. Summaries are not prepared for every opinion released by the Court, but only for those cases considered of great public interest. Opinion summaries are not to be considered as official opinions of the Court. The full opinions are available on the Supreme Court website at www.gasupreme.us .

WHITE V. THE STATE (S19A1004)

            The Supreme Court of Georgia has upheld the life-without-parole prison sentence given to a young man who was 17 years old when he and another young man murdered a friend to “see how it feels to kill someone.”

In appealing his convictions and prison sentence to the state’s highest court, attorneys for Dakota Lamar White argued that the trial court erred in allowing in as evidence his confession to law enforcement officials and in sentencing him to life without parole. His attorneys argued that the State should have had to prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” that the juvenile offender was “irreparably corrupt” and therefore eligible for the extreme sentence. Instead, the trial court found the youth was “irreparably corrupt” based upon a “preponderance of the evidence,” which is a lighter standard of proof.

      Jasper’s new Mayor Steve Lawrence, center, with (L - R) council members Sonny Proctor, Kirk Raffield, John Foust, Anne Sneve, Jim Looney, and Jasper City Manager Brandon Douglas at the swearing-in ceremony.  

       There were no shortage of changes at city hall on Monday, Jan. 6 when Steve Lawrence led his first council meeting as Jasper’s new mayor. Not only was the city’s top elected official a new face after 27 years, but council hired a new lead attorney and replaced their CFO with an interim. 

The January council meeting was just a few days after Lawrence and three council members – Jim Looney, Kirk Raffield, and John Foust - took the oath of office at a swearing-in ceremony on Friday, Jan. 3.  All elected officials were sworn in by Pickens’ Chief Magistrate Judge Allen Wigington. 

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