Whitley Carpenter
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Athens-Clarke County
Georgia Supreme Court Changes How Breath Tests Are Used As DUI Evidence
Prosecutors are changing how they approach DUI cases after the Georgia Supreme Court declared a key piece of evidence inadmissible. The court ruled that the refusal to submit to a breath test cannot be used against a defendant because it violates protections against self-incrimination. How the Case Affects…
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Athens-Clarke County
‘It Was A Big Burden’: Life as a Former-911 Dispatcher
When Megan Bocanegra started working as a 911 dispatcher, she expected it to be temporary. She’d just finished her bachelor’s degree at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and debated whether to attend graduate school. In 2005, she decided to work at the communications center in her hometown of…
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Athens-Clarke County
Reviewing the Immense Power of Prosecutors
The official who holds the most power in the criminal justice system may not be the judge or the jury, but the prosecuting attorney who represents the state, charges defendants and negotiates pleas. According to Edward Brumby, staff attorney under Judge Lawton Stephens and former prosecutor in District Attorney Ken…
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Athens-Clarke County
Use of Death Penalty in Georgia is Declining
Georgia jurors have not handed down a death sentence in the past five years as the prevalence of capital punishment in the state continues to decrease. Not only are juries supporting the death sentence less often, prosecutors aren’t seeking it nearly as much either. Over the past two decades, prosecutors…
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Athens-Clarke County
Jury Trials Fade as Plea Bargains Remain The Norm Both Locally and Nationally
The public defender’s office for Athens-Clarke and Oconee counties handles thousands of cases in a given year, but the overwhelming majority of those cases will never see the inside of a courtroom. Most cases are resolved through plea bargaining, a process in which the defendant agrees to plead guilty in…
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2018 Election
Canvassing in a Year Off: Locals Meet Neighbors While Partnering with Athens for Everyone
Whitley Carpenter is a senior majoring in Journalism in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia.