Who Are the Real Gang Leaders?

By Dave Oedel
After I wrote in the Macon Monitor that Georgia’s law giving extra time for gang-affiliated crimes may be unconstitutional as applied in Middle Georgia’s setting, Bibb district attorney David Cooke approached me to report confidently that the Georgia Supreme Court had ruled 7-0 in favor of that law’s constitutionality. As I immediately pointed out to Cooke, though, there’s a critical difference between that 2009 case of Rodriguez v. State and the case that I imagine will eventually be brought if Cooke keeps hammering gang enhancements in marginal cases.
The difference is that Georgia’s Supreme Court back in 2009 only considered the gang-enhancements law on its face, rather than as applied. Big difference. … Continue Reading
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