# Message the Committee **Published**: 2026-08-12 **Source**: https://gps.press/message-the-committee/ **Author**: Georgia Prisoners' Speak --- [Skip to content](#content) The committee ## Who they are and what they’re deciding The **House Blue-Ribbon Study Committee on Criminal Post-Conviction Litigation** was created this year by House Resolution 1703. Twelve members, chaired by Rep. Stan Gunter (R-Blairsville), a former district attorney, are examining how Georgia handles challenges to convictions after trial — and will recommend legislation for the 2027 session. The committee first met July 10 in Atlanta and has said it will hear from the public. What happens here decides whether people with real constitutional claims — coerced pleas, lawyers who failed them — ever get a courtroom. That is why your message matters. ### Upcoming public meetings **Friday, August 21, 2026, 1:00 PM** — Gilmer County Courthouse, Jury Assembly Room, 1 Broad St, Ellijay. Topic per the notice: solutions to ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims. **Friday, September 18, 2026, 9:00 AM** — Old Capitol Building, 201 E Greene St, Milledgeville. Meetings are open to the public. Per the committee’s notices, anyone interested in attending or providing testimony is encouraged to contact **Summer Little** at [Summer.Little@house.ga.gov](mailto:Summer.Little@house.ga.gov) or (404) 656-5121 in advance. ### What GPS is asking the committee Recommend repealing Georgia’s four-year habeas filing deadline — O.C.G.A. § 9-14-42(c) — retroactively. Habeas corpus doesn’t retry guilt or innocence; it tests whether a conviction was obtained legally. For 141 years — from the Code of 1863 until 2004 — Georgia habeas had no filing deadline. The full case, with the drafted bill, is at [the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act](/vision2027/model-legislation/habeas-corpus-restoration-act/) and our [Vision 2027](/vision2027/) campaign. You’re welcome to make this ask, your own version of it, or a different point entirely — it’s your letter. Step 1 ## Your letter Start from ours and make it yours — one personal sentence about who you are outweighs everything we could write. Or scroll down and let us draft it around your story. Your name (optional — signs the letter)Your city (optional) Subject: **Public input: repeal the habeas filing deadline (O.C.G.A. § 9-14-42(c))** Dear Chairman Gunter and members of the Committee, Thank you for taking public input on Georgia's post-conviction system. I am writing to ask the Committee to recommend one change: repeal the four-year habeas filing deadline in O.C.G.A. § 9-14-42(c), retroactively. Habeas corpus does not retry guilt or innocence — it tests whether a conviction was obtained legally. For 141 years, from the Code of 1863 until 2004, Georgia habeas had no filing deadline, and the system was not overwhelmed. Today the deadline closes the courthouse on constitutional claims — and in the habeas cases Georgia courts decided from 2021 through 2025, 58.4 percent of petitioners (2,309 of 3,955) had no lawyer. [Add a sentence about who you are and why this matters to you — it carries more weight than anything else here.] Respectfully, [Your name] [Your city], Georgia Copy letter ↺ Restore original Clear — write my own Copied. ### Or: help me draft this Tell us in a few sentences who you are and why this matters to you — a loved one inside, your own experience, what you’ve seen. We’ll turn it into a short letter *built on your words*, right here. Review it, change anything, and it replaces the letter above. **What you type here is never stored.** Website Help me draft this Writing your draft — a few seconds… Step 2 ## Choose who receives it — and send The buttons open your own email app with everything filled in — you press send. Nothing goes through GPS. Summer Little Committee Assistant — the committee's published contact · Summer.Little@house.ga.gov · (404) 656-5121 Both meeting notices say it plainly: written input and testimony requests go through the committee’s assistant. This is the surest way to reach the whole committee. ✉ Open email to the committee Compose in Gmail ↗ Copy letter + address Copied — paste into any email. ### Or write the members directly Pick any members — one email opens addressed to all of them. Contact details are public legislative addresses. Rep. Stan Gunter Chairman · R-Blairsville, District 8 Rep. Chuck Efstration R-Mulberry, District 104 Rep. Clint Crowe R-Jackson, District 118 Rep. Soo Hong R-Lawrenceville, District 103 Rep. Bill Fincher R-Chatsworth, District 23 Rep. Rob Leverett R-Elberton, District 123 Rep. Scott Holcomb D-Atlanta, District 101 Rep. Tyler Paul Smith R-Bremen, District 18 Select all ✉ Open email to selected Compose in Gmail ↗ Copy letter + addresses Pick at least one member first. Copied — paste into any email. Email didn’t open? Use a copy button and paste into Gmail or any webmail — the addresses are included. **Privacy:** this page stores nothing you type. Your letter and anything you tell the drafting helper go nowhere except, for drafting, a one-time pass through our writing tool — then they’re gone. Your email goes from your own account directly to the committee. The only thing GPS counts is an anonymous tally of which recipients people choose, so we know the page is being used. ## Want to do more? Attend a meeting above — public seats matter. Read the full campaign at [Vision 2027](/vision2027/), the drafted [Habeas Corpus Restoration Act](/vision2027/model-legislation/habeas-corpus-restoration-act/), or message your own legislators at [Send a Message](/send-a-message/). And if you have a loved one inside, their story belongs at [Tell My Story](https://tellmystory.gps.press). Close