Georgia legislature did one good thing

This year's Georgia legislative session is now officially over, although the fate of some bills remains for Gov. Nathan Deal to decide whether to sign or veto them.  These include the "religious freedom" bill, the campus gun carry law, and others that I've paid less attention to.

But they did pass one good piece of legislation, and I assume the governor will sign it.   It revises what privileges police officers have when they are charged with misconduct, such as illegal use of force against a suspect/detainee (all those shootings of unarmed,  young black men, for example).

In the past, Georgia was alone in allowing an officer to sit through the entire grand jury proceedings, hear all the evidence presented against him, and then make a statement in his own defense -- without being questioned or cross-examined.

This bill changes that.   They will still be allowed to testify, but without hearing the other testimony.  Nor will they be exempt from questioning by the prosecutor or the grand jury.   This is a step in the direction of correcting a terrible injustice toward the victims of police brutality that, until this year, had not had an indictment of a single police officer in the last 144 killings.

Ralph