02/05/2026 Senate Committee on Judiciary

I'm awake, and I'm not sure if y'all are. Welcome to the Senate Judiciary Committee, our first full committee hearing after our first subcommittee meeting on Monday. And, I'm gonna ask our newest member. He usually just joins for the 1AM hearings when everybody's trying to add people to the committee to get their numbers. But tonight well, today, he's here officially all the way from West Georgia, the billboard guy.

Senator Bearden, would you like to open us up in a word of prayer? Floor is yours.

Will you join

me in prayer, Lord? Thank you for bringing us here together today as to keep us safe on our way back to our homes on that journey. Also, I'll do what's right for the city or for the citizens of of the state as we look his I'm so sorry. As we listen to these bills today, and let's never forget that the Lord was sent to this world not to condemn it, but to save it. In Jesus Christ's name, we pray.

Amen. You got me tongue tied on my face meeting, mister chairman.

God knows what you mean, so you're good. Alright. So we are trying a due process. I tried way back my first year as chair having a subcommittee. It didn't really work out.

The subcommittee wasn't really ever willing to meet, but now we have an official subcommittee that Hatchett's gonna try to have on our Monday time. So our plan is to always use our two times they give us. It's all the times they give us. And Mondays at 04:00 will generally be a subcommittee of the whole. So every committee member is invited to attend, of course, and encouraged to be there where we'll take public testimony.

And the goal is to have all of our testimony, the thoughts on the build, and that subcommittee, and then to come back on Thursdays and consider full committee votes. And so we're gonna try to, limit the testimony on Thursdays, though, when there's changes to a bill, which will likely happen like today. If somebody wants to weigh in on a substitute, obviously, we welcome comments on changes to a bill that someone may have just seen. Otherwise, we're gonna make this more of the presentation of a review of what the subcommittee heard and talk through any changes that are made, then the bills will be available for a full committee vote. So with that, Senator Hatchett, I'm gonna let's back up.

The other one may be a little bit shorter. Senator Seltzer, do you want to come on up? Let's start with because I don't think you had any changes to your bill yet. Senate Bill four zero five.

Give us the LC number.

It's the same from from Monday.

Sir, it's LC492501.

Alright. Thank you. I couldn't find it,

but I have it. Alright. So you presented on Monday, with testimony of the bill. Do you have any, follow-up for the committee?

No, sir. Mister chairman, I think many of the members were here just by by way of introduction. I'm glad to walk back through the bill briefly, whatever pleases the chair.

Well, we've we've heard the bill. Is there any questions from the committee for the author first? Alright. I know there are others that test file on the bill. We also have a letter from our, let's see who actually gave us state court judge's counsel also submitted a letter.

I believe it was in the folders on on Monday as well, and they submitted testimony on Monday, so you have their letter. And so what's the pleasure of the committee on senate bill four zero five?

Mister chairman, I

Pass. Motion due passed by senator Hatch. Is there a second?

Second.

Second from Senator Parrott. Any amendments? Any discussion on the motion? All those in favor of the motion do pass, raise your hand. It is unanimous, so you are moved on to rules.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee.

Thank you. Alright, next bill, the other bill on the agenda is Senate Bill three ninety eight. Do you want to come back down, Senator Hatchett? You are bringing us a substitute and so I'd like for you to focus on the changes that you made in the bill and then I want to call Senator Harrell up to talk about a proposed amendment. You're welcome to come on up.

Do you have any meetings? I do. Okay.

So the floor is yours.

Thank you, mister chairman and, members of the committee. So this substitute is really, nothing new was added, but a lot was taken out. And so as we discussed, in the previous version, just using AI to generate a photo of someone whether it was explicit or not was gonna be criminalized, I've taken that out. So now it's just dealing with obscene depictions of someone. And I think what's important and what I didn't really get into last meeting is that this bill aims to fill a gap that's currently in Georgia code.

So right now, Georgia law already criminalizes voyeurism, obscenity in the distribution of obscene material. But those codes really were written at a time when the only concern was real images or real videos. AI has changed the ability to manufacture an image of a real person doing something obscene even though no such photo was ever taken. And so what this bill aims to do is to close that gap. Just a refresher, there are apps and, you know, programs out there where you can take a photograph of a real person, and AI can do with it whatever you pretty much tell it to do.

So the crime that we are creating here is senate bill three ninety eight makes it a crime to intentionally cause a generative AI system to generate an obscene image of a real person without that person's consent. An obscene image of a real person without that person's consent. So the focus of this bill is on the creation because that's where existing law is unclear. As I said previously, I think it was senator Jones that asked me about distribution. And after going back and talking to the ledge counts, I'm looking at the code.

Distribution is already covered, but the creation is not. So I didn't wanna be duplicative in this bill and create a new section of the code for distribution since that's already a crime. I've gotten several questions, and I've worked with several people in the room, in crafting this substitute. There was a question about a section of the bill that exempts law enforcement. And so after talking with ledge counsel, talking with law enforcement officers, there is a near exception for law enforcement and prosecutors act acting in the investigation or prosecution of crimes.

This exception is necessary because law enforcement may legitimately use imagery construction, AI assisted age progression, demonstrative or investigative tools or courtroom exhibits. And without an exemption, the statute could unintentionally criminalize legitimate public safety activity, but this exception does not authorize harassment, exploitation, or misuse. It simply ensures that the law targets bad actors, not investigators doing their job under judicial and constitutional safeguards. I've also gotten questions about platforms and company liability. So would the app or the program be criminally liable?

So this bill does not impose criminal liability on companies or platforms merely for hosting or transmitting the content because there are obviously very sophisticated users, end users out there that can take an AI platform and generate images that maybe the platform wasn't necessarily created to generate. So the criminal liability only attaches to a person who intentionally causes the AI system to generate the image with the knowledge that it is nonconsensual. So if someone uses an AI platform to do it, obviously, the AI platform would not be criminalized. That person would. However, if there is an AI platform that is generating these images intentionally, knowing that it is nonconsensual, then, yes, criminal charges could be brought.

And I think that distinction is important for this piece of legislation, but I also think it's necessary. So senate bill three ninety eight in its current version is narrowly tailored. It's a victim focused, and it closes a real and emerging loophole without expanding criminal liability beyond what is necessary. And I'm happy to answer any questions.

And you're on l c four nine two six zero three s. Is that right?

That is correct.

First, any questions for the author on a substitute or the underlying bill? Senator Parent?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you so much, leader Hatchett. This is actually more of a wordsmithing question. So in looking at, lines 38 through 42 and comparing them to the corollary, which are, I guess, 62 through 68, you've got in the adult version or portion on 65 that the image was not authorized or consented to by an adult, which is not in 40, and 41, which I assume obviously means that the minor cannot give consent.

Correct.

Which is fine because we have the exception. So because of that though I feel like it might be a little unclear whether this because it says an image of a minor. It doesn't clarify at all, like, who that minor is. So the way I I read it, it could be lit literally any minor. And I and I think the removal of that language, which makes sense to me, because it was in some other version where it was clear.

Because we talked about, like, it's a real person. It's not, like, a fake image. So I I might I may I mean, the lay counsel may disagree. But the way I read it, it's not clear that it has to be of, like, a real person or that real person.

Okay. See that includes an image of a minor.

Yeah. It's just any minor.

Correct.

I think. And it might not be like a real person. I believe.

You're saying it's not clear whether or not it's a real person or not.

A real person. Right. Mhmm.

And I think, obviously, the policy here is to protect victims from having their, you know, real individuals from having their images duplicated. I'd, obviously, from a personal and policy perspective, I think having an AI platform generate child pornography should be a crime regardless. So So I'm okay with the language as is. But I may need legislative counsel because I don't know if there's separate yeah.

In this instance, I directed you to line 22, we define what minor is, which is an individual under the age of 18. And it's my understanding in the Georgia code, an individual refers to a real person as it were as opposed to a broad category of potential virtual people.

Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. No. Not right now.

Not

Other questions from the committee for the author? I had some conversations with GACTOLL today, and they told me that you met with them and and went through and I think worked out pretty much everything they asked to be changed in the bill as well. There was one other item, I think, that they were asking about. Do y'all wanna come forward and address that? Would you senator Harrell, do you mind letting them sit next you stay up there.

Senator Hatchett, stay up. Mister Hines, I just wanna let him weigh in on that. Otherwise, let us know if you your concerns with the bill were met.

Sure. Hi, everyone. I'm Brian Hines with the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and thank you for your time. Again, just wanna thank senator Hatchett. He's been fantastic, and we really appreciate him considering what we were talking about.

I think pretty much everything was in there. And I think this is actually was my mistake, and so I misspoke on Monday about the line numbers. That's probably why this maybe wasn't incorporated. So on lines 71 to 74, essentially, it's saying if the sentence imposed is probated in whole or in part, then some what's essentially known as sex offender lite, some of the restrictions can be made on there. All that we asked is that that be limited to only a felony viol violation of it.

And I told you the wrong line numbers on Monday, and, again, I think that's where some of the confusion was. But it'd be a fairly simple fix. And, again, just the rationale for that is because the only misdemeanor offense under this is gonna be somebody who falls within the Romeo and Juliet provision who essentially it's gonna be, you know obviously, there's one person's gonna be consenting to the image being generated, and so it's less nefarious. And so I we we asked obviously, we don't think that would require, sex offender, you know, provisions or to be in instituted as far as probation. So the simple fix with that one would would just be adding the words for felony violation of this code section, and that would be on line 71.

So that'd be at the beginning. So it'd be for a felony violation of this code section, comma, and then it then it would say if the sentence imposed, and what we would suggest is just removing under this code section. So then it would actually read as for felony violation of this code section, if the sentence imposed is probated in whole or in part dot dot dot, that that'd be the rest of it. So we think that's a simple fix, and I think that's a very reasonable otherwise, we wouldn't ask. So if that would be something that Yeah.

No. That makes that makes sense. I'm okay with that.

Let's let counsel, do you agree with that change being a fix we need to make as well?

I do believe it is. I may read it back at some point just to make sure I got the language right, but I do not see an issue with that as a fix. Okay.

Okay. Thank you. Alright. Thank you. Any other questions for the author on the bill?

Alright. Let's take a motion on the bill first, and we'll address potential amendments. What's the pleasure of the committee? But motion due passed from Senator Bearden by committee substitute LC four nine two six zero three s. Is there a second?

Second from Senator Watson. Any discussion on the motion? We'll now move into amendments. Senator Harrell, do you want to come up in your folders? She has provided to us a proposed amendment.

My understanding is this is something we did last session and passed out of the same committee. It just we didn't get to it on the floor. Another bill, I think it was last year. Do you wanna talk about this for a second?

Yes. Thank you, mister chairman, members of the committee, and, thank you for letting me present this amendment today that the author has graciously, accepted that I would present it as well. This is an amendment. This is the same amendment that this committee passed on a different bill last year. Just to trigger your memory, I actually had a constituent who came to speak with you, senator Bearden.

You would have missed that because I I understand you're a new member of the committee. Senator Still, this same mom presented to our online kids safety study committee, during the interim. She is a mom who presented that her nine year old child, got on a chatbot during school hours, and he was attracted to this chatbot because it was in the personality the the chatbot was in the personality of a popular kids' book book character. And so he was drawn to this chatbot, and immediately upon interacting with this chatbot, the chatbot got into sexually explicit material. The school handled it great fight Great.

The unfortunately, the filtering at the school didn't catch it because the technology was was new. So the child did go home and and tell his mom and actually this happened to two two children. And, the moms got on the chatbot and it immediately did the same thing for them. So she came to me and, I went to legislative council and we came up with this language, to be able to address it. So basically, if you have a computer program or application that is designed primarily or marketed to children and is accessible to the public that that uses an artificial intelligence system to generate text responses, and it gets into sexually explicit material, then, there shall be a, there shall be the events of distribution of computer generated obscene material to a child if the the person know is reasonably, certain that this would indeed happen.

This person would then be committing the offense of, an under under what I just described and would be guilty of a a felony. This is the exact same language from from last year.

So amendment that was drawn up was for the previous LC number. So I think we're gonna have to have some line number changes.

Lines are messed up because I I wrote it up

Right. Based on the old LC.

Last meeting. That's right.

We have a question from senator Steele.

Thank you, mister Sherman. Thank you. Senator, I appreciate it. And that that, testimony was some of the most gut wrenching I've ever heard and appreciate bringing this. Just understanding that in this maybe more of a question for ledge counsel.

Line six, a person who owns or operates a computer program or application, if we think about the program that was being used by that miner, and then that company is purchased by another company and now that person ends up being Elon Musk, hypothetically. But actually a real example with this one that we're talking about, when it says a person who owns or operate a computer program or application, are we going to suggest that if something is in the portfolio of Elon Musk, we're gonna send, mister Skindelakis to go pick him up or are we gonna He likes

to get

involved. Just just wondering if, like counsel or any members of the committee, has a perspective on what the that chain looks like because these software companies are getting acquired by multinational corporations, and I just wanna make sure we don't write it so narrow that we miss the ability to hold people accountable. Yeah. I I'm interested in the committee's response to

accountable.

Yeah. I I'm interested in the committee's response to that too, but the mom who testified last year did say that, there's this whole collection of people who pay a small amount of money to the big companies, to use their data and then they set up these chat bots kind of overnight, kind of fly by night. Like, they they can just set them up in one night and these are just kind of popping up all over the place, and they're actually individuals who were doing them. So that's the kind of thing that this child got caught in. But there are the chat bots that are put out there by the big companies where this can happen as well.

So I would be interested in what the committee thinks. You have both scenarios, big company and little guy.

So you do have look at the amendment lines 10 through 12. You do have to know or reasonably should have known And so there is that protection there. The question is what would be reasonably should have known. I think that would be

Right. So for instance, if, if a complaint was filed and the company was in receipt of the complaint and it happened

again. Right. You have other questions or one away and more, senators do?

No. Thank you, mister Sherman.

Not to put the prosecuting attorney's counsel on the spot, do do you wanna weigh in on that language? Does that give any you don't wanna weigh in on that language? Okay.

Mhmm.

Anything from Gactyl on that language or even ads? Nobody else seems concerned except Sanders Steele. We'll send Elon Musk down to get a mugshot, I guess, in Fulton County. So Yeah. That's right.

I will I will say if it's a very narrow definition, that's okay. I mean, that's a place to start. From the from the work that the study committee did during the interim, there are some larger solutions dealing with the bigger companies Right. That that we have recommended that we may have future legislation on.

There's also a part where we have to, I mean, use some common sense and realize that these things have to go through a prosecutor's office and a grand jury and so the hope would be they got to prove to a jury that someone knew or reasonably should have known so I know we make light of that but I personally I'm comfortable with that language but if anybody has any any other thoughts on it, welcome to hear from anybody in the room. Any other questions for senator Harrell on the amendments? Mister Hennessy, are you able to clean this one up for us on the fly with the language?

On the line numbers? Yes. Yes. Looking at it as it is, instead of it would update the LC number on line one of the amendment. The line three language is fine.

Just double check that. The language for line 18 is also fine. It's just really the only change is inserting after line instead of 89. That is going to be line 77.

Okay. Does somebody wanna offer from the committee offer this as an amendment?

Mister chairman, I'm happy to offer amendment one, the LC number as articulated by legislative council.

Alright. Is there a second?

Second.

Alright. Any discussion on the proposed amendment? All those in favor of the amendment, please raise your hand. It is unanimous. Alright.

Thank you.

Thank you

for your work on this.

Thank you very much.

There was also mention other proposed amendment I think the author was okay with, from Gactal, I believe, on line 71. Mister Hennessy, do you have

you? Have that one? On line 71, inserting before the capital letter f if, for felony violation of, hold on. Actually, I have for felony violation of this code section, and then I have if as lowercase if. Then we strike the capital if the sentence imposed striking under this code section and then continuing is probated in whole or in part.

Should we comment or zero for this code section?

Yes. Comma after this code section. So for reading it again for clarity, before capital I, if on line 71 for a felony violation of this code section, comma, lowercase if, then striking, capital I, if the sentence imposed striking under this code section, then continuing is probated, comma, etcetera.

Alright. You're okay with that amendment author as well? Okay. Somebody wanna offer that amendment? So offered by Senator Watson.

Do you know what it is? It's okay. We have a second. We have a second for senator Bearden. Alright.

Any discussion on the amendment? All those in favor, please raise your hand. You vote for it to alright. It's unanimous. Back to the interline motion due passed by committee substitute as amended now twice.

Any other amendments? All those in favor of the motion, please raise wait. Hold on. Was there another one? Alright.

All those in favor of the underlying motion do pass by committee substitute now as amended, please raise your hand. It is unanimous. Thank you. You're on to rules. And that is all we have today.

And look, y'all call senator or judge now Stone and tell him judiciary finished at 02:37 on a Thursday. Probably the first and only time this year we do that. Thank you. We're adjourned.