Flock camera rules; West Nile virus death; Get-out-the-vote efforts

0:00Welcome to the Georgia Today podcast. Here we bring you the latest reports from the GPB Newsroom. On today's episode, Atlanta promises rules on flock cameras. One Georgian has died of West Nile virus and get out the vote efforts are underway ahead of the November midterms. You go vote, your voice does matter and if we all think that way then we can make a difference. Today is Wednesday September 16th. I'm Peter Biello and this is Georgia Today. With less than a month to go until early voting begins, voting engagement groups are working to register new voters. GPB's Sarah Callis reports. Political engagement nonprofit, Poder Latinx, set up a booth at Kenneshall State University Tuesday to register voters ahead of the election and to celebrate National Voter Registration Day. Allison Williams is a 19 year old KSU student. She says registering was easier than expected and she is excited to cast her ballot for the first time in November.

1:00It's important to vote because our future is in our hands and if you think your voice doesn't matter and you don't go vote then it's not but if you go vote, your voice does matter and if we all think that way then we can make a difference. Voters have until October 5th to register for the November 3rd election. For GPB News, I'm Sarah Callis. Republican Goobin editorial candidate Rick Jackson announced his plan today to help veterans in Georgia. He says he wants to create a governor's office of military and veterans affairs and 24-7 veterans help hotline. He also says he'll waive professional licensing fees for veterans and military families. A veteran should not have to battle state government after fighting for our country. A military spouse should not be punished for the sacrifice that comes with service. He also says he will create a veteran friendly designation for businesses looking to higher veterans and create community block grants for non-profits serving veterans.

2:01Democratic candidate Kishelann's bottoms has promised to create pathways to higher veterans into government and high demand careers. Ballots for it, November's midterm elections are being sent to Georgia and is living overseas this week. They are unaffected by a White House executive order to screen mail-in ballots that was shut down by the Supreme Court. GPB's Chase McGee has more. The Trump administration had previously ordered the United States Postal Service to overhaul how Americans received mail ballots, but on Monday the Supreme Court blocked the effort by the White House. In Georgia, that ruling fell one day before ballots could be sent to voters living abroad under the Uniformed and Overseas Voting Act. David Becker is the founder of the Center for Election Innovation and Research. He says the administration's changes also came far too late to be implemented. It is simply way too late to implement any rule like this in advance of the election. Election officials could not implement it. Even the Postal Service could not implement it. The Supreme Court majority wrote that rule would likely have lost in court, so Becker

3:03doesn't see it returning in 2028. For GPB News, I'm Chase McGee. Zoo Atlanta is mourning the loss of its oldest gorilla. The zoo says 50-year-old Machi was euthanized Sunday because of increasing pain and discomfort related to her age. Machi arrived at Zoo Atlanta in 1988 and was part of its original group of gorillas. She was also the mother of Willie B. Jr., the only son of the zoo's famed Silverback Willie B. But a new gorilla is on the way. 27-year-old Lulu is pregnant with her third baby, which would be the 27th gorilla born at Zoo Atlanta. A Georgia judge has put on hold an execution that was scheduled for today. Cobb County Superior Court Judge Tyler Browning late last night issued the stay of execution of Stacey Humphreys. Humphreys was convicted of killing two real estate agents in 2003. The judge says Humphreys is entitled to a hearing under a new state law that allows abuse victims to have their sentences reconsidered.

4:04The Georgia Survivor Justice Act was signed this year. It aims to help abuse survivors by letting judges re-sentence them. The state argues that the law was not meant for death row inmates. The judge will consider lifting the stay if an appellate court rules against Humphreys. If Humphreys' execution had gone forward, and it still may, a few key features would be shrouded in secrecy. Georgia is one of more than a dozen states where it is illegal to disclose the names of people and companies involved in lethal injections. It is nearly impossible to find out who makes Georgia's lethal injection drugs and to determine why costs for lethal injections have been rising. That is the conclusion of reporting by ProPublica's Max Blow, who joins me now to talk about this. Welcome to the program. Thanks for having me, Peter. You tried to uncover some information about Georgia's lethal injection process by first finding out the name of the doctor who is supposed to witness executions in the state. You knew the name of the doctor who did it years ago, but that man stepped away from the role and you wanted to find out who replaced him. What did you discover?

5:05I discovered that it's as you said, it is nearly impossible to know who is involved with the lethal injection process in Georgia. That's because of a law that makes it illegal for anyone to disclose the names of people who are involved with the making of lethal injection drugs, the acquisition of them, or the process on death row where someone is injected with those drugs. And that was the law that was frequently cited in your Georgia Open Records Act requests for information. So that was under the lethal injection secrecy act. Why did Georgia lawmakers think this act was important to put in place? They thought it was important to put in the place because over time, it's become harder to acquire drugs and to hire contractors to carry out lethal injections. And that difficulty comes from a fear of opponents of the death penalty harassing the people

6:06that might be involved in that process, whether it's like challenging their medical licenses or showing up at their homes the protest. So the state to make it easier to hire people that would be willing to carry out the execution process then made it illegal to disclose those names so that there would be some protection of those individuals. So what has been the consequence of that secrecy? The consequences that we don't know a whole lot about the quality of the lethal injection drugs that we use. And that's important because we use lethal injection because it is sold to the public as the most humane option to kill someone on death row. But if you don't know where the drugs are coming from, you don't know whether you're living up to that promise as a state. You also report that in addition to the secrecy about the drugs, their secrecy about the doctors who are there to administer the drugs and witness and monitor the inmate in their last moments.

7:13And the cost of those doctors has gone up too. Is that following the same kind of logic that in order for people to put themselves in these positions where they may be targeted by anti-death penalty activists, it has to be worth their while. Is that the argument? That's the belief from from experts who study this. And that's what the records that I obtained show. I was ultimately able to obtain some records after suing the Georgia Department of Corrections. And what does records showed was that since COVID-19 Georgia has made payments of more than 1.1 million for at least one contractor to work with the corrections department on lethal injections. And so that's roughly more than $200,000 a year. Six years, so maybe just under that as a conservative estimate. The other part of that though is that we are paying far more than what we did in the past. Over the past decade, we have averaged more than $150,000 a year on lethal injection-related

8:18costs. And that's substantially more than what we paid in the years prior to 2017. Are the rising costs that you're describing causing among lawmakers a discussion about whether or not having the death penalty on the books in Georgia is worth the cost? To my knowledge, that conversation has not happened. There hasn't really been much conversation around the death penalty in Georgia. Aside from the last minute challenges down at the Capitol, it's been fairly quiet over the past decade plus since the lethal injection. Seekers, the act was first passed in 2013. That's reporter Max Blow of ProPublicUp. You can find a link to his reporting at our website gpp.org slash news. Max, thank you very much for speaking with me. Thanks for your time, Peter. I haven't seen my son since 2012. This is Deborah Tice.

9:19The disappearance of her son, Austin, is one of the biggest missing person cases in the world. What do you want from me? Why should I have the mystery? I know that my son is somewhere alive. Listen to Where Is Austin Tice from MPR's Embedded and BBC Radio 4 on the MPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. The Public Service Commission visited Savannah yesterday just miles away from open AI's proposed data center to host a public forum. GPP's Jillian Megtoto reports. The state's elected commission of utility regulators traveled to the coast from Atlanta to hear the public's thoughts on the new data center proposed by open AI. There, many asked the PSC to nix the contract entirely over concerns of water use, public health, and more. The PSC director of utilities, Tom Bond says those concerns are not for the PSC to address. We don't do the environmental stuff. We don't do the water stuff. We do the economic regulation of towards power. So the commission's goal once all this came to light was to try to figure out how do we

10:23make sure that existing customers aren't paying for these data centers? The PSC staff has already reviewed, amended, and signed off on open AI's deal with Georgia power. With GPP News, I'm Jillian Megtoto. Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens says his office and the city council will introduce legislation that would establish standards for public safety camera technology. The announcement yesterday comes after the Atlanta police department audited more than 100,000 flock license plate reader searches. APD flagged 79 instances for additional investigation that is less than 1% of audited searches. The mayor says the legislation will be introduced at a city council meeting next Monday and he will request a city council work session and public hearing. The Georgia Department of Public Health says one person in the state has died of West Nile virus. The disease spread by mosquitoes has caused eight known cases this year, and mosquitoes and traps found in Chatham, Fulton, and Decap County have tested positive for the virus.

11:24The state did not say where the person who died was infected or where they lived, DPH is urging people to take precautions against mosquitoes by using insect repellent and eliminating standing water, which mosquitoes use as a breeding site. And that is it for this edition of Georgia today. If you want to learn more about any of these stories, visit gpp.org slash news. And remember to subscribe to this podcast. We've got more news coming your way tomorrow afternoon. You won't want to miss it. When you subscribe, we'll pop up automatically in your podcast feed of choice. Now, if you've got feedback, maybe a story idea, something we should know about that's happening in your community, let us know. And the best way to let us know is by email. Send the note to GeorgiaToday at gpp.org and your message will go to the whole Georgia Today production team. Again, the email GeorgiaToday at gpp.org. I'm Peter B. L.O. Thanks again for listening. We will see you tomorrow.