Legislation: batch A — AK AL AR AZ CO CT DE GA HI IA ID

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>

legislation/us/states/ga/2017-18/hb-261.md

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+---
+type: "Bill"
+title: "Penal institutions; certain individuals sentenced between March 18, 1968 and October 31, 1982; allow to petition court for first offender status"
+description: "A BILL to be entitled an Act to amend Code Section 42-8-66 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, relating to petitions for exoneration and discharge as a first offender, hearings, and retroactive grant of first offender status, so as to allow certain individuals sentenced to a term of incarceration between March 18, 1968, and October 31, 1982, to petition the court for a retroactive grant of first offender status if he or she would have otherwise qualified for sentencing pursuant to this article; to provide for related matters; to repeal conflicting laws; and for other purposes."
+jurisdiction: "us/states/ga"
+legislature: "Georgia General Assembly"
+session: "2017_18"
+identifier: "HB 261"
+citation: "Georgia HB 261 (2017_18)"
+classification: ["bill"]
+subjects: []
+status: "enacted"
+primary_sponsors: ["Bill Werkheiser", "Scott Holcomb"]
+version_count: 0
+action_count: 15
+vote_count: 1
+first_action: "2017-02-07"
+last_action: "2017-07-01"
+source: "openstates"
+source_identifier: "ocd-bill/bba969c7-76e0-434c-a9fb-f58552129535"
+source_url: "http://webservices.legis.ga.gov/GGAServices/Legislation/Service.svc?wsdl"
+source_hash: "d4f89d54c7a5343ea9cedb1b879d27a5570abd4ee0b1fac9fc6fb1965a03d83b"
+vintage: "2026-07-01"
+source_snapshot: "https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump"
+retrieved_at: "2026-07-06"
+confidence: "reported"
+tags: ["legislation", "bill", "us-ga"]
+---
+
+# Georgia HB 261 (2017_18) — Penal institutions; certain individuals sentenced between March 18, 1968 and October 31, 1982; allow to petition court for first offender status
+
+A BILL to be entitled an Act to amend Code Section 42-8-66 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, relating to petitions for exoneration and discharge as a first offender, hearings, and retroactive grant of first offender status, so as to allow certain individuals sentenced to a term of incarceration between March 18, 1968, and October 31, 1982, to petition the court for a retroactive grant of first offender status if he or she would have otherwise qualified for sentencing pursuant to this article; to provide for related matters; to repeal conflicting laws; and for other purposes.
+
+## Version chain
+
+The bill's text revisions, in order — the diff chain from filing to enrollment.
+
+
+## Votes
+
+- PASSAGE — **173–0** (pass) · lower
+
+## Sponsors
+
+- Bill Werkheiser — primary (person)
+- Scott Holcomb — primary (person)
+
+## Timeline
+
+The legislative action history — every referral, reading, and vote.
+
+- **2017-02-07** House Hopper
+- **2017-02-08** House First Readers `reading-1`
+- **2017-02-09** House Second Readers `reading-2`
+- **2017-02-27** House Committee Favorably Reported By Substitute `committee-passage-favorable`
+- **2017-03-03** House Third Readers `reading-3`
+- **2017-03-03** House Passed/Adopted By Substitute `passage`
+- **2017-03-03** Senate Read and Referred `referral-committee`
+- **2017-03-20** Senate Committee Favorably Reported `committee-passage-favorable`
+- **2017-03-20** Senate Read Second Time `reading-2`
+- **2017-03-24** Senate Third Read `reading-3`
+- **2017-03-24** Senate Passed/Adopted `passage`
+- **2017-04-03** House Sent to Governor `executive-receipt`
+- **2017-05-08** House Date Signed by Governor `executive-signature`
+- **2017-05-08** Act 219 `executive-signature`
+- **2017-07-01** Effective Date
+
+## Source
+
+OpenStates / OpenCivicData bulk snapshot [2026-07-01](https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump); origin `ocd-bill/bba969c7-76e0-434c-a9fb-f58552129535`. Confidence: reported (aggregated from official Georgia legislature records).
+