VALDOSTA – The Court of Appeals of Georgia judges will conduct an offsite oral argument session at VSU.

Release:

The Court of Appeals of Georgia will continue its outreach across the state next month with an offsite oral argument session in Valdosta on October 12, 2022. The Court is committed to increasing confidence in the judiciary by making its judges more accessible to the public, and has scheduled additional offsite sessions next year in Coffee County and Blue Ridge, following September arguments in Macon and Athens.

Presiding Judge Anne Elizabeth Barnes, Judge Trent Brown, and Judge Ken Hodges serve on Division 1 of the Court of Appeals, and will travel from Atlanta to hear arguments at Valdosta State University. In the first appeal, the judges will consider whether the parties actually reached a settlement agreement in their personal injury case. In the second appeal, brought by the State, the judges will decide whether evidence of criminal gang activity will be admissible at trial, and in the third appeal the judges will consider whether a lawyer was effective in representing acriminal defendant charged with incest and statutory rape.

“The pandemic prevented us from being able to conduct offsite oral argument sessions across the state for almost three years,” said Presiding Judge Barnes. “Judge Brown, Judge Hodges, and I are looking forward to holding oral arguments in Valdosta and giving the citizens who live in the area an opportunity to see the way an oral argument is handled in person, or will be able to watch the recording on our new website the following week.”

The offsite oral argument session will begin at 10:30 am on October 12, in the Magnolia Room at Valdosta State University’s North Conference Center, 1203 North Patterson Street.

The Court of Appeals of Georgia is the state’s intermediate appellate court, with fifteen judges who serve in panels of three. Oral arguments are not heard in all cases. The parties must ask to be heard, and the Court only grants about a third of the requests.